Chapter VI: Part 6

Was this the conduct of a hero? Was this the conduct of a general? Was this the conduct of a great mind? No! He had set his "life upon a cast, and he should have stood the hazard of the die." And for what did he abandon his army, and basely fly in the hour of danger? That he might be humiliated, pursued, and taken--that he might become a suppliant to that hated enemy whose ruin he had pursued with implacable hostility, and be indebted to their faith and generosity for life and safety--that he might live to hear his name execrated, and linger out a few years of miserable existence in exile, obscurity, and degradation.

It has been said by his advocates and admirers, that he was not only a great man, but the greatest man who ever lived--and that his only fault was ambition. Yes! Napoleon Buonaparte had, indeed, ambition; but it was selfish ambition; it was for power, not for glory; for unbounded empire and unlimited dominion, not for the welfare of his subjects and the prosperity of his country. He used the talents, the opportunities, and the power, with which he was gifted, and such as perhaps no mortal ever before enjoyed, not to save, but to destroy, not to bless, but to desolate, the world.

The conduct of the leaders of the contending armies was as opposite as the cause for which they fought. While Napoleon kept aloof from the action, Lord Wellington exposed himself to the hottest fire, threw himself into the thickest of the fight, and braved every danger of the battle. He issued every order, he directed every movement, he seemed to be everywhere present, he encouraged his troops, he rallied his regiments, he led them on against the tremendous forces of the enemy, charged at their head, and defeated their most formidable attacks. No private soldier in his army was exposed to half the personal danger that he encountered.[32] All who surrounded him fell by his side, wounded and dying. All his personal staff, with scarcely an exception, were either killed or wounded. In the battle's most terrible moment, and most hopeless crisis, when our gallant army, weakened by immense losses, and by more than seven hours of unequal combat, were scarcely able to stand against the overwhelming number of fresh troops which the enemy poured down against them; when the recreant Belgians fled, when every British soldier was in action, when reinforcements were asked for in vain; when no reserve remained, and no prospect of succour from our allies appeared, Lord Wellington, exposed to the hottest fire, calmly rode along the lines of his diminished army, animating and encouraging the men; directed fresh arrangements of his remaining forces; rallied in the fight, the wavering Brunswickers, cheered on, and headed the brave British Brigades,[33] and finally, having repulsed the last tremendous attack of the enemy,--with the memorable words, "Up guards! and at them!" led on the remnant of his gallant army to the most glorious victory a general ever won.[34]

Nor was the conduct of the two generals on this day more opposite than that of the armies which they commanded, and the motives by which they were actuated. The French fought to obtain plunder and aggrandisement--the British to fulfil their duty to their country. Well did their generals know this essential difference! Buonaparte held out to his troops the spoils of Belgium and Holland. When he wished to animate them to the greatest exertions, he led them forward and told them, "That was the road to Brussels!" Lord Wellington, in the most critical moment of the battle, held another language. "We must not be beaten," he said to his soldiers; "What will they say of us in England!" After the battle their conduct was equally different. The French had murdered numbers of their prisoners, and those whose lives they spared, they robbed, insulted, and treated with the utmost cruelty, shutting them up without food, without dressing their wounds, and subjecting them to every hardship and privation. The British, on the contrary, though irritated by the knowledge of these barbarities, protected the wounded French from the rage of the Prussians, who would have gladly revenged the cruelties with which they had been treated by them. Our wounded soldiers, who were able to move, employed themselves in assisting their suffering enemies, binding up their wounds, and giving them food and water--but the brave are always merciful.

A countryman, who belonged either to La Belle Alliance, or to some of the neighbouring cottages, told me, that when he came here early on the morning after the battle, the house was surrounded with the wounded and dying of the French army, many of whom implored him, for God's sake, to put an end to their sufferings.

But the agonising scenes which had so recently taken place here, and the images of horror which every object in and around La Belle Alliance was irresistibly calculated to suggest to the mind, were almost too dreadful for reflection. More pleasing was the remembrance, that it was here Napoleon Buonaparte stood when he prematurely dispatched a courier to Paris with the false news that he had won the day; and that it was here the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blucher accidently met, a few hours after, in the very moment of victory, when Buonaparte was flying before their triumphant armies, himself the bearer of the news of his own defeat. [_See_ Appendix, E.]

The interview between the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blucher was short, but it will be for ever memorable in the annals of history. They did not enter the house, but remained together a few minutes in earnest conversation. It is well known that Blucher and the Prussians continued the pursuit during the night. The remains of the British army rested from their toils on the ground, surrounded by the bleeding and dying French, on the very spot which they had occupied the preceding night--and Lord Wellington returned to Waterloo.

