1815.] ADVANCE OF NAPOLEON-HIS ARRIVAL AT PARIS. 27 On the 14th of March, Marshal Ney, who on the 7th had taken leave of the king with the assurance that he would bring back Bonaparte in an iron cage, published a proclamation to the army at Auxerre, which thus begins :"Officers and Soldiers, the cause of the Bourbons is irrevocably lost: the legitimate dynasty which the French nation has adopted is about again to mount the throne." It was in vain that in the two Chambers at Paris Napoleon was denounced as a public enemy, and that the benefits of a charter under a constitutional monarch were set forth in contrast with the principles of a military despot. The troops could no longer be relied upon. On the 19th of March the king, by proclamation, dissolved the Chambers. On the 20th, after midnight, Louis and the royal family left the Tuileries. On the 25th, his Court was established at Ghent. Napoleon was at Fontainebleau on the 19th. On the 21st he slept in the palace of the Tuileries, having been borne up the grand staircase by an enthusiastic crowd, and welcomed in the familiar saloons by ladies of his old court, who showered upon him bouquets of violets. The wives and daughters of his marshals and generals had been neglected or openly affronted by those who had come to the levées of the restored monarch with an imprudent contempt of a revolutionary aristocracy: the ladies of the imperial court had now their revenge. On the 6th of April, the Prince Regent sent a message to the two houses of Parliament, that the events which had recently occurred in France had induced his royal highness to give directions for the augmentation of the land and sea forces. It was also announced that the Prince Regent had lost no time in "entering into communication with the Allied Powers for the purpose of forming such a concert as might most effectually provide for the general and permanent security of Europe." The Treaty of Vienna of the 23rd of March had bound the Allied Powers to make war together upon Napoleon, and to conclude no separate peace with him. The resistance in the British Parliament to the determination to engage in this war was very feeble. In the debate on the Address for arming and acting in concert with our Allies, Mr. Whitbread moved an amendment, to implore the Regent to use his utmost endeavours to preserve peace. It was rejected by a majority of 220 against 37. A second motion for an Address, praying the Crown not to involve the country in a war upon the ground of excluding a particular person from the government of France, was rejected by a majority of 273 against 72. The enormous sums demanded by the government were voted almost without inquiry. When a budget was brought forward on the 14th of June, which included a total charge of eighty-one millions, of which thirty-six millions were a loan, there were "not more than seventy persons present in the house, though late in the evening." * Napoleon, on the 30th of April, had issued a decree convoking the Electoral Colleges for the nomination of Deputies to the Chamber of Representatives. The greater number of the people abstained from voting. It was necessary to do something striking, and Napoleon determined to revive the old revolutionary fête of the Champ de Mai. It was in this assembly of two hundred thousand of both sexes that he announced that the wishes of the nation having brought him back to the throne, his whole thoughts were * Lord Colchester's "Diary," vol. ii. p. 546. 28 BRITISH PARLIAMENT DECLARES FOR WAR. [1815. turned to the "founding our liberty on a Constitution resting on the wishes and interests of the people." This Constitution was called "Acte additionel aux Constitutions de l'Empire." It was a very literal copy of the Charter of Louis XVIII., and had been forced upon the emperor by a party who believed that a limited monarchy, with representative institutions, might be a successful experiment whether under a Bourbon or a Bonaparte. Napoleon had addressed letters to the European potentates, professing his moderate and peaceful intentions. No faith could be placed in his professions, and his letters were unanswered. There could only be one solution of the question between Napoleon and the Allied Powers. In the Champ de Mai he exclaimed, "The princes who resist all popular rights are determined on war. For war we must prepare." The Chambers commenced their functions, not in the old spirit of the Empire, but as if they were really trusted with power, as portions of that Constitution to which the emperor had sworn in the Champ de Mai. His real security depended little upon the state of public opinion and upon the subservience of the legislature, but upon the efficiency with which he could reorganize his army. Devoting all his energies to this task, he was very soon prepared with a bold plan of operation. He would not wait for the attacks of his enemies, but would pass the French frontiers, and engage with some portions of the allied armies before they could unite. On the 11th of June, having appointed a Provisional Government to act in concert with the Chambers, he left Paris in the evening. On the 13th he was at Avesnes. On the 15th he had crossed the frontier, and was at the head of 122,000 men, at Charleroi in the Netherlands. Most of the garrisons of the Netherlands had been strengthened by the vigilance of the duke of Wellington; Charleroi was amongst the weakest. In addition to the general belief that Napoleon would remain on the defensive, the uncertainty as to the line of operations which he would choose if he determined on the offensive by an invasion of the Low Countries, forbade a concentration of force upon any one of the assailable points of the