llow.

ALEXANDER

Let me, sire, urge your courtesy to bestow
Some gentle words on her?

NAPOLEON

Ay, ay; I will.

[Enter QUEEN LOUISA OF PRUSSIA on the arm of BERTHIER. She
appears in majestic garments and with a smile on her lips, so
that her still great beauty is impressive. But her eyes bear
traces of tears. She accepts NAPOLEON'S attentions with the
stormily sad air of a wounded beauty. Whilst she is being
received the KING arrives. He is a plain, shy, honest-faced,
awkward man, with a wrecked and solitary look. His manner to
NAPOLEON is, nevertheless, dignified, and even stiff.

The company move into the inner half of the room, where the
tables are, and the folding-doors being shut, they seat themselves
at dinner, the QUEEN taking a place between NAPOLEON and ALEXANDER.]

NAPOLEON

Madame, I love magnificent attire;
But in the present instance can but note
That each bright knot and jewel less adorns
The brighter wearer than the wearer it!

QUEEN [with a sigh]

You praise one, sire, whom now the wanton world
Has learnt to cease from praising! But such words
From such a quarter are of worth no less.

NAPOLEON

Of worth as candour, madame; not as gauge.
Your reach in rarity outsoars my scope.
Yet, do you know, a troop of my hussars,
That last October day, nigh captured you?

QUEEN

Nay! Never a single Frenchman did I see.

NAPOLEON

Not less it was that you exposed yourself,
And should have been protected. But at Weimar,
Had you but sought me, 'twould have bettered you.

QUEEN

I had no zeal to meet you, sire, alas!

NAPOLEON [after a silence]

And how at Memel do you sport with time?

QUEEN

Sport? I!--I pore on musty chronicles,
And muse on usurpations long forgot,
And other historied dramas of high wrong!

NAPOLEON

Why con not annals of your own rich age?
They treasure acts well fit for pondering.

QUEEN

I am reminded too much of my age
By having had to live in it. May Heaven
Defend me now, and my wan ghost anon,
From conning it again!

NAPOLEON

Alas, alas!
Too grievous, this, for one who is yet a queen!

QUEEN

No; I have cause for vials more of grief.--
Prussia was blind in blazoning her power
Against the Mage of Earth!...
The embers of great Frederick's deeds infl