"As he crossed again the fatal field, on which the silence of death had now succeeded to the storm of battle, the moon, breaking from dark clouds, shed an uncertain light upon this wide scene of carnage, covered with mangled thousands of that gallant army whose heroic valour had won for him the brightest wreath of victory, and left to future times an imperishable monument of their country's fame. He saw himself surrounded by the bloody corpses of his veteran soldiers, who had followed him through distant lands, of his friends, his associates in arms, his companions through many an eventful year of danger and of glory: in that awful pause, which follows the mortal conflict of man with man, emotions, unknown or stifled in the heat of battle, forced their way--the feelings of the man triumphed over those of the general, and in the very hour of victory Lord Wellington burst into tears."[35]

The state of the wounded during this dreadful night may be conceived. Not even a drop of water was to be had on the field to relieve their thirst, and none was to be procured nearer than Waterloo. Late as it was, and exhausted as our officers must have been with the fatigue of such unremitting exertions, many of them mounted their horses, slung over their shoulders as many canteens as they could carry, galloped to Waterloo, a distance of more than two miles from almost every part of the field, filled them with water, and returned with it for the relief of the wounded men.

I did not leave a corner of La Belle Alliance unrummaged, but I cannot say that I saw anything particularly worthy of notice: I ate a bit of intolerably bad rye-cake, as sour as vinegar, and as black as the bread of Sparta, which nothing but the consideration of its having been in La Belle Alliance during the battle (which the woman assured me was the case) could have induced me to swallow:--but I need not stop to relate my own follies.

I bought from the people of the house the feather of a French officer, and a cuirass which had belonged to a French Cuirassier, who, they said, had died here the day after the battle. Loaded with my spoils, I traversed the whole extent of the field, thinking, as I toiled along beneath the burning sun, under the weight of the heavy cuirass, that the poor man to whom it had belonged, when he brought it into the field, in all the pride of martial ardour, and all the confidence of victory, little dreamed who would carry it off. If he had known that it was to be an English lady, he would have been more surprised than pleased.

I did not stop till I got to the old tree now known by the name of Lord Wellington's tree,[36] near which he stood for a length of time during the battle, and beneath which I now sat myself down to rest. Its massy trunk and broken branches were pierced with a number of cannon-balls, but its foliage still afforded me a grateful shade from the rays of the sun.

It was between this part of the field and Hougoumont that the lamented Sir William Ponsonby gloriously fell in the prime of life and honour, after repeatedly leading the most gallant and successful charges against the enemy, in which he took upwards of 2000 prisoners and two French eagles. The particulars of his death are well known. In the heat of the action he was unfortunately separated from his brigade, his horse stuck fast in the deep wet clay of some newly-ploughed land, and he saw a large body of Polish Lancers bearing down against him. In this dreadful situation he awaited the inevitable fate that approached him with the composure of a hero: he calmly turned to his aide-de-camp, who was still by his side, and it is said that he was in the act of giving him a picture and a last message to his wife, when he was pierced at once with the pikes of seven of the Polish Lancers, and fell covered with wounds. England never lost a better soldier, nor society a brighter ornament. He was deservedly beloved by his friends and companions, adored by his family, and lamented and honoured by his country.

Numbers of country-people were employed in what might be called the gleanings of the harvest of spoil. The muskets, the swords, the helmets, the cuirasses--all the large and unbroken arms had been immediately carried off; and now the eagles that had emblazoned the caps of the French infantry, the fragments of broken swords, &c., were rarely to be found, though there was great abundance upon sale. But there was still plenty of rubbish to be picked up upon the field, for those who had a taste for it like me--though the greatest part of it was in a most horrible state.

It was astonishing with what dreadful haste the bodies of the dead had been pillaged. The work of plunder was carried on even during the battle; and those hardened and abandoned wretches who follow the camp, like vultures, to prey upon the corpses of the dead, had the temerity to press forward beneath a heavy fire to rifle the pockets of the officers who fell of their watches and money. The most daring and atrocious of these marauders were women.[37]

The description I heard of the field the morning after the battle from those who had visited it, I cannot yet recal without horror. Horses were galloping about in every direction without their riders: some of them, bleeding with their wounds and frantic with pain, were tearing up the ground, and plunging over the bodies of the dead and the dying--and many of them were lying on the ground in the agonies of death.

Over the whole field the bodies of the innumerable dead, already stripped of every covering, were lying in heaps upon each other; the wounded in many instances beneath them. Some, faint and bleeding, were slowly attempting to make their way towards Brussels; others were crawling upon their hands and knees from this scene of misery; and many, unable to move, lay on the ground in agony.

For four days and nights some of these unfortunate men were exposed to the beams of the sun by day, and to the dews by night; for notwithstanding the most praiseworthy and indefatigable exertions, the last of the wounded were not removed from the field until the Thursday after the battle; and if we consider that there were at least 8000 British, besides the Belgic, Brunswick, and Prussian wounded soldiers, and an incalculable number of wounded French--we shall find cause for surprise and admiration, that they could be removed in so short a time. Their conveyance, too, was rendered extremely difficult, as well as inconceivably painful to the poor sufferers, by the dreadful and almost impassable state of the roads.

The Belgic peasantry showed the most active and attentive humanity to these poor wounded men. They brought them the best food they could procure; they gave them water to drink--they ministered to all their wants--complied with all their wishes--and treated them as if they had been their own children.

