, should we conceal it? Thereupon
Part of our army took the Lutzen road;
Behind a blown-up bridge. Those in advance
Arrived at Lutzen with the Emperor--
The scene of our once famous victory!
In such sad sort retreat was hurried on,
Erfurt was gained with Blucher hot at heel.
To cross the Rhine seemed then our only hope;
Alas, the Austrians and the Bavarians
Faced us in Hanau Forest, led by Wrede,
And dead-blocked our escape.

WELLINGTON

Ha. Did they though?

SECOND FRENCH OFFICER

But if brave hearts were ever desperate,
Sir, we were desperate then! We pierced them through,
Our loss unrecking. So by Frankfurt's walls
We fared to Mainz, and there recrossed the Rhine.
A funeral procession, so we seemed,
Upon the long bridge that had rung so oft
To our victorious feet!... What since has coursed
We know not, gentlemen. But this we know,
That Germany echoes no French footfall!

AN ENGLISH OFFICER

One sees not why it should.

SECOND FRENCH OFFICER

We'll leave it so.

[Conversation on the Leipzig disaster continues till the dinner
ends The French prisoners courteously take their leave and go
out.]

WELLINGTON

Very good set of fellows. I could wish
They all were mine!...Well, well; there was no crime
In trying to ascertain these fat events:
They would have sounded soon from other tongues.

HILL

It looks like the first scene of act the last
For our and all men's foe!

WELLINGTON

I count to meet
The Allies upon the cobble-stones of Paris
Before another half-year's suns have shone.
--But there's some work for us to do here yet:
The dawn must find us fording the Nivelle!

[Exeunt WELLINGTON and officers. The room darkens.]

ACT FOURTH

SCENE I

THE UPPER RHINE

[The view is from a vague altitude over the beautiful country
traversed by the Upper Rhine, which stretches through it in
birds-eye perspective. At this date in Europe's history the
stream forms the frontier between France and Germany.

It is the morning of New Year's Day, and the shine of the tardy
sun reaches the fronts of the beetling castles, but scarcely
descends far enough to touch the wavelets of the river winding
leftwards across the many-leagued picture from Schaffhausen to
Coblenz.]

DUMB SHOW

At first nothing--not even the