Picton, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Prince of Orange, engage Ney at
Quatre Bras. Ney kills the Duke of Brunswick, and strips him, sending
his belt to Napoleon. The English fall back on Waterloo. Jupiter calls
a council of the gods, and commands that none shall interfere on either
side. Mars and Neptune make very eloquent speeches. The battle of
Waterloo commences. Napoleon kills Picton and Delaney. Ney engages
Ponsonby and kills him. The Prince of Orange is wounded by Soult. Lord
Uxbridge flies to check the carnage. He is severely wounded by Napoleon,
and only saved by the assistance of Lord Hill. In the mean time the
Duke makes a tremendous carnage among the French. He encounters General
Duhesme and vanquishes him, but spares his life. He kills Toubert, who
kept the gaming-house in the Palais Royal, and Maronet, who loved to
spend whole nights in drinking champagne. Clerval, who had been hooted
from the stage, and had then become a captain in the Imperial Guard,
wished that he had still continued to face the more harmless enmity of
the Parisian pit. But Larrey, the son of Esculapius, whom his father had
instructed in all the secrets of his art, and who was surgeon-general of
the French army, embraced the knees of the destroyer, and conjured him
not to give death to one whose office it was to give life. The Duke
raised him, and bade him live. {171}But we must hasten to the close.
Napoleon rushes to encounter Wellington. Both armies stand in mute
amaze. The heroes fire their pistols; that of Napoleon misses, but that
of Wellington, formed by the hand of Vulcan, and primed by the Cyclops,
wounds the Emperor in the thigh. He flies, and takes refuge among his
troops. The flight becomes promiscuous. The arrival of the Prussians,
from a motive of patriotism, the poet completely passes over.