An officer, with whom we are well acquainted, went over the field on the morning of the battle, and examined the ghastly heaps of dead in search of the body of a near relation; and after all the corpses were buried or burnt--in the same melancholy and fruitless search, many an Englishwoman, whom this day of glory had bereft of husband or son, wandered over this fatal field, wildly calling upon the names of those who were now no more. The very day before we visited it, the widow and the sister of a brave and lamented British officer had been here, harrowing up the souls of the beholders with their wild lamentations, vainly demanding where the remains of him they loved reposed, and accusing Heaven for denying them the consolation of weeping over his grave. I was myself, afterwards, a sorrowful witness of the dreadful effects of the unrestrained indulgence of this passionate and heart-breaking grief. In the instance to which I allude, sorrow had nearly driven reason from her seat, and melancholy verged upon madness.

I have forced myself to dwell upon these scenes of horror, with whatever pain to my own feelings, because in this favoured country, which the mercy of Heaven has hitherto preserved from being the theatre of war, and from experiencing the calamities which have visited other nations, I have sometimes thought that the blessings of that exemption are but imperfectly felt, and that the sufferings and the dangers of those whose valour and whose blood have been its security and glory, are but faintly understood, and coldly commiserated. I wished that those who had suffered in the cause of their country should be repaid by her gratitude, and that she should learn more justly to estimate "the price of victory." But it is impossible for me to describe, or for imagination to conceive, the horrors of Waterloo!

How gladly would I dwell upon the individual merits of those who fell upon this glorious field, had I but the power to snatch from oblivion one of the many names which ought to be enrolled in the proud list of their country's heroes! In the heat of such a battle, probably thousands have fallen, whose untold deeds surpass all that from childhood our hearts have worshipped. But that heroic valour and devoted patriotism, which in other days were confined to individuals and signalised their conduct--at Waterloo pervaded every breast. Every private soldier acted like a hero, and thus individual merit was lost in the general excellence, as the beams of the stars are undistinguished in the universal blaze of day.

But it is not only the unrivalled glory of my countrymen in arms, of which I am proud, it is the noble use which they have made of their triumph. It is not only their irresistible valour in battle, but their unexampled mercy and moderation in victory which exalts them above all other nations. It has been justly said by those whom they conquered, that no other army than the British could have won the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo: and no other army but the British, after such a battle and such a victory, after a long course of incessant warfare, after recent insults and wanton cruelties, and after ages of inveterate hostility and national animosity,--no other army but the British, in such circumstances, would have marched through the heart of that enemy's country, and entered that enemy's capital, as the British army marched through France and entered Paris.

We have only to remember what has invariably been the conduct of the French armies in their march through the countries they have conquered. We have only to picture to ourselves what _would_ have been their conduct, if they had triumphantly marched through England, and we shall then be able to appreciate the meritorious moderation of the British army. No plundered towns, no burning villages, no ruined houses marked their course; no outrage, no cruelty nor violence disgraced their triumphant progress. The French people received from their enemies that mercy which was denied them by their own soldiers. There is not a spot on the earth, from the burning sands of Egypt to the frozen deserts of Russia--from the Black Sea to the Pillars of Hercules--from the coasts of the Baltic to the shores of the Mediterranean, where the name of Frenchman and of Napoleon Buonaparte is not dreaded and detested. Whereever the power of Buonaparte has been known, or his dominion felt, his name is uttered with execrations. Wherever he has gone, his path, like that of the pestiferous serpent, has been traced by misery and desolation. But it is a proud reflection to every British heart, that there is not a country of the civilised world where England is not mentioned with respect and gratitude, and the very name of Englishman coupled with blessings.

I am too sensible of my own incompetency, and too conscious of my want of knowledge, to attempt to give any account of the battle itself. The deeds of my countrymen I can only admire--I am not qualified to record them. Abler pens than mine must do justice to the events of this day of glory, which I cannot recal to memory without tears: but it was impossible to stand on the field where thousands of my gallant countrymen had fought and conquered, and bled and died--and where their heroic valour had won for England her latest, proudest wreath of glory--without mingled feelings of triumph, pity, enthusiasm, and admiration, which language is utterly unable to express.

I stood alone upon the spot so lately bathed in human blood--where more than two hundred thousand human beings had mingled together in mortal strife: I cast my eyes upon the ruined hovels immortalised by the glorious achievements of my gallant countrymen. I recalled to mind their invincible constancy--their undaunted intrepidity--their heroic self-devotion in the hour of trial--their magnanimity and mercy in the moment of victory: I cast my eyes upon the tremendous graves at my feet, filled with the mortal remains of heroes.--Silence and desolation now reigned on this wide field of carnage: the scattered relics of recent slaughter and devastation covered the sun-burnt ground; the gales of heaven, as they passed me, were tainted with the effluvia of death. I shuddered at the thought that, beneath the clay on which I stood, the best and bravest of human hearts reposed in death. Oh! surely in such a moment and on such a spot, "some human tears might fall and be forgiven!"

Alas! those for whom I mourned sleep in death--and in vain for them are the tears, the praise, or the gratitude of their country: but though their bodies may moulder in the tomb, and their ashes, mingled with the dust, be scattered unnoticed by the winds of winter, their names and their deeds shall never perish--they shall live for ever in the remembrance of their country, and the tears which pity--gratitude--admiration--wring from every British heart, shall hallow their bloody and honourable grave. On earth they shall receive the noblest meed of praise; and oh! may we not, without impiety or presumption, indulge the hope, that in heaven the crown of glory and immortality awaits those who fell in the field of honour, and who in the discharge of their last and noblest duty to their country, "resigned their spirit unto Him that gave it?"

