ian-in-ordinary and BOURDOIS the consulting
physician are engaged in a low conversation.]

HOREAU

Lamoureux says that leeches would have saved her
Had they been used in time, before I came.
In that case, then, why did he wait for me?

BOURDOIS

Such whys are now too late! She is past all hope.
I doubt if aught had helped her. Not disease,
But heart-break and repinings are the blasts
That wither her long bloom. Soon we must tell
The Queen Hortense the worst, and the Viceroy.

HOREAU

Her death was made the easier task for grief
[As I regarded more than probable]
By her rash rising from a sore-sick bed
And donning thin and dainty May attire
To hail King Frederick-William and the Tsar
As banquet-guests, in the old regnant style.
A woman's innocent vanity!--but how dire.
She argued that amenities of State
Compelled the effort, since they had honoured her
By offering to come. I stood against it,
Pleaded and reasoned, but to no account.
Poor woman, what she did or did not do
Was of small moment to the State by then!
The Emperor Alexander has been kind
Throughout his stay in Paris. He came down
But yester-eve, of purpose to inquire.

BOURDOIS

Wellington is in Paris, too, I learn,
After his wasted battle at Toulouse.

HOREAU

Has his Peninsular army come with him?

BOURDOIS

I hear they have shipped it to America,
Where England has another war on hand.
We have armies quite sufficient here already--
Plenty of cooks for Paris broth just now!
--Come, call we Queen Hortense and Prince Eugene.

[Exeunt physicians. The ABBE BERTRAND also goes out. JOSEPHINE
murmurs faintly.]

FIRST LADY [going to the bedside]

I think I heard you speak, your Majesty?

JOSEPHINE

I asked what hour it was---if dawn or eve?

FIRST LADY

Ten in the morning, Madame. You forget
You asked the same but a brief while ago.

JOSEPHINE

Did I? I thought it was so long ago!...
I wish to go to Elba with him so much,
But the Allies prevented me. And why?
I would not have disgraced him, or themselves!
I would have gone to him at Fontainebleau,
With my eight horses and my household train
In dignity, and quitted him no more....
Although I am his wife no longer now,
I think I should have gone in spite of them,
Had I not feared perversions might be sown
Between him and t