Chapter VII: After Waterloo (1)

A long Channel passage--Bruges--The battlefield--A posting journey--Compiègne--Paris--Michael Bruce.

_Mrs. E. Stanley to Lady Maria Stanley._

_Spring, 1816._

...Edward has long talked of a week at Waterloo, and all the rest of the plan came tumbling after one day in talking it over with Edward Leycester, as naturally as possible, and I expect almost as much pleasure in seeing Cambridge and being introduced to the looks and manners at least of E. L.'s friends, and in seeing him there as in anything else. We are to pay a visit to Sir George and Lady Scovell at Cambray, and perhaps to Sheffield Place, on our return....

ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, _June, 1816_.

I am very glad to have this opportunity of seeing what a college life is, as well as seeing Cambridge itself and its contents animate and inanimate. I like both very much.

We had a very pleasant journey. The road is not only prettier by Ashbourne and Derby, but better, and, provided your nerves can stand cantering down hill sometimes, you get on faster than on the other road. We drank tea at Nottingham on Monday and went up to the Castle.

We arrived at Cambridge by 6 o'clock on Tuesday evening, and found Edward deep in his studies....

This morning we breakfasted with George,[105] and, after seeing libraries and people and buildings till I am tired, here I am, snug and comfortable, in Edward's room....

We are off to-morrow for London.

_Mrs. E. Stanley to Lady Maria Josepha Stanley._

BLENHEIM HOTEL, LONDON, _Saturday_.

As we were coming yesterday Edward looked at the wind and decided that if Donald was not in the Thames then, he would have no chance of being here this week. We had not been here an hour when in he walked in high feather and gave me more reasons than I can remember for leaving his sisters and going with us....

I have been to Waterloo[106] and in Buonaparte's carriage. He has given an alarm by writing to France in spite of all their precautions.... We have got our passports and arranged our going. Edward came back from the city with three plans--the steamboat, the packet, or a coach to ourselves to Ramsgate. We debated the three some time, at last, on the strength of hearing that the steamboat had been out two nights on its passage once, we decided on the coach, and the places were just secured when Mr. Foljambe came in and told us he was going to Ramsgate on Tuesday with some other friends of Edward's, and that it was the nicest vessel ever seen and more punctual than any coach, which made us all very angry as you may guess.... We set out to-morrow morning and get into the packet at Ramsgate at 7 in the evening. Let me find a nice folio at Paris, care of Perrigaux, Banquier, and I shall not feel your handwriting the least interesting thing I have to see there.

_Rev. E. Stanley to his niece, Louisa Dorothea Stanley._

RAMSGATE, _June 11th_.

Rapidly went the coach from Canterbury, 17 miles in an hour and a half. Fair blows the wind over the azure blue billow. "You will breakfast at Ostend," says the Captain, "to-morrow." "Oh, that Louisa were here!" says Donald. "She would die of delight," says Uncle, "and does not Uncle say true?" Conceive the view from Nottingham Castle on the evening we left Alderley ... a noble precipice, frowning over a magnificent plain, from the terraces of which we beheld immediately at our feet almost numberless--for I counted in a second 54--little pets of gardens, each adorned with a love of a summerhouse to suit; in the corners of the rocks many excavations and caverns fancifully cut out and carved, into which each of the proprietors of the above-mentioned gardens might at leisure retire and become his own hermit. Then how shall I touch upon the delights of Cambridge? How shall I speak of Edward's beauty in his cap, all covered with little bows, and a smart black gown? And how shall I speak of his dinner and his party? Such merriment! Such hospitality! Only think, Louisa, of dining, breakfasting and supping day after day with 14 or 15 most accomplished, beautiful, and entertaining young gentlemen! But no more, lest you expire at the thought! As for London, I cannot well tell you what I did or saw, such a confused multiplicity of sights and succession of business have seldom been experienced. At 6 this morning we started in the stage coach, the interior of which we took, excluding all intruders, and from hence at 3 o'clock on a lovely night, with an elegant moon, we embarked for Ostend.

(_Continued by Mrs. Stanley._)

I have persuaded Uncle to carry his letter over the water that you may not have the anxiety of thinking for 2 days about the passage, which a gentleman who dined with us to-day informed us was the most precarious, dangerous, and uncertain known.

But I consoled myself with not believing the gentleman in the first place, and by thinking with Aunt Clinton that as Mrs. Carleton was drowned so lately at Ostend, it is not likely another accident should happen at present.

Here we are, waiting for the awful moment of embarkation, which I consider something like having a tooth out, but I live in hopes that, having been up early this morning and had 10 hours' jumbling, I may be sleepy enough to forget that I am on a shelf instead of a bed; so I have been just to admire the moon as we sail out of harbour, and then go to bed and find myself in sight of Ostend when I awake.

(_E. Stanley resumes next day._)

A dead calm succeeded to a gentle breeze, and on the soft, sleepy billows we have reposed in the Downs, rolling ever since. To comfort us we have a beautiful Packet and a limited number of passengers.

The discomfort consists in a rapid diminution of all our provisions and the consequent prospect of no Tea, supper, or breakfast, or dinner to-morrow. One sailor said to another as he was skinning some miserable fish, "Aye, aye, they" (meaning the passengers) "will be glad enough of these in a day or two, and I was eleven days becalmed last year."