It was with difficulty I could tear myself from the spot--but after casting one long and lingering look upon the wood-crowned hill of Hougoumont, the shattered walls of La Haye Sainte, the hamlet of La Belle Alliance, the woods of Frischermont, the broken hedge in front of which Sir Thomas Picton's division had been stationed, and which was doubly interesting from the remembrance that it was there that gallant and lamented general had fought and fallen; and after giving one last glance at the ever memorable tree beneath which I stood, I joined my brother and sister, who had been taking sketches at a little distance, and set off with them to Mont St. Jean--lightened of the load of my cuirass, which a little girl, who before the battle had been one of the inhabitants of La Haye Sainte, joyfully carried to the village for half a franc.

On our return we entered the farm-house where Major L. had been conveyed when wounded. The farm-house and offices enclose a court into which the windows of the house look. It is only one story high, and consists of three rooms, one through another. Not only these rooms, but the barns, out-houses, and byres were filled with wounded British officers, many of whom died here before morning.

In that last tremendous attack which took place towards the close of the day, before the arrival of the Prussians (but which, thanks to British valour, was wholly unsuccessful), the battle extended even here. The French suddenly turned the fire of nearly the whole of their artillery against this part of our position, in front of Mont St. Jean, and a general charge of their infantry and cavalry advanced, under cover of this tremendous cannonade, to the attack. Weakened as our army had been in this quarter with the immense loss it had sustained, they expected it to give way instantly, and that they should be able to force their way to Brussels. The Belgians fled at this tremendous onset. The British stood firm and undaunted, contesting every inch of ground. Every little rise was taken and retaken. The French and English, intermingled with each other, fought man to man, and sword to sword, around these walls, and in this court, while cannon-shot thundered against the walls of the house, and shells broke in at the windows of the rooms crowded with wounded. Such of the officers as it was possible to remove were carried out beneath a shower of musketry. But our troops maintained their ground in spite of the immense numbers of the enemy, and of a most tremendous and incessant fire; and after a long and desperate contest, the French were completely repulsed and driven back. They never for a moment gained possession even of this farm-house, much less of the village of Mont St. Jean, to which indeed the battle never extended. Some cannon-balls indeed were lodged in the walls of the cottages, but the action took place entirely in front of the village, and its possession was never therefore disputed.

The farmer's wife had actually remained in this farm-house during the whole of this tremendous battle, quite alone, shut up in her own room, or rather garret. There she sat the whole day, listening to the roar of the cannon, in solitude and silence, unable to see anything, or to hear any account of what was passing. It seemed to me that the utmost ingenuity of man could not have devised a more terrible punishment than this woman voluntarily inflicted upon herself. When I asked her what could have been her motives for remaining in such a dreadful situation, she said that she stayed to take care of her property--that all she had in the world consisted in cows and calves, in poultry and pigs--and she thought if she went away and left them, she should lose them all--and perhaps have her house and furniture burnt. She seemed to applaud herself not a little for her foresight. If the French, however, had been victorious instead of the English, the woman, as well as her hens and chickens, would have been in rather an awkward predicament.

Her husband first told me this story, which I could scarcely credit till she herself confirmed it. But he, honest man! had wisely run away before the battle had begun, leaving his wife, his pigs, and poultry to take care of themselves. She said she stayed in her room all that night, and never came down till the following morning, when all the surviving wounded officers had been removed, but the bodies of those who had expired during the night still remained, and the floors of all the rooms were stained with blood. She seemed very callous to their fate, and to the sufferings of the wounded; and very indifferent about everything except her hens and chickens. She led me to a little miserable dark cow-house, where General Cooke (or Cock, as she called him) had remained a considerable time when wounded, and it seemed to be a sort of gratification to her, that a British general had been in her cow-house.

Leaving this farm-house, we walked through the village of Mont St. Jean, and stopped at the little inn, where we found the rest of the party busily employed upon every kind of eatable the house afforded, which consisted of brown bread, and butter and cheese--small beer, and still smaller wine. Although I had rejected with abhorrence at Château Hougoumont a proposal of eating, which some one had ventured unadvisedly to make; and though it did seem to me upon the field of battle that I should never think of eating again, yet no sooner did I cast my eyes upon these viands than I pounced upon them, as a falcon does upon its prey, and devoured them with nearly as much voracity. They seemed to me to be delicious; and the brown bread and butter, especially, were incomparable.

The woman of the house and her two daughters, who were industriously employed in plain needlework, related to us with great naïveté all the terrors they had suffered, and all the horrors they had seen. Like all the other inhabitants of the village, they had fled the day before the battle--not into the woods, but to a place, the name of which I do not remember, but which they said was very far off ("bien loin").

Several cannon-balls had lodged in the walls about this house, although it was at the extremity of the village, farthest from the field. Having finished our frugal repast, for which these kind and simple people asked a most trifling recompense, we left Mont St. Jean, passed through the village of Waterloo for the last time, and returned to Brussels with an impression on our minds, from our visit to the field of Waterloo, which no time can efface.

