THE DYNASTS ACT-IV
Then-.Mass&ia and all his mounted men, And then Napoleon, Guards, and Cuirassiers,
-..-• And'the main body of the Imperial might.
EMPRESS Alas for poor Vienna !
OFFICER
Even so! Your Majesty has fled it none too soon.
The window is shut, and the procession disappears behind the sheets of rain.
SCENE -II
THE ISLAND OF LOBAU, WITH WAGRAM BEYOND
The north horizon at the back of the bird's-eye prospect is the high ground stretching from the Bisamberg on the left to the plateau of Wagram on the right. In front of these elevations spreads the wide plain of the Marchfeld, open, treeless, and with scarcely a house upon it1
In the foreground the Danube crosses the scene with a graceful slowness, looping itself round the numerous wooded islands therein,. The largest of these, immediately under the eye, is the Lobau, which stands like a knot in the gnarled grain represented by the running river.
On this island can be discerned, closely packed, an enormous dark multitude of foot, horse, and artillery in French uniforms, the numbers reaching to a hundred and seventy thousand.
Lifting our eyes to discover what may be opposed to them we perceive on the Wagram plateau aforesaid, and right and left in front of it, extended lines of Austrian s, whitish and glittering, to the number of a hundred and forty thousand.
The July afternoon turns to evening, the evening to twilight. A species of simmer which pervades the living spectacle raises expectation till the very air itself seems strained with suspense. A huge event of some kind is awaiting birth.
1 At this date. 292