Napoleon describes his sojourn at Elba, and his return; how he was driven by stress of weather to Sardinia, and fought with the harpies there; how he was then carried southward to Sicily, where he generously took on board an English sailor, whom a man-of-war had unhappily left there, and who was in imminent danger of being devoured by the Cyclops; how he landed in the bay of Naples, saw the Sibyl, and descended to Tartarus; how he held a long and pathetic conversation with Poniatowski, whom he found wandering unburied on the banks of Styx; how he swore to give him a splendid funeral; how he had also an affectionate interview with Desaix; how Moreau and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fled at the sight of him.He relates that he then re-embarked, and met with nothing of importance till the commencement of the storm with which the poem opens.
BOOK IV.
The scene changes to Paris.Fame, in the garb of an express, brings intelligence of the landing of Napoleon.The king performs a sacrifice: but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart.He prepares to encounter the invader.
A young captain of the guard,--the son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,--in the shape of a fiddler, rushes in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army.The royal forces are drawn out for battle.Full catalogues are given of the regiments on both sides; their colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and uniform.
BOOK V.
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, carries 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.
BOOK VI.
Neptune, returned from his Ethiopian revels, sees with rage the events which have taken place in Europe.He flies to the cave of Alecto, and drags out the fiend, commanding her to excite universal hostility against Napoleon.The Fury repairs to Lord Castlereagh; and, as, when she visited Turnus, she assumed the form of an old woman, she here appears in the kindred shape of Mr Vansittart, and in an impassioned address exhorts his lordship to war.His lordship, like Turnus, treats this unwonted monitor with great disrespect, tells him that he is an old doting fool, and advises him to look after the ways and means, and leave questions of peace and war to his betters.The Fury then displays all her terrors.The neat powdered hair bristles up into snakes; the black stockings appear clotted with blood; and, brandishing a torch, she announces her name and mission.Lord Castlereagh, seized with fury, flies instantly to the Parliament, and recommends war with a torrent of eloquent invective.All the members instantly clamour for vengeance, seize their arms which are hanging round the walls of the house, and rush forth to prepare for instant hostilities.
BOOK VII.
In this book intelligence arrives at London of the flight of the Duchess d'Angouleme from France.It is stated that this heroine, armed from head to foot, defended Bordeaux against the adherents of Napoleon, and that she fought hand to hand with Clausel, and beat him down with an enormous stone.Deserted by her followers, she at last, like Turnus, plunged, armed as she was, into the Garonne, and swam to an English ship which lay off the coast.
This intelligence yet more inflames the English to war.
A yet bolder flight than any which has been mentioned follows.
The Duke of Wellington goes to take leave of the duchess; and a scene passes quite equal to the famous interview of Hector and Andromache.Lord Douro is frightened at his father's feather, but begs for his epaulette.
BOOK VIII.
Neptune, trembling for the event of the war, implores Venus, who, as the offspring of his element, naturally venerates him, to procure from Vulcan a deadly sword and a pair of unerring pistols for the Duke.They are accordingly made, and superbly decorated.
The sheath of the sword, like the shield of Achilles, is carved, in exquisitely fine miniature, with scenes from the common life of the period; a dance at Almack's a boxing match at the Fives-court, a lord mayor's procession, and a man hanging.All these are fully and elegantly described.The Duke thus armed hastens to Brussels.