JOSEPHINE.
LADIES-IN-WAITING on Josephine.
Another French Lady.
FRENCH MARKET-WOMEN.
A SPANISH LADY.
French and Spanish Women of pleasure.
Continental Citizens' Wives.
Camp-followers.

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

THE BANKS OF THE NIEMEN, NEAR KOWNO

[The foreground is a hillock on a broken upland, seen in evening
twilight. On the left, further back, are the dusky forests of
Wilkowsky; on the right is the vague shine of a large river.

Emerging from the wood below the eminence appears a shadowy
amorphous thing in motion, the central or Imperial column of
NAPOLEON'S Grand Army for the invasion of Russia, comprising
the corps of OUDINOT, NEY, and DAVOUT, with the Imperial Guard.
This, with the right and left columns, makes up the host of
nearly half a million, all starting on their march to Moscow.

While the rearmost regiments are arriving, NAPOLEON rides ahead
with GENERAL HAXEL and one or two others to reconnoitre the river.
NAPOLEON'S horse stumbles and throws him. He picks himself up
before he can be helped.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to Napoleon]

The portent is an ill one, Emperor;
An ancient Roman would retire thereat!

NAPOLEON

Whose voice was that, jarring upon my thought
So insolently?

HAXEL AND OTHERS

Sire, we spoke no word.

NAPOLEON

Then, whoso spake, such portents I defy!

[He remounts. When the reconnoitrers again came back to the
foreground of the scene the huge array of columns is standing
quite still, in circles of companies, the captain of each in
the middle with a paper in his hand. He reads from it a
proclamation. They quiver emotionally, like leaves stirred by
the wind. NAPOLEON and his staff reascend the hillock, and his
own words as repeated to the ranks reach his ears, while he
himself delivers the same address to those about him.

NAPOLEON

Soldiers, wild war is on the board again;
The lifetime-long alliance Russia swore
At Tilsit, for the English realm's undoing,
Is violate beyond refurbishment,
And she intractable and unashamed.
Russia is forced on by fatality:
She cries her destiny must be outwrought,
Meaning at our expense. Does she then dream
We are no more the men of Austerlitz,
With nothing left of our old featfulness?

She offers us the choice of sword or shame;