_Waterloo_
Liège, 6 _Oct._ 1815. Six p.m.
My dear friend,
I have a happy habit of making the best of all things; and being just
at this time as uncomfortable as the dust and bustle, and all the
disagreeables of an inn in a large filthy manufacturing city can make
me, I have called for pen, ink, and paper, and am actually writing in
the bar, the door open to the yard opposite to this unwiped table, the
doors open to the public room, where two men are dining, and talking
French, and a woman servant at my elbow is lighting a fire for our
party. Presently the folding-doors are to be shut, the ladies are to
descend from their chambers, the bar will be kept appropriated to our
house, the male part of the company will get into good humour, dinner
will be ready, and then I must lay aside the grey goose-quill. As a
preliminary to these promised comforts, the servant is mopping the
hearth, which is composed (like a tesselated pavement) of little
bricks about two inches long by half an inch wide, set within a broad
black stone frame. The fuel is of fire-balls, a mixture of pulverized
coal and clay. I have seen a great deal and heard a great deal,--more,
indeed, than I can keep pace with in my journal, though I strive hard
to do it; but I minute down short notes in my pencil-book with all
possible care, and hope, in the end, to lose nothing....
Flanders is a most interesting country. Bruges, the most striking city
I have ever seen, an old city in perfect preservation. It seems as if
not a house had been built during the last two centuries, and not a
house suffered to pass to decay. The poorest people seem to be well
lodged, and there is a general air of sufficiency, cleanliness,
industry, and comfort, which I have never seen in any other place. The
cities have grown worse as we advanced. At Namur we reached a dirty
city, situated in a romantic country; the Meuse there reminded me of
the Thames from your delightful house, an island in size and shape
resembling that upon which I have often wished for a grove of poplars,
coming just in the same position. From thence along the river to this
abominable place, the country is, for the greater part, as lovely as
can be imagined....
Our weather hitherto has been delightful. This was especially
fortunate at Waterloo and at Ligny, where we had much ground to walk
over. It would surprise you to see how soon nature has recovered from
the injuries of war. The ground is ploughed and sown, and grain and
flowers and seeds already growing over the field of battle, which is
still strewn with vestiges of the slaughter, caps, cartridges, boxes,
hats, &c. We picked up some French cards and some bullets, and we
purchased a French pistol and two of the eagles which the infantry
wear upon their caps. What I felt upon this ground, it would be
difficult to say; what I saw, and still more what I heard, there is no
time at present for saying. In prose and in verse you shall some day
hear the whole. At Les Quatre Bras, I saw two graves, which probably
the dogs or the swine had opened. In the one were the ribs of a human
body, projecting through the mould; in the other, the whole skeleton
exposed. Some of our party told me of a third, in which the worms were
at work, but I shrunk from the sight. You will rejoice to hear that
the English are as well spoken of for their deportment in peace as in
war. It is far otherwise with the Prussians. Concerning them there is
but one opinion; their brutality is said to exceed that of the French,
and of their intolerable insolence I have heard but too many proofs.
That abominable old Frederic made them a military nation, and this is
the inevitable consequence. This very day we passed a party on their
way towards France--some hundred or two. Two gentlemen and two ladies
of the country, in a carriage, had come up with them; and these
ruffians would not allow them to pass, but compelled them to wait and
follow the slow pace of foot soldiers! This we ourselves saw. Next to
the English, the Belgians have the best character for discipline....
I bought at Bruges a French History of Brazil, just published by M.
Alphonse de Beauchamp, in 3 vols. 8vo. He says, in his Preface, that
having finished the first two volumes, he thought it advisable to see
if any new light had been thrown upon the subject by modern authors.
Meantime, a compilation upon this history had appeared in England,
but the English author, Mr. Southey, had brought no new lights; he had
promised much for his second volume, but the hope of literary Europe
had been again deceived, for this second volume, so emphatically
promised, had not appeared. I dare say no person regrets this delay
so much as M. Beauchamp, he having stolen the whole of his two first
volumes, and about the third part of the other, from the very Mr.
Southey whom he abuses. He has copied my references as the list of his
own authorities (MSS. and all), and he has committed blunders which
prove, beyond all doubt, that he does not understand Portuguese. I
have been much diverted by this fellow's impudence.
The table is laid, and the knives and forks rattling a pleasant note
of preparation, as the woman waiter arranges them.
God bless you! I have hurried through the sheet, and thus pleasantly
beguiled what would have been a very unpleasant hour. We are all well,
and your god-daughter has seen a live emperor at Brussels. I feel the
disadvantage of speaking French ill, and understanding it by the ear
worse. Nevertheless, I speak it without remorse, make myself somehow
or other understood, and get at what I want to know. Once more, God
bless you, my dear friend.