It was on Wednesday, the 19th of July, that we learnt the astonishing news that Napoleon Buonaparte had surrendered himself to the British, and was actually a prisoner on board the Bellerophon. An aide-de-camp of the King of France, going express to the King of Holland at the Hague, was the bearer of this important intelligence. It was communicated to us by General Murray, who came in with a countenance radiant with joy, and scarcely could my sister and I, in our transports, refrain from embracing the good old general. He had himself seen the aide-de-camp of Louis XVIII.; yet this news was so unexpected, so wonderful--and above all so good; that scarcely could it be credited. Could it indeed be possible that Napoleon--the dreaded Napoleon--was really a prisoner to the English! All ranks of people were breathless with expectation, and with trembling eagerness and anxious inquiries awaited further intelligence. In a few hours it was confirmed beyond a possibility of doubt.--"Buonaparte est pris!--il est pris!--c'est vrai--c'est bien vrai!" cried M. Weerid, the Belgic gentleman in whose house Major L. was an inmate, bursting into his room with a turbulence of joy ill-suited to the suffering state of our poor wounded friend. The loud acclamations of the populace--the ejaculations of thanksgiving and tears of joy which burst from the women--and the curses which were freely bestowed on him by the men--proved the strength of their terror, and the bitterness of their detestation.

It was our fate to be the bearers of this intelligence almost the whole way through Belgium. So slowly does news travel in this country, that although it had arrived in Brussels at five o'clock in the afternoon, and we did not set off till eight the following morning, no rumours of it had been received in any of the towns or villages through which we passed; and we even found the good people of Ghent in profound ignorance of it. But the Belgians were slow of belief, and the transport and the vociferous joy with which it was uniformly received at first, were generally followed by doubts and fears, and fervent wishes for its truth.

At the inn at Alost we found a party comfortably sitting down to dinner at twelve o'clock, at the well-spread Table d'Hôte. No sooner had I mentioned this news than knives and forks were thrown down, plates and dishes abandoned. An old fat Belgic gentleman, overturning his soup plate, literally jumped for joy; another, more nimble, began to caper up and down the room. A corpulent lady, in attempting to articulate her transport, was nearly choked, like little Hunchback, with a fish-bone; and the demonstrations of joy shown by the rest of the party were not less extravagant. One old man, however, shook his head in sign of incredulity, and said with fervour, when I assured him that Buonaparte was really a prisoner to the English, "that he should have lived long enough if he ever lived to see that day." Nothing amused me more, however, than the squall set up by an old country-woman, who shook my hand till she nearly wrung it off, and then, shocked at what she had done, burst forth into apologies to me, exclamations of joy, and abuse of Buonaparte, all in a breath.

To my cost, however, the official account of this important news did arrive at Ghent, just after I had gone to bed. It had been more than twenty-four hours on its way, travelling at the rate of about a mile an hour; and much did I wish that it had been longer, for neither peace nor repose was now to be had. Bonfires were lighted, guns fired, squibs and crackers let off in the streets, rockets sent up to the clouds, and both heaven and earth disturbed by the uproar. Not satisfied with this, they took it into their heads to keep up a firing with muskets under my windows; and the inhabitants and the English soldiers, royally drunk and loyally noisy, vied with each other in singing or rather roaring out the most discordant strains; and "God save the King," in English, and a variety of Belgic songs in low Dutch, were sung all at once, with the most patriotic perseverance, in the streets. By the time these outrageously loyal people found their way to bed, it was nearly time for me to get up, which I did at five o'clock, in order to see a very fine cabinet of paintings. The old Flemish gentleman to whom they belonged, not satisfied with giving me permission to see them, had the politeness to rise at that unseasonable hour, in order that he might be ready to receive me, and to show them to me himself. What English gentleman would have got out of his bed before six o'clock in order to show his collection of paintings to a foreigner, a person of no distinction, of whom he knew nothing, who had no introduction to him, whom he had never seen before, and would most probably never see again?

Next day at nine o'clock we embarked from Ostend for England in a large packet crowded with passengers. We set sail with a favouring gale, but the winds and the waves maintained their usual capricious and inconstant character, and after a succession of calms, contrary winds, and opposing tides, we found ourselves, late on the evening of the second day, at anchor within sight of the harbour of Margate, but without a hope of reaching it till the following morning. In order to escape spending another night on board, we embraced the expedient of committing ourselves to a little boat, in which it seemed invariably to be our fate to end all our voyages.

We were rowed ashore, and landed in the dark, at past eleven o'clock at night, upon the slippery and weed-covered rocks of Margate, exactly six weeks after we had landed in the same manner, at the same hour, and the same day of the week, on the deep and deserted sands of Ostend. In that six weeks what a change had taken place! When I left England, Buonaparte was the terror of the world--Europe was arming against him, and his threatening hosts were ready to overwhelm it again with ruin. When I returned, these tremendous armies were defeated and scattered--the victorious troops of England were in the capital of France; and Buonaparte himself, fallen from the highest imperial throne of the universe to the lowest abyss of fortune, was a prisoner on board a British ship of war, and a suppliant to the mercy of my country!