frontier. It was open to Napoleon to attack the Prussians by the Meuse; to enter by Mons, to drive back Wellington upon Antwerp; or to advance by the Sambre, upon the point of junction of the two armies. The four Prussian corps of Blucher were at Charleroi, at Namur, at Dinant, and at Liège. The army of Wellington, consisting of British, Netherlanders, and Hanoverians, was distributed in cantonments, a reserve occupying the environs of Brussels, where the duke had established his head-quarters. The troops under his command, however separated, could easily unite, and they had the most precise directions how to act in the case of the French passing the frontier. The statement that Wellington had received false information from Fouché upon Napoleon's movements, and was therefore surprised when Napoleon was upon the Sambre, is thus contradicted by the duke's intimate friend, lord Ellesmere: “I can assert on the duke's personal authority, and on that of others in his confidence at head-quarters, that the duke neither acted on nor received any such intelligence as that supposed, from Fouché or any one else: that he acted on reports received from his own outposts and those of his allies, the Prussians, and on these alone." The surprise is supposed to be confirmed by the fact that Wellington attended a ball at Brussels after hostilities had begun. Upon this, lord Ellesmere says, "it is only necessary to state that 1815.] NAPOLEON AT CHARLEROI-WELLINGTON'S POSITION. 29 Napoleon's advance was known to the duke long before the period fixed for that festivity; that the question whether it should be allowed to proceed had been fully discussed and decided in the affirmative. It was held that a recall of the invitations would create premature alarm among the population of Brussels, and premature encouragement to a pretty numerous party in its walls disaffected to the cause of the Allies." The Despatches of Wellington sufficiently prove that he was perfectly aware of the advance of Napoleon when he went to the ball. At half-past nine on the evening of the 15th, he wrote to the duke de Berri, that the enemy attacked the Prussian posts at Thuin that morning, and appeared to threaten Charleroi. "I have ordered our troops to prepare to march at break of day." The duke had issued the most precise directions for the several positions which the whole of his army were to take up that night; every separate direction concluding with the emphatic words, " to be in readiness to move at a moment's notice." * For the troops, who were immediately under his eye, the order was "to be in readiness to march from Brussels at a moment's notice :" that moment arrived even before the break of day. The duke quietly supped with the gay assembly at the duchess of Richmond's; he and his generals gradually retired; the drums beat the alarm; the bugle-call gave the signal for "mounting in hot haste;" the bagpipes summoned the Highlanders; the artillery was rumbling through the streets; the measured tread of infantry, and the sharp rattle of cavalry, were heard in every quarter of the old town. The whole scene was changed from revelry to war before the "last light had fled" from that "banquet-hall." The reserve at Brussels were all on the march through the forest of Soignies, on the road to Quatre Bras, in the morning twilight. The duke of Brunswick had gone forth, heading his gallant countrymen in their sombre livery of grief for his father's death at Jena. The prince of Orange had marched to the front the moment he left the ball-room. The duke of Wellington was soon up with his men, who cheered him as he passed. He well knew the ground where his great struggle was to be made. He could calculate with exactness the moment when the divisions would join him upon the road towards the enemy. There was an interval only of a few hours before the march from Brussels, and the gathering of other divisions on the roads which led to Quatre Bras, were succeeded by a battle. The Prussians, under general Ziethen, who had been driven from Charleroi on the 15th, had retired upon Fleurus. Marshal Blücher had concentrated the Prussian army upon Sombref, with the villages of St. Amand and Ligny in front of his position. If Wellington is considered by some to have been tardy in concentrating his troops in the neighbourhood of the Sambre, Napoleon is equally liable to reproach in having believed that Blücher was concentrating his troops about Namur, and in having neglected to attack the separate corps early in the morning of the 16th, before they had nearly all united. Bulow's corps, however, had not come up to join Blücher, when Napoleon attacked him in front, expecting that Ney would also have attacked him in the rear. The movement of Ney was interferred with by the timely arrival of Sir Thomas Picton's division at Quatre Bras, in company with the Brunswickers and the contingent of * "Despatches," vol. xii. p. 472. 30 ENGLISH ARMY MARCHES-LIGNY-QUATRE BRAS. [1815. Nassau. Wellington had himself ridden to Sombref, and had conferred with Blücher before the battle known as that of Ligny had begun. He had returned to Quatre Bras by four o'clock, and then took the command of his own army. The battle between the French and the Prussians lasted for three or four hours. Although Blücher maintained his position, he was so weakened by the severity of the contest, that he marched in the night and concentrated his army upon Wavre. The British also maintained their position, " and completely defeated and repulsed," says the duke, "all the enemy's attempts to get possession of it." Our loss was severe, amounting in killed, wounded, and missing, to more than 2,500 men. The duke was very composed after this first trial of strength. The Spanish general, Alava, saw at the close of that day his old companion in the Peninsular war sitting by the road-side; and to his surprise was asked, "Were you at Lady's party last night ?"