The king comes forward and defies Napoleon to single combat. Napoleon
accepts it. Sacrifices are offered. The ground is measured by Ney and
Macdonald. The combatants advance. Louis snaps his pistol in vain. The
bullet of Napoleon, on the contrary, cax-ries off the tip of the king’s
ear. Napoleon then rushes on him sword in hand. But Louis snatches up a
stone, such as ten men of those degenerate days will be unable to move,
and hurls it at his antagonist. Mars averts it. Napoleon then seizes
Louis, and is about to strike a fatal blow, when Bacchus intervenes,
like Venus in the third book of the Iliad, bears off the king in a thick
cloud, and seats him in an hotel at Lille, with a bottle of Maraschino
and a basin of soup before him. Both armies instantly proclaim Napoleon
emperor.