Kitty, to fill up an hour of vacuity, said she would draw, and to fill up my time this testifies that I have been thinking of you and wishing for your presence, for the Novelty alone would keep you in full effervesence and banish all Tediosity.

I have, moreover, been playing with a sweet little French dog brought by one of the sailors from Boulogne. The sailors have daily given him two glasses of gin to check his growth, and a marvellous dog of Lilliput he is! Pray, my dear Lou, drink no gin, for you see the consequences.

I had retired to bed, when Edward Leycester called me up to admire a beautiful display of Neptune's fireworks; wherever the surface of the waves was agitated, the circles of silver flashed and the drops were scattered far and wide.

The morning dawned upon us nearly in the same position, not a breath troubled the surface, smooth and still as Radnor Mere on the sweetest evening.

Famine began to stare us in the face; our provisions were nearly exhausted; two or more days might elapse before we reached Ostend.

We breakfasted on tea, fried skate and cheese. Breakfast at an end, it was proposed to board the nearest vessel and beg or borrow a dinner. In the tide course appeared a sail, about five miles distant.

The boat was lowered, volunteers stepped forward--Uncle, Edward, Donald, and a gentleman-like Belgian.

Away we went and by hard rowing we came alongside the strange sail in an hour. Three leaden figures, motionless as the unwieldly bark they manned, gazed curiously upon our approaching boat. Our Belgian friend hailed, but hailed in vain. They looked but spoke not. Again he spoke, and at length a monotonous "yaw" proclaimed that they were not dumb.

We went on board and found a perfect Dutch family on their way from Antwerp to Rouen. Out stepped from her cabin the Captain's wife in appropriate costume, her close little cap, large gold necklace and ear-rings; and behind the Captain's spouse stepped forth two genuine descendants of the nautical couple. Large round heads with large round (what shall I say?) Hottentots to match and keep up the due balance between head and tail.

Having explained our wants to the Captain, he produced as the chief restorative an incomparable bottle of Schiedam, _i.e._, gin. To each he offered a good large glass, and then in answer to our request for beef, four bottles of excellent claret, two square loaves. For this he asked a guinea, upon receiving which his features relaxed and he declared we should have two more bottles of claret. Upon hearing we had a lady in the packet he begged her acceptance of half a neat's tongue, some butter, and a bag of rusks. Loaded with them, we took a joyful leave of these sombre sailors and returned, with the orange cravat of our Belgian friend for a flag, in triumph to the packet.

But a truce to my pen. Ostend is in sight, and now we are all rubbing our hands and congratulating each other that wind and tide are in our favour and that we shall be in in a couple of hours.

_Rev. E. Stanley to his niece, Isabella Stanley._[107]

BRUGES, _June 14, 1816_.

On our return from the Dutch vessel from which we recruited our exhausted store, we found our poor Captain in sad tribulation, his patience exhausted, but his temper luckily preserved. Having paced his deck with a fidgeting velocity a due number of times, peeped thro' his glass at every distant sail or cloud to observe whether they were in any degree movable, and invoked Boreas in the most pitiable terms such as "Oh Borus! Now do, good Borus just give us a blow," we had the satisfaction at length, the supreme satisfaction, of perceiving a gentle curl upon the water which soon settled into a steady breeze, before which we glided away, delightfully enjoying our dinner upon the deck, during which our party manifested their respective characters in most charming style. One Farmer Dinmont[108] and Dousterswivel, a Dutchman, were perfect specimens. A merry Belgian Equerry to the Prince of Orange, laughed, joked, and amused us with sleight-of-hand tricks. Our Dutch beef, tho' doubtless salt far beyond due proportion, was relished by all, Dinmont excepted, who pronounced it, together with the dark-coloured bread, unfit for English hogs, and shook his head with a most significant expression of doubt at my assertion that I never enjoyed a better dinner in my life. At five o'clock the low sand hills appeared to view in little nodules upon the horizon, and the Steeple of Ostend with its Lighthouse were visible from deck. At 6 we were close in upon land, and in half an hour were boarded by a Dutch boat, but alas! there was nothing in its appearance to excite curiosity, and with the exception of large earrings you might have fancied yourself in Holyhead Harbour. Four stout, tall fellows, hard and resolute in feature and decided in action, proclaimed their near alliance to British Jack Tars. They remained a little while and tried to cheat the passengers as much as possible, to take us on shore, but finding us determined to remain till the Captain could get his own boat ready, they shrugged their shoulders, abused us in Dutch, and sailed away. We were too many for one boat, so taking Kitty and the best of our English passengers and honest Farmer Dinmont, with all the luggage, we pushed off from the vessel. People of all descriptions, pilots, sailors, customs officers, soldiers, waiters soliciting customs for their respective turns. Porters regular and irregular, the latter consisting of a sort of light Infantry corps of ragged boys. All these people, I say, were crowded together on a little peninsular jetty against which our boat was shoved, and no sooner had the oars ceased to play and our keel cleared the sand than all these people set up their pipes in every dialect of every tongue, French and English both bad of their sort, Dutch high and low, Flemish and German. All burst upon us at one and the same moment, and the Cossack corps of ragged porters all stept forward, arm, leg and foot, to claim the honour of carrying up (most probably of carrying off) our baggage. By dint of words fair and foul, a shove here and a push there, I contrived to get Kitty under my arm and superintend, tho' with no small trouble and inconceivable watchfulness, the adjustment of our small portmanteaux, writing case, &c., in a wheelbarrow, which, from its formidable length of handle, bespoke its foreign manufacturer. On we jogged, but jogged not long; for before this accumulating procession could disperse we were arrested by a whiskered soldier, who in unintelligible terms announced himself a searcher of baggage. So to the custom house we went, when each trunk was opened and submitted to a slight inspection; the chief difficulty consisting in putting myself in 2 places at once--one close to the depôt of our goods in the barrow, the other before the officer with the keys. Kitty was wedged in a corner with a writing case and, I think, Donald's sword. My English companion was equally on the alert, but Farmer Dinmont would have excited all your compassion, or rather admiration; for here amidst the din of tongues and arms, unable to move hand or foot, he stood with a smile of mingled resignation and wonder; at length, the search being concluded to the satisfaction of both parties, we re-commenced our course, and in a few minutes Kitty found herself in a new world. Women and children unlike any women and children you ever saw; close caps with butterfly wings for the former, little black skull bonnets for the latter, in shape both alike, much resembling those toys which, if placed on their heads, by their superior specific gravity and extensive sacrifice of their lower projections instantly revolve and settle upon their tails.