* The movement of Blücher rendered a correspondent movement necessary upon the part of Wellington. At ten o'clock on the morning of the 17th he retired from Quatre Bras upon Waterloo, a distance of about seven miles. Between Waterloo and Wavre was a distance of about ten miles, through a country of difficult defiles. On the 17th the French made no attempt to pursue Blücher. A large body of French cavalry followed the English cavalry under lord Uxbridge; and at Genappe they were charged by the first Life Guards. In the course of the day Napoleon moved forward his army upon the same road over which Wellington had marched earlier in the morning. Wellington had taken up his position in advance of the village of Waterloo, near Mont St. Jean, where the high roads from Charleroi and Nivelles crossed. On the night of the 17th, and early in the morning of the 18th, Napoleon collected his whole army, with the exception of a corps which had been sent under Grouchy to observe Blücher, on a range of heights in front of the British position. The battle field of Waterloo has been described again and again by observers capable of impressing us by the spirit or the accuracy of their pictures. The poet, the historian, and the tactician, have made every point in some degree familiar to us. Byron says, "I went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination. I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Cheronea, and Marathon; and the field around Mount St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive balo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned."+ Before Byron had gone over the field, it had been called "this modern Marathon." During the lapse of nearly half a century, it is not the "undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot," which has made this ground such an object of curiosity to English visitors of the continent. Neither are there many who think that its interest requires "a better cause." So many of * Lord Ellesmere "Life of Wellington." 1815.] THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. 31 our countrymen have traversed this battle field, and have thus acquired a knowledge which no description can convey, that we shall only attempt briefly to indicate a few of its peculiar aspects in connection with a very general narrative of the leading events of the great day of the 18th of June.* On the ground which we call the field of Waterloo (although the battle was fought about a mile and a half in advance of that village), Wellington had taken up his position, with a certain knowledge, derived from several previous examinations, of its capabilities for defence. "He used to describe the line of ground between the farm of La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont as resembling the curtain of a bastion, with these two positions for its angles."+ The first care of the duke was to occupy with sufficient force these two angles, Hougoumont, near the Nivelles road, in front of the right centre, and La Haye Sainte, close to the Genappe road, in front of the left centre. The right of his position was thrown back to a ravine near Braine Merbes, which was occupied; and its left extended to the chateau of Frichermont, situated on a height above the hamlet of La Haye. The undulating plain upon which the army of English, Belgians, and Germans looked from the ridge on which they stood on the evening of the 17th was covered with crops of grain, of potatoes, and of clover. It had rained incessantly through the day; as night advanced the torrents of rain were accompanied with thunder and lightning. The troops had to bivouack upon the wet crops, whilst the generals and their staff obtained shelter in the adjacent villages. Wellington had his head-quarters in a house opposite the church at Waterloo. At three o'clock in the morning of the 18th he was writing to sir Charles Stuart at Brussels, with a calm confidence in the result of the almost inevitable struggle of that day. "The Prussians will be ready again in the morning for anything. Pray keep the English quiet if you can. Let them all prepare to move, but neither be in a hurry or a fright, as all will yet turn out well." At the same hour he wrote a long letter in French to the duke de Berri, in which he says, "I hope, and moreover I have every reason to believe, that all will go well." At the time of writing this letter, only a portion of the French army had taken up their ground on the opposite side of the valley, and he thought it possible that the main attack might be made at Hal, on the great road from Mons to Brussels. He had there stationed 7000 men, in addition to a large number of troops under the command of the Prince of Orange. The possible success of the enemy there, appeared to him "the only risk we run." His army was a little superior in number to that of Napoleon, but it was inferior in artillery. There was however a far greater disparity. Wellington commanded an army of various cations, who had never before fought together; and even some of his British troops were new levies. In the summer of 1814, a large number of his famous Peninsular soldiers had been sent to America. Napoleon, on the contrary, had an army which he could wield with the most perfect assurance of unity of action, * The author visited the field in May, 1861, in company with his friend, Mr. W. Harvey, who then made the two sketches of Hougoumont which illustrate this chapter. Lord Ellesmere. "Despatches," vol. xii. pp. 476, 477. |