they terrible?

NAPOLEON

Have you not read the last-sent bulletin,
Dear friend?

MARIE LOUISE

No recent bulletin has come.

NAPOLEON

Ah--I must have outstripped it on the way!

MARIE LOUISE

And where is the Grand Army?

NAPOLEON

Oh--that's gone.

MARIE LOUISE

Gone? But--gone where?

NAPOLEON

Gone all to nothing, dear.

MARIE LOUISE [incredulously]

But some six hundred thousand I saw pass
Through Dresden Russia-wards?

NAPOLEON [flinging himself into a chair]

Well, those men lie--
Or most of them--in layers of bleaching bones
'Twixt here and Moscow.... I have been subdued;
But by the elements; and them alone.
Not Russia, but God's sky has conquered me!
[With an appalled look she sits beside him.]
From the sublime to the ridiculous
There's but a step!--I have been saying it
All through the leagues of my long journey home--
And that step has been passed in this affair!...
Yes, briefly, it is quite ridiculous,
Whichever way you look at it.--Ha, ha!

MARIE LOUISE [simply]

But those six hundred thousand throbbing throats
That cheered me deaf at Dresden, marching east
So full of youth and spirits--all bleached bones--
Ridiculous? Can it be so, dear, to--
Their mothers say?

NAPOLEON [with a twitch of displeasure]

You scarcely understand.
I meant the enterprise, and not its stuff....
I had no wish to fight, nor Alexander,
But circumstance impaled us each on each;
The Genius who outshapes my destinies
Did all the rest! Had I but hit success,
Imperial splendour would have worn a crown
Unmatched in long-scrolled Time!... Well, leave that now.--
What do they know about all this in Paris?

MARIE LOUSE

I cannot say. Black rumours fly and croak
Like ravens through the streets, but come to me
Thinned to the vague!--Occurrences in Spain
Breed much disquiet with these other things.
Marmont's defeat at Salamanca field
Ploughed deep into men's brows. The cafes say
Your troops must clear from Spain.

NAPOLEON

We'll see to that!
I'll find a way to do a better thing;
Though I must have another army first--
Three hundred thousand quite. Fishes as good
Swim in the sea as have come out of it.
But to begin, we must make sure of France,
Disclose ourselves to the good