Part 3 - Act 7 - Scene 1. The Field Of Waterloo

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_ PART THIRD. ACT SEVENTH. SCENE I.

[An aerial view of the battlefield at the time of sunrise is disclosed.

The sky is still overcast, and rain still falls. A green expanse, almost unbroken, of rye, wheat, and clover, in oblong and irregular patches undivided by fences, covers the undulating ground, which sinks into a shallow valley between the French and English positions. The road from Brussels to Charleroi runs like a spit through both positions, passing at the back of the English into the leafy forest of Soignes.

The latter are turning out from their bivouacs. They move stiffly from their wet rest, and hurry to and fro like ants in an ant-hill. The tens of thousands of moving specks are largely of a brick-red colour, but the foreign contingent is darker.

Breakfasts are cooked over smoky fires of green wood. Innumerable groups, many in their shirt-sleeves, clean their rusty firelocks, drawing or exploding the charges, scrape the mud from themselves, and pipeclay from their cross-belts the red dye washed off their jackets by the rain.

At six o'clock, they parade, spread out, and take up their positions in the line of battle, the front of which extends in a wavy riband three miles long, with three projecting bunches at Hougomont, La Haye Sainte, and La Haye.

Looking across to the French positions we observe that after advancing in dark streams from where they have passed the night they, too, deploy and wheel into their fighting places--figures with red epaulettes and hairy knapsacks, their arms glittering like a display of cutlery at a hill-side fair.

They assume three concentric lines of crescent shape, that converge on the English midst, with great blocks of the Imperial Guard at the back of them. The rattle of their drums, their fanfarades, and their bands playing "Veillons au salut de l'Empire" contrast with the quiet reigning on the English side.

A knot of figures, comprising WELLINGTON with a suite of general and other staff-officers, ride backwards and forwards in front of the English lines, where each regimental colour floats in the hands of the junior ensign. The DUKE himself, now a man of forty- six, is on his bay charger Copenhagen, in light pantaloons, a small plumeless hat, and a blue cloak, which shows its white lining when blown back.

On the French side, too, a detached group creeps along the front in preliminary survey. BONAPARTE--also forty-six--in a grey overcoat, is mounted on his white arab Marengo, and accompanied by SOULT, NEY, JEROME, DROUOT, and other marshals. The figures of aides move to and fro like shuttle-cocks between the group and distant points in the field. The sun has begun to gleam.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Discriminate these, and what they are,
Who stand so stalwartly to war.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Report, ye Rumourers of things near and far.

SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS (chanting)

Sweep first the Frenchmen's leftward lines along,
And eye the peaceful panes of Hougomont--
That seemed to hold prescriptive right of peace
In fee from Time till Time itself should cease!--
Jarred now by Reille's fierce foot-divisions three,
Flanked on their left by Pire's cavalry.--
The fourfold corps of d'Erlon, spread at length,
Compose the right, east of the famed chaussee--
The shelterless Charleroi-and-Brussels way,--
And Jacquinot's alert light-steeded strength
Still further right, their sharpened swords display.
Thus stands the first line.

SEMICHORUS II

Next behind its back
Comes Count Lobau, left of the Brussels track;
Then Domon's horse, the horse of Subervie;
Kellermann's cuirassed troopers twinkle-tipt,
And, backing d'Erlon, Milhaud's horse, equipt
Likewise in burnished steelwork sunshine-dipt:
So ranks the second line refulgently.

SEMICHORUS I

The third and last embattlement reveals
D'Erlon's, Lobau's, and Reille's foot-cannoniers,
And horse-drawn ordnance too, on massy wheels,
To strike with cavalry where space appears.

SEMICHORUS II

The English front, to left, as flanking force,
Has Vandeleur's hussars, and Vivian's horse;
Next them pace Picton's rows along the crest;
The Hanoverian foot-folk; Wincke; Best;
Bylandt's brigade, set forward fencelessly,
Pack's northern clansmen, Kempt's tough infantry,
With gaiter, epaulet, spat, and {philibeg};
While Halkett, Ompteda, and Kielmansegge
Prolong the musters, near whose forward edge
Baring invests the Farm of Holy Hedge.

SEMICHORUS I

Maitland and Byng in Cooke's division range,
And round dun Hougomont's old lichened sides
A dense array of watching Guardsmen hides
Amid the peaceful produce of the grange,
Whose new-kerned apples, hairy gooseberries green,
And mint, and thyme, the ranks intrude between.--
Last, westward of the road that finds Nivelles,
Duplat draws up, and Adam parallel.

SEMICHORUS II

The second British line--embattled horse--
Holds the reverse slopes, screened, in ordered course;
Dornberg's, and Arentsschildt's, and Colquhoun-Grant's,
And left of them, behind where Alten plants
His regiments, come the "Household" Cavalry;
And nigh, in Picton's rear, the trumpets call
The "Union" brigade of Ponsonby.
Behind these the reserves. In front of all,
Or interspaced, with slow-matched gunners manned,
Upthroated rows of threatful ordnance stand.

[The clock of Nivelles convent church strikes eleven in the distance. Shortly after, coils of starch-blue smoke burst into being along the French lines, and the English batteries respond promptly, in an ominous roar that can be heard at Antwerp.

A column from the French left, six thousand strong, advances on the plantation in front of the chateau of Hougomont. They are played upon by the English ordnance; but they enter the wood, and dislodge some battalions there. The French approach the buildings, but are stopped by a loop-holed wall with a mass of English guards behind it. A deadly fire bursts from these through the loops and over the summit.

NAPOLEON orders a battery of howitzers to play upon the building. Flames soon burst from it; but the foot-guards still hold the courtyard.] _

Read next: Part 3: Act 7: Scene 2. The Same. The French Position

Read previous: Part 3: Act 6: Scene 8. The Road To Waterloo

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