c for the
night, some of the later regiments not having yet come up. A
dropping fire of musketry from skirmishers ahead keeps snapping
through the air. The Emperor's tent stands in a ravine in the
foreground amid the squares of the Old Guard. Aides and other
officers are chatting outside.

Enter NAPOLEON, who dismounts, speaks to some of his suite, and
disappears inside his tent. An interval follows, during which the
sun dips.

Enter COLONEL FABVRIER, aide-de-camp of MARMONT, just arrived from
Spain. An officer-in-waiting goes into NAPOLEON'S tent to announce
FABVRIER, the Colonel meanwhile talking to those outside.]

AN AIDE

Important tidings thence, I make no doubt?

FABVRIER

Marmont repulsed on Salamanca field,
And well-nigh slain, is the best tale I bring!

[A silence. A coughing heard in NAPOLEON'S tent.]

Whose rheumy throat distracts the quiet so?

AIDE

The Emperor's. He is thus the livelong day.

[COLONEL FABVRIER is shown into the tent. An interval. Then the
husky accents of NAPOLEON within, growing louder and louder.]

VOICE OF NAPOLEON

If Marmont--so I gather from these lines--
Had let the English and the Spanish be,
They would have bent from Salamanca back,
Offering no battle, to our profiting!
We should have been delivered this disaster,
Whose bruit will harm us more than aught besides
That has befallen in Spain!

VOICE OF FABVRIER

I fear so, sire.

VOICE OF NAPOLEON

He forced a conflict, to cull laurel crowns
Before King Joseph should arrive to share them!

VOICE OF FABVRIER

The army's ardour for your Majesty,
Its courage, its devotion to your cause,
Cover a myriad of the Marshal's sins.

VOICE OF NAPOLEON

Why gave he battle without biddance, pray,
From the supreme commander? Here's the crime
Of insubordination, root of woes!...
The time well chosen, and the battle won,
The English succours there had sidled off,
And their annoy in the Peninsula
Embarrassed us no more. Behoves it me,
Some day, to face this Wellington myself!
Marmont too plainly is no match for him....
Thus he goes on: "To have preserved command
I would with joy have changed this early wound
For foulest mortal stroke at fall of day.
One baleful moment damnified the fruit
Of six weeks' wise strategics, whose result
Had loomed so