ake your piercing eyes!
It's hard I cannot prosper in a game
That every coxcomb plays successfully.
--So here you are still, though your loving lord
Disports him at Vienna?

MADAME METTERNICH

Paris, true,
Still holds me; though in quiet, save to-night,
When I have been expressly prayed come hither,
Or I had not left home.

NAPOLEON

I sped that Prayer!--
I have a wish to put a case to you,
Wherein a woman's judgment, such as yours,
May be of signal service. [He lapses into reverie.]

MADAME METTERNICH

Well? The case--

NAPOLEON

Is marriage--mine.

MADAME METTERNICH

It is beyond me, sire!

NAPOLEON

You glean that I have decided to dissolve
[Pursuant to monitions murmured long]
My union with the present Empress--formed
Without the Church's due authority?

MADAME METTERNICH

Vaguely. And that light tentatives have winged
Betwixt your Majesty and Russia's court,
To moot that one of their Grand Duchesses
Should be your Empress-wife. Nought else I know.

NAPOLEON

There have been such approachings; more, worse luck.
Last week Champagny wrote to Alexander
Asking him for his sister--yes or no.

MADAME METTERNICH

What "worse luck" lies in that, your Majesty,
If severance from the Empress Josephine
Be fixed unalterably?

NAPOLEON

This worse luck lies there:
If your Archduchess, Marie Louise the fair,
Would straight accept my hand, I'd offer it,
And throw the other over. Faith, the Tsar
Has shown such backwardness in answering me,
Time meanwhile trotting, that I have ample ground
For such withdrawal.--Madame, now, again,
Will your Archduchess marry me of no?

MADAME METTERNICH

Your sudden questions quite confound my sense!
It is impossible to answer them.

NAPOLEON

Well, madame, now I'll put it to you thus:
Were you in the Archduchess Marie's place
Would you accept my hand--and heart therewith?

MADAME METTERNICH

I should refuse you--most assuredly![17]

NAPOLEON [laughing roughly]

Ha-ha! That's frank. And devilish cruel too!
--Well, write to your husband. Ask him what he thinks,
And let me know.

MADAME METTERNICH

Indeed, sire, why should I?
There goes the Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg,
Successor to my spouse. He's now the groove
And proper co