"Voici, Messieurs et Madame, entrons dans la Cour Impériale," and another moment hoisted us within the covered gateway of this Hotel of Imperial appellation. Our arrangements for sleeping and eating being complete, we sat down on a bench before the door to gaze, but not to be gazed upon, for the good people never cast an eye upon us. On retiring to tea, good Farmer Dinmont's countenance relaxed as he flung himself into a chair; he put his hands upon the table and exclaimed, "Well, well, here I am sitting down for the first time out of Old England!" ... A cup of tea, or rather a kettle full, for our salt beef had kindled an insatiable thirst, put him in good humour again, and, but for a sort of sigh or a look or a jerk which proved Old England to be uppermost in his thoughts, he appeared quite satisfied. With some trouble Kitty secured the fly cap chambermaid and had taken possession of her room; having seen her safe, I descended to give orders for a warming-pan, leaving her (after having been 2 nights in her clothes) to the luxury of an entire change of linen and course of ablutions. On re-crossing the court 10 minutes afterwards I ran against a waiter running off with a warming-pan, glowing with red-hot embers. "Mais donc" said I, "Madame wants a warming-pan. Allons, where is the chambermaid to carry it?" "Oh, n'importe," replied this flying Mercury; "c'est moi qui fera cela pour la dame!" Only guess Kitty's escape! Another moment and he would have been in her presence, warming-pan and all. By dint of remonstrating I checked his course and prevailed upon the Maid to go herself with vast ill humour, innumerable shrugs, and some few "Mon Dieu's" and other suitable expressions. Kitty must herself be the interpreter of her own feelings in these lands of novelty. I am almost glad you were, none of you, here to witness what she will have such pleasure in describing. Our morning passed away in strolling over the town. Kitty and I dined at the table d'hôte with about 20 people. Farmer Dinmont sent for a bottle of the best wine to try it and offered me a glass. I begged to propose a toast, "Prosperity to Old England." His features brightened up, he grasped the bottle, filled a bumper, and replied, "Aye, aye, with all my heart; that Toast I would drink in ditch water." We left Ostend at 3 o'clock to take passage in the Bruges canal, and I do assure you we all felt quite sorry to leave our dear, good, honest John Bull.

At Saas we fell in with a specimen of Lord Wellington's operations. There is a formidable battery erected last year by way of guarding Ostend from a "coup de main"; it is singular that the English have placed a Battery for the defence close to the celebrated sluice gates of this canal, which gates were blown up by Sir Evelyn Coote to prevent the French from inundating the country, when he invaded it some years before.

Behold us seated in a spacious room, for it does not deserve the diminutive name of "Cabin," decorated with hangings of green cloth and gold border, on board a most commodious barge. Behold us on a lovely evening starting from the Quay with full sail and 3 horses, a man mounted on one and cracking a great long whip to drive on the other two, which trotted away abreast at the rate of 4-1/2 miles an hour. Behold us seated on this easy chair of Neptune! our ears deafened and our spirits enlivened by a band of music--trumpet, violin, and bass--admirably playing Waltzes and other national tunes. When they had amused us on deck they went below to another class of auditors. Our fellow traveller, Mr. Trueman, followed them, and perceiving him to be English they struck up "God save the King." A Frenchman called out "Ba, ba," a very expressive mode of communicating disapprobation, but seeing Trueman was of a different opinion, he ceased from his "Ba, ba," and stepping towards him made him a low bow. About 6 o'clock we arrived at Bruges, or rather to the wharf from whence passengers betake themselves and portmanteaux to barrows and sledges. As we approached our Band resumed their musical exertions. A crowd assembled to welcome our arrival, Gigs, coaches (such coaches!!), Horsemen (such Horsemen!!), were parading. Such a light with such a rainbow shone upon such an avenue and such picturesque gate!! Our baggage filled a car drawn by 3 stout men; and we all followed in the rear.... Bruges is a town affording five or six volumes of sketches; towers, roofs, gable ends, bridges--all in succession called for exclusive admiration. It was decided that we should rise at 4, breakfast at 6, and see all that was possible before 9, when we were to continue our route to Ghent. At 3 o'clock I was prepared, but a steady rain forced me reluctantly to bed again, but we did breakfast at 6, and did pick up two or three sketches.