Events so extraordinary and improbable, and changes so sudden and so wonderful, seemed to outrun the rapidity of imagination itself, and to exceed the limits of possibility. The past seemed like a dream. Scarcely, on retrospection, could we believe it to be real, or be convinced that the scenes we had witnessed, since our departure from England, had not been the illusions of fancy, or the "baseless fabric of a vision." They bore more resemblance to the shifting and imaginary scenes represented on the stage, than to events which had actually happened on the great theatre of the world. It had indeed been a great and a bloody tragedy, and it had been our lot to witness it from the first to the last scene. It began at our entrance, it finished at our departure from Brussels. The news of Buonaparte having attacked the Prussians reached Brussels at the very moment of our arrival--the news of his surrender to the British was received the night before we left it.

In that six weeks the work of an age had been accomplished; an usurper had been dethroned; a monarch had been restored; a kingdom had been lost and won; a war had begun and ended; peace had revisited the world; and justice--strict, impartial justice--had descended upon the head of the guilty. And all this was the work of England!

Yet it has been asked--and I have often heard the question slightingly repeated by my own countrymen--"And what, after all, has England gained for years of war and bloodshed but glory?" I might answer that she has gained security, peace, and prosperity for the world, and for herself, besides, the highest place among nations: but granting that she had only gained glory--what, I ask in return, could she gain that is equivalent to it? What is there on earth to be compared to it?

"Is aught on earth so precious and so dear
As Fame or Honour? or is aught so bright
And beautiful as Glory's beams appear,
Whose goodly light than Phoebus' lamp doth shine more clear?"

_Faerie Queen._

Glory is the highest, the most lasting good. Without it, extent of empire, political greatness, and national prosperity, are but a name; without it, they can have no security, and can command no respect; without it all other possessions are worthless and despicable--unstable and transitory. Fortune may change; arts may perish; commerce may decay; and wealth and power, and dominion and greatness may pass away--but glory is immortal and indestructible, and will last when empires and dynasties are no more.

What gives nations honour and renown in future times but the glory they have acquired? What exalted Greece and Rome to their proud pre-eminence among the nations, and transmitted the lustre of their name to the remotest time? Why does the traveller still traverse distant countries, to explore with hallowed respect their mouldering temples, and linger with silent awe amidst the ruins of the Parthenon, or on the site of the Capitol? Why does generation after generation contemplate with veneration the plains of Marathon, and the heights of Leuctra? Why do they still retrace with enthusiasm the deeds of their departed heroes, and the long catalogue of their ancient glories?--It is to these ancient glories that they owe their present interest and importance. The nations of the East were possessed of unbounded wealth, magnificence, and power--and were long the seats of commerce, of the arts of life, and of learning, when the western world was immersed in ignorance and barbarism.--Yet their antiquities are unexplored--their history neglected--their very existence almost forgotten; for they have left no proud remembrance, no ray of glory, to immortalise their name.

If it had been extent of empire, or superiority of wealth, that gave nations lasting greatness, Persia would have enjoyed that veneration which is now paid to Athens. If it had been conferred by antiquity, or by being the birth-place of the arts and sciences, Egypt would have stood upon that pedestal of fame which Rome now fills.

Yes! England has nobly fought, triumphantly conquered and well has she been rewarded! She has gained that unalienable, imperishable prize, which neither time nor fortune, nor fate--nor any earthly power can ever wrest from her. She has won the immortal meed! Generations yet unborn shall pride themselves on being the descendants of those who fought and conquered in the righteous cause of Justice, Honour, and Independence, on the plains of Spain, and on the glorious field of Waterloo; and feel the throb of generous enthusiasm and of virtuous patriotism, when they retrace the bright history of their country's achievements.

With these sentiments deeply impressed upon my mind; with the proud consciousness, that highly as the fame of England had stood in all ages, she had now attained an unparalleled height of greatness and glory; that the ancient triumphs of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, in one age, of Ramillies, Malplaquet, and Blenheim, in another, had been surpassed in those of Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, in our own; that her name would descend to the latest times as unrivalled in arms, invincible by land and by sea, and pre-eminent, not only in valour, but in faith and honour--in justice, mercy, and magnanimity, and in public virtue--I returned to my country after all the varying and eventful scenes through which it had been my lot to pass, more proud than when I left it of the name of

AN ENGLISHWOMAN.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: The Emperor Charles V., in disparagement of the capital City of his rival, used to delight in saying, "Je peux mettre tout Paris dans _mon Gand_." Ghent, on the Continent, is always spelt and pronounced Gand, the same as _gant_, glove.]

[Footnote 6: I write it not grammatically, but as they pronounced it, with a strong emphasis on the last letter.]

[Footnote 7: It was not expected at that time that Belgium would be the theatre of war, but that the Allies would advance into France.]

[Footnote 8: Afterwards, on our return to Brussels, I observed an inscription on one of these fountains, purporting, that the Czar, Peter the Great, having drunk too freely of wine, fell into its waters. The day and year are mentioned. It was, I think, about a century ago.]

[Footnote 9: [The 32nd and 44th should be added.--ED.]]

[Footnote 10: Consisting of the 28th, 32nd, 79th, 95th, a battalion of the 1st, or Royal Scots, the 42nd, 92nd, and the 2nd battalion of the 44th, and a battalion of Hanoverians. It was the first division which arrived, and, during the principal part of the day, it was the only part of the British army engaged.]

