Majesty's commands.

[PITT looks resignedly out of the window.]

What curious structure do I see outside, sir?

KING

It's but a stage, a type of all the world. The burgesses have
arranged it in my honour. At six o'clock this evening there are
to be combats at single-stick to amuse the folk; four guineas
the prize for the man who breaks most heads. Afterward there
is to be a grinning match through horse-collars--a very humorous
sport which I must stay here and witness; for I am interested in
whatever entertains my subjects.

PITT

Not one in all the land but knows it, sir.

KING

Now, Mr. Pitt, you must require repose;
Consult your own convenience then, I beg,
On when you leave.

PITT

I thank your Majesty.

[He departs as one whose purpose has failed, and the scene shuts.]

SCENE II

BEFORE THE CITY OF ULM

[A prospect of the city from the east, showing in the foreground
a low-lying marshy country bounded in mid-distance by the banks
of the Danube, which, bordered by poplars and willows, flows
across the picture from the left to the Elchingen Bridge near
the right of the scene, and is backed by irregular heights and
terraces of espaliered vines. Between these and the river stands
the city, crowded with old gabled houses and surrounded by walls,
bastions, and a ditch, all the edifices being dominated by the
nave and tower of the huge Gothic Munster.

On the most prominent of the heights at the back--the Michaelsberg
--to the upper-right of the view, is encamped the mass of the
Austrian army, amid half-finished entrenchments. Advanced posts
of the same are seen south-east of the city, not far from the
advanced corps of the French Grand-Army under SOULT, MARMONT,
LANNES, NEY, and DUPONT, which occupy in a semicircle the whole
breadth of the flat landscape in front, and extend across the
river to higher ground on the right hand of the panorama.

Heavy mixed drifts of rain and snow are descending impartially
on the French and on the Austrians, the downfall nearly blotting
out the latter on the hills. A chill October wind wails across
the country, and the poplars yield slantingly to the gusts.]

DUMB SHOW

Drenched peasants are busily at work, fortifying the heights of
the Austrian position in the face of the enemy. Vague companies
of Aus