_Mrs. E. Stanley to Lady Maria J. Stanley._

BRUSSELS, _June 18, 1816_.

_To face p. 260._]

On the 18th of June, how can I begin with any other subject than Waterloo?... At 8 this morning we mounted our Cabriolets for Waterloo. Donald put on his Waterloo medal for the first time, and a French shirt he got in the spoils, and a cravat of an officer who was killed, and I wrapped myself in his Waterloo cloak, and we all felt the additional sensation which the anniversary of the day produced on everybody. It brought the comparison of the past and present day more perfectly home. Donald was ready with his recollections every minute of the day, what had been his occupation or his feeling. The forest of Soignies is a fine approach to the field of battle--dark, damp, and melancholy. If you had heard nothing about it, you could hardly help feeling, in passing through it, that you would not like to cross it alone. There are no fine trees, but the extent and depth of wood gives it all the effect of a fine one, and an effect particularly suited to the associations connected with it. The road--a narrow pavement in the middle with black mud on each side--looks as if it had never felt a ray of sun, and from its state to-day gave me a good idea of what it must have been. Sometimes the road is raised thro' a deep hollow, and it was not possible to look down without shuddering at the idea of the horses and carriages and men which had been overturned one upon another; in some parts the trees are _à la_ Ralph Leycester, and you see the dark black of shade of the distant wood through them; but in other parts it is so choked with brushwood and inequalities of ground, that you could not see two yards before you, and no gorge was ever so good a cover for foxes as this for all evil-disposed persons. At Waterloo we stopped to see the Church, or rather the monuments in it, put up by the different regiments over their fallen officers. They are all badly designed and executed but one Latin one--not half so good as the epitaph on Lord Anglesey's leg which the man had buried with the utmost veneration in his garden and planted a tree over it; and he shows as a relic almost as precious as a Catholic bit of bone or blood, the blood upon a chair in the room when the leg was cut off, which he had promised my lord "_de ne jamais effacer_".

At Mont St. Jean Donald began to know where he was. Here he found the well where he had got some water for his horse; here the green pond he had fixed upon as the last resource for his troop; here the cottage where he had slept on the 17th; here the breach he had made in the hedge for his horses to get into the field to bivouac; here the spot where he had fired the first gun; here the hole in which he sat for the surgeon to dress his wound. He had never been on the field since the day of the battle, and his interest in seeing it again and discovering every spot under its altered circumstances was fully as great as ours.

After all that John Scott[109] or Walter Scott or anybody can describe or even draw, how much more clear and satisfactory is the conception which one single glance over the reality gives you in an instant, than any you can form from the best and most elaborate description that can be given! To see it in perfection would be to have an officer of every regiment to give you an account just of everything he saw and did on the particular spot where he was stationed.

Donald scarcely knew as much as Edward did or as the people about of what passed anywhere but just at his own station. But at every place it was sufficient to ask the inhabitants where they were and what they saw, to obtain interesting information.

_To face p. 263._]

Every plan I have seen makes it much too irregular, rough ground; it is all undulating, smooth ups and downs, so gradual that you must look some time before you discover all the irregularity there is. Hougoumont[110] is the only interesting point, and that by having an air of peace and retirement about it most opposite to what took place in it.

It is a respectable, picturesque farmhouse, with pretty trees and sweet fields all around it; the ravages are not repaired and many of the trees cut down. We left our carriages in the road and walked all over the British position, and henceforward I shall have a clearer idea, not only of Waterloo, but of what a military position and military plan is like.

At La Belle Alliance we sat upon a bench where Lord Wellington and Blücher perhaps met, and drank to their healths in Vin de Bordeaux. In spite of the corn, there are still bits of leather caps and bullets and bones scattered about in the fields, and you are pestered with children innumerable with relics of all sorts. We had heard magnificent accounts on our road here of all that was to be done on the field, balls, fêtes, sham fights, processions, and I do not know what, but they have all dwindled to a dinner given here to the Belgian soldiers and a Mass to be said for the souls of the dead to-morrow. However, we saw what we wished as we wished, and the impression is perhaps clearer than if it had been disturbed and mixed with other sights.

And now, being near 12, and I having walked about 8 miles, and been up since 6, must go to bed, though I feel neither sleepy nor tired.

_To Lucy Stanley._

_June 24, 1816._

...Away with me to Waterloo!

We arrived at Brussels on the evening of the 17th, and at seven o'clock started for the scene of action. From Brussels a paved road, with a carriage track on each side, passes for nine miles to the village of Waterloo.

The Forest (of Soignies) is, without exception, one of the most cut-throat-looking spots I ever beheld, ... and for some days after the battle deserters and stragglers, chiefly Prussians, took up their abode in this appropriate place, and sallying forth, robbed, plundered, and often shot those who were unfortunate enough to travel alone or in small defenceless parties.