[Footnote 11: Since writing the above, I have found that the names of these officers were Lieutenant-General Bourmont and Colonel Clouet. [_See_ Appendix, A.]]

[Footnote 12: Ney, in his own account of this battle, says, "in spite of my exertions, in spite of the intrepidity and devotion of my troops, my utmost exertions could only maintain me in my position till the close of the day." He then complains grievously of having had _only_ three divisions to fight against the British, and boasts of what he _would have done_ if he had had five.--_Vide Marshal Ney's Letter._]

[Footnote 13: Subsequently, the news of the defeat and retreat of the Prussians obliged the Duke of Wellington also to retreat, to keep open the communications with Blucher.]

[Footnote 14: Not even imagination could form an idea of the dreadful sufferings that the unfortunate soldiers of the French and Prussian armies, who were wounded in the battles of the 15th and 16th of June, were condemned to endure. It was not until nearly a week afterwards that surgical aid, or assistance of any kind, was given to them. During all this time they remained exposed to the burning heat of the noonday sun, the heavy rains, and the chilling dews of midnight, without any sustenance except what their importunity extorted from the country people, and without any protection even from the flies that tormented them. Numbers had expired; the most trifling wounds had festered, and amputation in almost every instance had become necessary. This, and every other necessary operation, was hastily and negligently performed by the Prussian surgeons. The description I heard of this scene of horror, from some respectable Belgic gentlemen who were spectators of it on the Wednesday following, is too dreadful to repeat.]

[Footnote 15: This was, I find, only a proof of my ignorance; I afterwards learnt that wooden palisades add greatly to the strength of fortifications.]

[Footnote 16: Afterwards Marquis of Anglesey]

[Footnote 17: At one time, as we afterwards learned, the Duke had scarcely a single aide-de-camp left to dispatch with orders. All around him fell dead, or wounded. His preservation was miraculous. As he himself reverentially declared after the battle, "The finger of God was upon me."]

[Footnote 18: No doubt the gallantry of every British regiment was equally praiseworthy, but few had such opportunities of displaying it. And we naturally enough heard of the exploits of the brave Highland regiments which had nearly been cut to pieces, and the remains of which, all wounded, had reached Antwerp.]

[Footnote 19: [_See_ Appendix, B.]]

[Footnote 20: The road from Brussels to the field of battle was not for some time considered safe, on account of the number of deserters who had taken shelter in the woods, and issued forth, sometimes alone, and sometimes in a gang, to rob passengers and plunder the defenceless cottages and farm-houses of the surrounding country. Neither property nor life certainly could be considered safe at the mercy of these armed desperadoes; but I never heard of any well-authenticated murder that they committed: and from all the inquiries I made, I believe that most of the horrible stories we heard of their enormities were entirely devoid of truth; and that the mischief, even in the way of plunder, they did, was very much exaggerated. Even at the time we went to the field, great apprehensions were entertained by many people of these lawless deserters. Large parties of these were brought in two or three times a week, during our stay in Brussels. They consisted of Belgic, Nassau, and Brunswick soldiers. There was some difficulty in procuring proper places of confinement for them. They were generally sent to the neighbouring Maisons de Force; what eventually was to be their punishment, or what has been their fate, I have never been able to learn.]

[Footnote 21: It is remarkable that every village in this part of the country has a French name, except Waterloo, which is pronounced by the natives--according to the fashion of the London Cockneys--_Vaterloo_; the letter W being the exclusive property of the British people--with the exception of the aforesaid Cockneys, who resign all claim to it.]

[Footnote 22: Cæsar's celebrated _bulletin_, "Veni, vidi, vici," was more concise, but not quite so unassuming.]

[Footnote 23: La Haye Sainte (the holy hedge). It gives its name to the farm-house of La Haye Sainte. I could not hear from any of the country people why it was distinguished by the epithet "Sainte." They did not seem to have any tradition respecting it.]

[Footnote 24: An order had been issued not to fire at the enemy's field-pieces, but at the troops. However, during the latter part of the action, a young officer of artillery, out of patience with the destruction caused among his men, and particularly with the loss of Captain Bolton, his friend and brother officer, from the fire of some guns opposite, levelled his cannon at them, and had the satisfaction to see the French artillerymen, and officers who commanded them, fall in their turn. At that moment he was accosted suddenly by the Duke of Wellington, whom he had no idea was near--"What are you firing at there?" The artillery officer confessed what he was about. "Keep a good look out to your left," said the Duke, "you will see a large body of the enemy advancing just now--fire at them." They soon perceived a tremendous number of the Imperial Guards, the _élite_ of the army, advancing with great order and steadiness to attack the British. The moment they appeared in view, the officer to whom the Duke had spoken, directed against them such a tremendous and effective fire, that they were mowed down by ranks. This gallant young officer had volunteered his services, and was one of the brigade attached to the second division of our army.]

[Footnote 25: It is, however, a remarkable fact, and does additional honour to the resolute, invincible constancy of British soldiers, that nearly all the officers, and the whole of the privates of the British army, were ignorant that there was any expectation of the arrival of the Prussians. Indeed, many of them never knew till after the battle was over that they had joined.]

