es us well!

MURAT [dryly]

Right glad are we you tongue such tidings, sire.
To us the stars have visaged differently;
To wit: we muster outside Leipzig here
Levies one hundred and ninety thousand strong.
The enemy has mustered, OUTSIDE US,
Three hundred and fifty thousand--if not more.

NAPOLEON

All that is needful is to conquer them!
We are concentred here: they lie a-spread,
Which shrinks them to two-hundred-thousand power:--
Though that the urgency of victory
Is absolute, I admit.

MURAT

Yea; otherwise
The issue will be worse than Moscow, sire!

[MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA [Wellington's adversary in Spain], is
announced, and enters.]

NAPOLEON

Ah, Marmont; bring you in particulars?

MARMONT

Some sappers I have taken captive, sire,
Say the Allies will be at stroke with us
The morning next to to-morrow's.--I am come,
Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal,
Where I beheld the enemy's fires bespot
The horizon round with raging eyes of flame:--
My vanward posts, too, have been driven in,
And I need succours--thrice ten thousand, say.

NAPOLEON [coldly]

The enemy vexes not your vanward posts;
You are mistaken.--Now, however, go;
Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.--
Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this:
The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg,
The second Blucher. So shall we slip the toils
They are all madding to enmesh us in.

BERTHIER

Few are our infantry to fence with theirs!

NAPOLEON [cheerfully]

We'll range them in two lines instead of three,
And so we shall look stronger by one-third.

BERTHIER [incredulously]

Can they be thus deceived, sire?

NAPOLEON

Can they? Yes!
With all my practice I can err in numbers
At least one-quarter; why not they one-third?
Anyhow, 'tis worth trying at a pinch....

[AUGEREAU is suddenly announced.]

Good! I've not seen him yet since he arrived.

[Enter AUGEREAU.

Here you are then at last, old Augereau!
You have been looked for long.--But you are no more
The Augereau of Castiglione days!

AUGEREAU

Nay, sire! I still should be the Augereau
Of glorious Castiglione, could you give
The boys of Italy back again to me!

NAPOLEON

Well, let it drop.... Only I notice round me
An atmosphere of scopeless apathy
Wherein I do not share.

AU