After traversing this gloomy avenue for about four miles, the first symptoms of war met our eyes in the shape of a dead horse, whose ribs glared like a cheval-de-frise from a tumulus of mud. If the ghosts of the dead haunt these sepulchral groves, we must have passed through an army of spirits, as our driver, who had visited the scene three days after the battle, described the last four miles as a continued pavement of men and horses dying and dead.

_To face p. 265._]

At length a dome appears at the termination of the avenue. It is the church of Waterloo. They were preparing for a mass and procession, and the houses were most of them adorned with festoons of flowers or branches of trees....

...We turned to the right down the Nivelle road, for it was there Donald's gun was placed, and some labourers who were ploughing on the spot brought us some iron shot and fragments of shell which they had just turned up. The hedges were still tolerably sprinkled with bits of cartridge-paper, and remnants of hats, caps, straps, and shoes were discernible all over the plains. Hougoumont was a heap of ruins, for it had taken fire during the action, and presented a very perfect idea of the fracas which had taken place that day year. How different now! A large flock of sheep, with their shepherd, were browsing at the gate, and the larks were singing over its ruins on one of the sweetest days we could have chosen for the visit. As I was taking a sketch in a quiet corner I heard a vociferation so loud, so vehement, and so varied, that I really thought two or three people were quarrelling close to me. In a moment the vociferator (for it was but one) appeared at my elbow with an explosion of French oaths and gesticulations equal to any discharge of grape-shot on the day of attack. "Comment, Monsieur," said I, "What is the matter?" "Oh, les coquins! les sacrés coquins" and away he went, abusing the coquins in so ambiguous a style that I doubted whether his wrath was venting against Napoleon or against his opponents. "Oui," remarked I, "ils sont coquins; et Buonaparte, que pensez-vous de lui?" This was a sort of opening which I trusted would bring him to the point without a previous committal of myself. It certainly did bring him to the point, for he gave a bounce and a jump and his tongue came out, and his mouth foamed, and his eyes rolled, as with a jerk he ejaculated, "Napoleon! qu'est-ce que je pense de lui?" It was well for poor Napoleon that he was quiet and comfortable in St. Helena, for had he been at Hougoumont, I am perfectly convinced that my communicant would have sent him to moulder with his brethren in arms. Having vented his rage, I asked him if the French had ever got within the walls. "Yes," he said, "three times; but they were always repulsed"; he assured me he had been there during the attack and that he saw them within; but added, "How they came in at that door" (pointing to the gate by which we were standing and which was drilled with bullets), "or when they came in, or how or where they got out I cannot tell you, for what with the noise, and the fire, and the smoke, I scarcely knew where I was myself."

_To face p. 267._]

One of the farm servants begged me to observe the chapel, which he hinted had been indebted to a miracle for its safety, and certainly as a good Catholic he had a fair foundation for his belief, as the flames had merely burnt about a yard of the floor, having been checked, as he conceived, by the presence of the crucifix suspended over the door, which had received no other injury than the loss of part of its feet. He had remained there till morning, when, seeing the French advance and guessing their drift, he contrived to make good his escape, but returned the following day. What he then saw you may guess when I tell you that at the very door I stood upon a mound composed of earth and ashes upon which 800 bodies had been burnt. Every tree bore marks of death, and every ditch was one continued grave.

From Hougoumont we walked to La Belle Alliance,[111] crossing the neutral ground between the armies; a few days ago a couple of gold watches had been found, and I daresay many a similar treasure yet remains. At La Belle Alliance, a squalid farm house, we rested to take some refreshment. For a few biscuits and a bottle of common wine the woman asked us five francs, which being paid, I followed her into the house. Not perceiving me at the door, she met her husband, and bursting into a loud laugh, with a fly-up of arms and legs (for nothing in this country is done without gesticulation), she exclaimed, "Only think! ces gens-là m'ont donné cinq francs." In this miserable pot-house did the possessor find 280 wounded wretches jammed together and weltering in blood when he returned on Monday morning. If I proceed to more particulars I foresee I should fill folios.

I must carry you at once to La Haye Sainte.[112] It was along a hedge that the severest work took place; it made me shudder to think that upon a space of fifty square yards 4,000 bodies were found dead. The ditches and the field formed one great grave. The earth told in very visible terms what occasioned its elasticity; upon forcing a stick down and turning up a clod, human bodies in an offensive state of decay immediately presented themselves. I found four Belgian peasants commenting upon one figure which was scarcely interred, and on walking under the outer wall of La Haye Sainte a hole was tenanted by myriads of maggots feasting upon a corpse.

Here stands the Wellington tree,[113] peppered with shot and stripped as high as a man can jump of its twigs and leaves, for every passenger jumps up for a relic. We stood upon the road where Buonaparte (defended by high banks) sent on, but _didn't_ lead, 6,000 of his old Imperial Guard. They charged along the road up to La Haye Sainte, dwindling as they went by the incessant fire of 80 pieces of Artillery, many of them within a few yards, till their number did not exceed 300. Then Napoleon turned round to Bertrand, lifted his hand, cried out, "C'est tout perdu, c'est tout fini," and galloped off with La Corte and Bertrand,[114] quitting most probably for ever a field of battle.

