Under these circumstances, Louis of Taranto, abhorring the thought of allowing the brave Pignatelli and his soldiers to sacrifice themselves to no purpose (seeing that the ultimate surrender of Aversa was inevitable), sent a message to the King of Hungary inviting him to a personal encounter, in the same spirit in which the Emperor Paul Petrovitch sent a similar challenge to King George III of England. Louis of Taranto’s proposal to the Hungarian was simplicity itself: that he of them who should kill the other should be King of Naples and of Jerusalem. To this the King of Hungary consented, with the advice of his counsellors, stipulating only that the combat should take place in the presence of the Emperor of Germany, as Cæsar and sovereign lord of all the princes of the West; or of the King of England, as a friend of both parties; or of the Patriarch of Aquileia, whose pretensions to equality with the Pope the Hungarian appears to have been by way of encouraging in revenge for Clement VI’s decision in favour of Joan. These proposals, however, came to naught, for in the meanwhile Aversa surrendered to the Hungarians; so that there was no longer any call for him to risk his life for nothing. He had only to close in upon Naples, and the doomed city must at once fall into his hands; it was not more than twelve miles from Aversa to the capital and the Hungarian advance guard under Lupi was soon visible to the Neapolitans at the Porta Capuana; for it was easier for them, being mounted troops, to approach the city from the direction of Poggia than from that of Capodimonte, the more direct but more hilly road to Aversa.