ire and candles burning. The October wind is heard without, and
the leaded panes of the old windows shake mournfully.]

SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]

We come; and learn as Time's disordered dear sands run
That Castlereagh's diplomacy has wiled, waxed, won.
The beacons flash the fevered news to eyes keen bent
That Austria's formal words of war are shaped, sealed, sent.

SEMICHORUS II

So; Poland's three despoilers primed by Bull's gross pay
To stem Napoleon's might, he waits the weird dark day;
His proffered peace declined with scorn, in fell force then
They front him, with yet ten-score thousand more massed men.

[At the back of the room CAULAINCOURT, DUKE OF VICENZA, and
JOUANNE, one of Napoleon's confidential secretaries, are unpacking
and laying out the Emperor's maps and papers. In the foreground
BERTHIER, MURAT, LAURISTON, and several officers of Napoleon's
suite, are holding a desultory conversation while they await his
entry. Their countenances are overcast.]

MURAT

At least, the scheme of marching on Berlin
Is now abandoned.

LAURISTON

Not without high words:
He yielded and gave order prompt for Leipzig
But coldness and reserve have marked his mood
Towards us ever since.

BERTHIER

The march hereto
He has looked on as a retrogressive one,
And that, he ever holds, is courting woe.
To counsel it was doubtless full of risk,
And heaped us with responsibilities;
--Yet 'twas your missive, sire, that settled it [to MURAT].
How stirred he was! "To Leipzig, or Berlin?"
He kept repeating, as he drew and drew
Fantastic figures on the foolscap sheet,--
"The one spells ruin--t'other spells success,
And which is which?"

MURAT [stiffly]

What better could I do?
So far were the Allies from sheering off
As he supposed, that they had moved in march
Full fanfare hither! I was duty-bound
To let him know.

LAURISTON

Assuming victory here,
If he should let the advantage slip him by
As on the Dresden day, he wrecks us all!
'Twas damnable--to ride back from the fight
Inside a coach, as though we had not won!

CAULAINCOURT [from the back]

The Emperor was ill: I have ground for knowing.

[NAPOLEON enters.]

NAPOLEON [buoyantly]

Comrades, the outlook promis