A continued sheet of corn or fallowed fields occupy the whole plain. The crops are indifferent and the reason assigned is curious. The whole being trampled down last year, became the food of mice, which in consequence repaired thither from all quarters and increased and multiplied to such a degree that the soil is quite infested by them.

Upon the heights where the British squares received the shock of the French Cavalry, we found an English officer's cocked hat, much injured apparently by a cannon shot, with its oilskin rotting away, and showing by its texture, shape, and quality that it had been manufactured by a fashionable hatter, and most probably graced the wearer's head in Bond Street and St. James's. Wherever we went we were surrounded by boys and beggars offering Eagles from Frenchmen's helmets, cockades, pistols, swords, cuirasses, and other fragments.

At Brussels they gave the Belgian troops a dinner in a long, shady avenue, which was more than they deserved, and in the evening the Town was illuminated. In the Newspaper I daresay there will be a splendid account of it, but it was a wretched display in the proportion of one tallow candle to 50 windows stuck up to glimmer and go out without the slightest taste or regularity.

From Brussels we started in a nice open Barouche Landau on Thursday, the 20th. We again crossed the Field of Waterloo and proceeded towards Genappes, a road along which we jogged merrily and peaceably, but which had last year on this same day been one continued scene of carnage and confusion: Prussians cutting off French heads, arms and legs by hundreds; Englishmen in the rear going in chase, cheering the Prussians and urging them in pursuit; the French, exhausted with fatigue and vexation, making off in all directions with the utmost speed.

At Genappes we changed horses in the very courtyard where Napoleon's carriage was taken ... and were shown the spot where the Brunswick Hussars cut down the French General as a retaliation for the life of the Duke. The Postmaster told us what he could, which was not much; the only curious part was that in his narrative he never called the Highland Regiments "Les Écossais," but "Les Sans Culottes." The setting sun found us all covered with dust, rather tired and very hungry, and driving up, with some misgivings from what we had heard and from what we saw, to our Inn at Charleroi. "This is an abominable-looking house," said Donald. "Oh, jump out before we drive in and ask what we can get to eat." "Well, Donald, what success?" we all cried like young birds upon the return of the old one to the gaping, craving mouths in their nest. "The Landlady says she has nothing at all in the house, but if you will come in thinks something may be killed which will suffice for supper." This was a bad prospect....

_To face p. 270._]

We three went on in quest of better accommodation, and drove first to enquire at the Post House. The first question the Postmaster asked was, What could induce us to come to a place from which there was no exit? We told him we wished to go to Maubeuge. Had you seen his shoulders elevate themselves above his ears. "To Maubeuge! Why, it is utterly impossible." "Well, then," we said, "to Mons." "Le chemin est éxecrable." "To Phillippe ville." "Encore plus mauvais." As a proof of which he told us that a government courier had two days before insisted upon being forwarded thither, that they had sent him off at 2 in the morning, to insure him time before daylight, that at 9 in the morning he was brought back, having proceeded with the utmost difficulty 2 leagues, and then being deposited in a rut by the fracture of his carriage. After a great deal of pro and con it was agreed that with more horses and great caution and stock of patience the road to Mons should be attempted, and we were directed to "Le Grand Monarque," a good name for these times, applicable to Buonaparte or Louis XVIII.

It was worth while to lose our way and encounter these unexpected difficulties for the amusement the landlady afforded us. We seemed almost at the end of the world. I am sure we felt so, for the people were so odd. Dinner she promised, and in half an hour proved by a procession of half a dozen capital dishes how wonderfully these people understand the art of cookery, in a place which in England would be considered upon a par with the "Eagle and Child."[115] We asked her about the road in hopes of hearing a more satisfactory account. With a nod and a shrug, and an enlargement of the mouth and projection of lip, she replied, "Messieurs, je ne voudrais pas être un oiseau de mauvais augure, mais, pour les chemins il faut avouer qu'ils sont effroyables."

I will venture to say such a "oiseau" as our speaker has never before been seen or heard of by any naturalist or ornithologist. Her figure and cloak were both inimitable. She gave such a tragi-comic account of her sufferings last year, during the time of the retreat, and in 1814 when the Russians were there, that while she laughed with one eye and cried with the other, we were almost inclined to do the same. She had been pillaged by a French officer in a manner which surpassed any idea we could have formed of French oppression and barbarity. At one time the Cossacks caught her, and on some dispute about a horse, 4 of them took her each by an arm and leg and laying her upon her "Ventre" flat as a pancake, a fifth cracked his knout (whip) most fearfully over her head, and prepared himself to apply the said whip upon our poor landlady. By good fortune an officer rescued her from their clutches, but she shivered like a jelly when she described her feelings in her awkward position, like a boat upon the shore bottom upwards. Then she told us how her husband died of fright, or something very near it. Her account of him was capital, "Il étoit," said she, "un bon papa du temps passé," by which perhaps you may imagine she was young and handsome. She was very old and as ugly as Hecate.

Well, my sheet is at an end, and my hand quite knocked up. We did get to Mons, but the roads were "effroyable." At one moment (luckily we were not in it) the carriage stuck in the mud and paused. "Shall I go? or shall I not go?" Luckily it preferred the latter, and returned to its position on 4 wheels instead of 2.