[Footnote 26: In this part of Belgium, the wheat had this year grown to full five feet in height, and rye upwards of six feet: great quantities of the latter are grown, for it answers to the liberal definition of oats by Dr. Johnson, and is the food of men in England, and of horses in Flanders; nay, it is actually baked into bread for their use, and regularly given them at the inns where they stop to bait. Several soldiers of the Highland regiments who had got into a field of this gigantic rye on the 16th, were shot without even being able to see their enemy.]

[Footnote 27: Buonaparte slept at the farm of Caillon, near Planchenoit.]

[Footnote 28: These memorable beech-trees, pierced through and through with balls, have been since all cut down by the owner of Château Hougoumont!!!]

[Footnote 29: In other pits the corpses of the French had also been burned. About eight thousand of the French army fell in the attack of Hougoumont.]

[Footnote 30: That Buonaparte pretended to believe those troops to be French, although he must have known the contrary, is unquestionably true. Marshal Ney, in his account of the battle, states that he received a message from the emperor, brought by General Labedoyère, to inform him "that the French corps under Marshal Grouchy had arrived in the field, and attacked the left wing of the British and Prussians united. General Labedoyère rode along the lines, spreading this intelligence through the whole army."--Vide _Marshal Ney's Letter_. [_See_ Appendix, C.]]

[Footnote 31: This statement too is confirmed by Marshal Ney, who said, "that Buonaparte had entirely disappeared before the end of the battle." Let it be remembered that Ney's letter was written exactly a week after the battle, while Napoleon was still emperor, and still in Paris, and, if his statement was not true, a thousand witnesses could have contradicted it.]

[Footnote 32: The Duke himself reverentially said afterwards, "The finger of God was upon me."]

[Footnote 33: It was near seven o'clock when this circumstance happened. The Prussians had not appeared. The regiments which he led to the charge were the 71st, the 52nd, and the 95th. He also repeatedly rallied the Belgic regiments, and sometimes vainly exerted himself to make them face the enemy.]

[Footnote 34: [_See_ Appendix, D.]]

[Footnote 35: It was with a heart saddened by feelings which did him honour, that the Duke of Wellington returned from the battle. The letters which he wrote to the relations of the distinguished officers who had fallen, prove how truly he felt what he sorrowfully said, that "there is nothing more melancholy than a victory--except a defeat." I cannot resist inserting the following simple and affecting extract from one of his letters, written on the morning after the battle. "I cannot express to you," he writes, "the regret and sorrow with which I look around me, and contemplate the losses which I have sustained. They have quite broken me down. The glory resulting from such actions, so dearly bought, is no consolation to me."

The extract in the text is taken "From Circumstantial Details Relative to the Battle of Waterloo," which was written by the author to explain "A Panoramic Sketch of the Field of Battle," by her sister, both of which were published by J. Booth, London, in August, 1815, for the benefit of the Waterloo Fund.]

[Footnote 36: It is on the left of the road in going towards Waterloo, behind the farm-house of La Haye Sainte. But this tree, which ought to have been for ever sacred, has been CUT DOWN!!!]

[Footnote 37: Some soldiers' wives were, however, actuated by better motives, and, like the matrons of Hensberg, in times of old, seemed to think their best treasures were their husbands. Many of them rushed forward and carried their wounded husbands off the field at the hazard of their own lives. The wife of a sergeant in the 28th was severely wounded in two places by a shell, which struck her as she was carrying off her wounded husband. This anecdote was related to me by an eye-witness of the circumstance. The woman (respecting whom I inquired since my return to England) has, I understand, been allowed a pension from Chelsea Hospital. I heard of several similar instances of heroic conjugal affection; and I myself saw one poor woman, the wife of a private in the 27th, whose leg was dreadfully fractured by a musket-ball in rescuing her husband. When struck by the ball she fell to the ground with her husband, who was supposed to be mortally wounded, but she still refused to leave him, and they were removed together to the rear, and afterwards sent to Antwerp. The poor man survived the amputation of both his arms, and is still alive. The woman, who was then in a state of pregnancy, has, since her return to this country, given birth to a child, to which the Duke of York stood godfather.]

A TRIBUTE

TO THE

MEMORY OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

WRITTEN THE DAY AFTER HIS FUNERAL.

19th November, 1852.

The great Arthur, Duke of Wellington, whose latest achievements in war form the subject of the preceding pages, is no more. Long, long will the nation mourn the greatest, the most irreparable loss it ever sustained. The last sad and solemn scene has passed away. That great and wondrous man, who was its stay, its pride and glory, has been borne to his honoured tomb, amidst those splendid obsequies and funeral pomps with which his grateful country vainly sought to evince her unbounded admiration, her devoted love, and her profound veneration, for him who was her deliverer and preserver; to whom she owed her unprecedented triumphs in war--her prolonged blessings in peace.

"His funeral pall has been borne by nations--not by the nations he enslaved, but the nations he liberated;--the truncheons of eight armies have dropped from his grasp, and they were borne in the funeral procession by the companions and allies of his arms and victories."[38] But, nobler far, he was followed to the grave by the blessings and the tears of millions; and he, alone, amidst all the great generals and conquerors of the earth, merits the proud eulogium, that he was at once a true patriot and a benefactor to his species.