E. STANLEY.

_Mrs. E. Stanley to Lady Maria Stanley._

And now to return to what pleased me first: Bruges--where I first felt myself completely out of England. The buildings were so entirely unlike any I have seen before that I could have fancied myself rather walking amongst pictures than houses. The winding streets are so interesting when you do not know what new sight a new turn will present; especially when, as in this case, the new sight was so satisfactory every time. Ghent is a much finer town but not near so picturesque; but we were fortunate in falling in here with a fine Catholic procession. We went to the top of the Cathedral, and as we were coming down the great bell tolled and announced the procession had begun. We almost broke our necks in our hurry to get a peep, and we did arrive at a loop-hole in time to see the whole mass of priests and procession in slow motion down the great aisle and to hear their chant. It was very fine indeed, tho' to our heretical feelings the interest lies as much in the romantic associations connected with all the Roman Catholic ceremonies as in anything better. It is not in human nature not to feel more devotion in the imposing solemnity of such a church. The "Descents from the Cross" were just put up, and with the organ playing and mass going on, and the number of female figures with their black scarfs over their heads kneeling on chairs in different parts of the Cathedral, we saw them to greater advantage than surrounded by French bonnets and other pictures in the Louvre. They are quite different to any Rubens I ever saw before; the colouring so much deeper and the figures so superior.

But no one should be allowed to enter that Cathedral without the black scarf, which makes a young face look pretty and an old one picturesque; and there were several common people gazing at the picture with as much admiration and adoration painted on their faces as there probably was on ours.

_To face p. 274._]

At Brussels there were more pictures from the Louvre, but the Brutes had packed up the Rubens without any covering or precaution whatever, and there they are with a hole thro' one, and the other covered with mildew and stains from rain and dirt. From Ghent we travelled in two cabriolets to Brussels, which were not quite so easy or pleasant as the Canal boats; but the accommodations as far as Brussels have been really _superbe_. I have longed for the papers or the carpets or the marble tables in every room we have been in; and I have learned to consider dinner as a matter of great curiosity and importance, and I cannot wonder that Englishmen are not proof against the temptations of living well and so cheap. Brussels is a nice place; there appear to be so many pleasant walks and rides in all directions. The country about is so pretty, and the town (with the exception of the steep hill which you must ascend to get to the best part of it) very cheerful and agreeable looking.... Every place swarms with English; we have met four times as many English carriages and travellers as we did on our road to London.

Our weather has been very favourable. We had a cool day for walking about at Waterloo, and the next day a delightful bright sunshine to show off the Palace of Laeken to advantage. It is the place where Bonaparte intended to sleep on the 18th, and he fitted it up. It is three miles from Brussels, commanding a view of the whole country and surrounded by trees and pleasure-grounds in the English style. After looking at buildings and towns so much, it was an agreeable relief to admire shady walks and fine trees. We went to the Theatre, which was execrable, but at Ghent we were very much amused with some incomparable acting.

We left Brussels yesterday morning in a Barouche and _three_, which is to take us to Paris. It holds us four in the inside and John on the box as nicely as we could wish and is perfectly easy. We suit each other as well in other respects as in the carriage. Donald is an excellent _compagnon de voyage_--full of liveliness, good humour, and curiosity, enjoying everything in the right way. He and Edward Leycester are my beaux, while E.S. does the business; which makes it much pleasanter to me than if I had only one gentleman with me. In short, we had not a difficulty till yesterday. We came by Waterloo again and picked up Lacoite to get what we could from him, and then to Charleroi, being told the road by Nivelles was impassable. The road to Charleroi was bad, and we did not arrive till 9, having had no eatable but biscuit and wine. Donald entered the hotel to enquire what we could have for dinner, and returned with the melancholy report that the woman had literally nothing, and did not know where any were to be procured, but that she would kill a hen and dress it if we liked! We sent Donald and Edward, as a forlorn hope, to see if there was another inn, and after a long search they found one, whereupon the postillion found out that he had no drag-chain and could not properly descend the _montagne._ However, after some arguments, and my descent from the carriage, and Donald and John walking on each side the wheels with large stones ready to place before them in case they were disposed to run too fast, we arrived at the Inn at the foot of the Hill, from which issued an old woman who might have sat for Gil Blas' or Caleb Williams' old woman. When she heard where we were going, she shook her head and said she did not like to be _un oiseau de mauvais augure_ but that the only road we could go was very nearly impassable. The people and the children in the street crowded round the carriage as if they had never seen one before, and, in short, we found that we had got into a _cul-de-sac._

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However, our adventures for the night finished by the old woman giving us so good a dinner and so many good stories of herself and the Cossacks, that we did not regret having been round, especially now when we are safely landed at Valenciennes without either carriage or bones broke--over certainly the very worst road I ever saw.

We shall be at Paris on Monday or Tuesday, I think. Adieu.

_Rev. E. Stanley to his niece, Rianette Stanley._

...Before leaving Brussels for ever, it is impossible not to speak about the dogs. What would you say, what would you think, and how would you laugh at some of these wondrous equipages. You meet them in all directions carrying every species of load. They were only surpassed by one vehicle we met on the road drawn by nine, and as luck would have it, just as we passed, the five leaders fell to fighting and ran their carriage over some high stones. Then the women within began to scream and the driver without began to whip, which caused an inevitable scene of bustle and perplexity....

At Quiverain we passed the line of separation between France and Belgium and were subjected to a close inspection by the Custom House Officers, during which some Bandana handkerchiefs of Edward's were for a time in great jeopardy, but they were finally returned and "nous voilà" in "la belle France." The change was perceptible in more ways than one. Before we had travelled a mile we beheld a proof of this subjugated state in the person of a Cossack "en plein costume," with two narrow, horizontal eyes placed at the top of his forehead, bespeaking his Tartar origin. Upon a log of timber twenty more were sitting smoking. The Russian headquarters are at Maubeuge, but the Cossacks are scattered all over the frontier villages and are seen everywhere. We fell in with at least a hundred. They are very quiet and much liked by the people. The Duke of Wellington, when returning to Valenciennes a few days ago from Maubeuge, was escorted by a party of these gipsy guards.

On approaching Valenciennes other tokens of conquest appeared. A clean-looking inn, with a smart garden in Islington style, presented itself, bearing a sign with an English name containing the additional intelligence that London Porter and Rum, Gin, and Brandy were all there, and to be had.

Over many a window we saw a good John Bull board with "Spirituous Liquors Sold Here" inscribed thereon in broad British characters, unlike the "Spiritual Lickers" in the miserable letters upon the signboards at Ostend. As to Valenciennes, nothing was French but the houses and Inns. The visible population were red-coated soldiers, and it was impossible not to fancy that our journey was a dream, and that we had in fact re-opened our eyes in England.

Of hornworks, demi-lunes, and ravelines I shall speak to your Papa when I fight my battle once again in the Armchair at the Park or at Winnington; enough for you to know that we all breakfasted with Sir Thomas Brisbane, a very superior man and a great astronomer, and tho' brave as a lion, seems to prefer looking at la Pleine lune in the heavens than the host of demi-lunes with which he is surrounded in his present quarters. At Cambray Sir George Scovell[116] had most kindly secured us lodgings at Sir Lowry Cole's[117] house, which we had all to ourselves, as the General was in England. Where the French people live it is not easy to guess, for all the best houses are taken by British Officers. They receive a billet which entitles them to certain rooms, and generally they induce the possessor to decamp altogether by giving him a small rent for the remainder. We found Colonel Egerton, who married a Miss Tomkinson, in the garrison. We dined with them and the Scovell, and were received with the utmost kindness and attention by all. Colonel Prince and Colonel Abercromby (you know both, I believe) also dined there two days we remained.

On Sunday there was a Procession. The most curious circumstance was that a troop of British cavalry attended to clear the way and do the honours, for the National Guard had been disarmed three days before in consequence of an order from the Duke of Wellington (nobody knows why). They gave up their arms without a murmur; some few, I believe, expressed by a "Bah!" and a shrug of the shoulders that it was not quite agreeable to their feelings, but "voilà tout." "I say, Jack," said a Grenadier of the Guards to his Companion, by whom I was standing as the procession came out of the Church, "who is that fellow with a gold coat and gridiron?" "Why, that's St. Lawrence," and so it was.

St. Lawrence led the way, followed by a brass St. Andrew as stiff as a poker and as much resembling St. Andrew as I conceive; but my companion the Grenadier thought differently, for he pronounced him to be a Chef d'oeuvre. "Well now, Jack, that's quite natural." ...

I must hurry you on to Compiègne, merely saying that we traversed a country fringed with immense forests in which wolves are born and live and die without much interruption, tho' we were told at one of the Inns that a peasant had, a day or two before, captured seven juvenile individuals of the species and carried them off uneaten by their disconsolate parents.

Our chief reason for visiting Compiègne was that we might see a Palace fitted up for Marie Louise by Bonaparte in a style of splendour surpassing, in my opinion, any Palace I have seen in France.

_Mrs. E. Stanley to Lady Maria J. Stanley._

PARIS, _June 28, 1816_.

And here I am--and what shall I tell you first? And how shall I find time to tell you anything in the wandering Arab kind of life we are leading? It is very new and very amusing and I enjoy it very much, but I enjoy still more the thoughts of how much I shall enjoy my own quiet home and children again when I get to them.

We arrived on Tuesday evening, and in half an hour I was in the Palais Royal in the Café de Mille Colonnes, and at night the brilliancy of the Lamps and Mirrors, glittering in every direction in every alley, displayed this new scene to me in the newest colours; and it was very like walking in a new world....

The Fêtes for the marriage of the Due de Berri are unfortunately all over. Except the entertainments at the Court itself, a French party is a thing unheard of, and the only gaieties have been English parties to which some few French come when they are invited. The only gentlemen's carriages I have seen in the streets are English, and as to French gentlemen or ladies, according to the most diligent enquiries by eyes and tongue, the race has almost disappeared....

If you admire Buonaparte and despise the Bourbons in Cheshire, what would you in Paris? where the regular answer to everything you admire is that it was done by Buonaparte--to everything that you object to, that it is by order of the Bourbons. In the Library of the Hôpital des Invalides to-day, collected by order of Buonaparte for the use of the soldiers, there was a man pulling down all the books and stamping over the N's and eagles on the title-page with blue ink, which, if it did not make a plain L, at least blotted out the N; but I should apprehend that every one who saw the blot would think more of the vain endeavour of Louis to take his place than if the N had been left.