THE TARPEIAN ROCK
I
Rain, rain! all the morning! God's little tool--innocent-looking little
tool enough--for the remodelling of the destinies of this world.
God chose to soak the earth on that day--and the formidable artillery
that had swept the plateau of Austerlitz, the vales of Marengo, the
cemetery of Eylau, was rendered useless for the time being because up in
the inscrutable kingdom of the sky a cloud had chosen to burst--or had
burst by the will of God--and water soaked the soft, spongy soil of
Belgium and the wheels of artillery wagons sank axle-deep in the mud.
If only the ground had been dry! if only the great gambler--the genius,
the hero, call him what you will, but the gambler for all that--if only
he had staked his crown, his honour and that of Imperial France on some
other stake than his artillery! If only . . . ! But who shall tell?
Is it indeed a cloud-burst that changed the whole destinies of Europe?
Ye materialists, ye philosophers! answer that.
Is it to the rain that fell in such torrents until close on midday of
that stupendous 18th of June, that must be ascribed this wonderful and
all-embracing change that came over the destinies of myriads of people,
of entire nations, kingdoms and empires? Rather is it not because God
just on that day of all days chose to show this world of pigmies--great
men, valiant heroes, controlling genius and all-powerful
conquerors--the entire extent of His might--so far and no further--and
in order to show it, He selected that simple, seemingly futile means
. . . just a heavy shower of rain.
At half-past eleven the cannon began to roar on the plains of Mont Saint
Jean,[2] but not before. Before that it had rained: rained heavily, and
the ground was soaked through, and the all-powerful artillery of the
most powerful military genius of all times was momentarily powerless.
[Footnote 2: _i.e._ Waterloo.]
Had it not rained so persistently and so long that same compelling
artillery would have begun its devastating work earlier in the day--at
six mayhap, or mayhap at dawn, another five, six, seven hours to add to
the length of that awful day: another five, six, seven hours wherein to
tax the tenacity, the heroic persistence of the British troops: another
five, six, seven hours of dogged resistance on the one side, of
impetuous charges on the other, before the arrival of Blücher and his
Prussians and the turning of the scales of blind Justice against the
daring gambler who had staked his all.
But it was only at half-past eleven that the cannon began to roar, and
the undulating plain carried the echo like a thunder-roll from heaving
billow to heaving billow till it broke against the silent majesty of the
forest of Soigne.
Here with the forest as a background is the highest point of Mont
Saint Jean: and here beneath an overhanging elm--all day on
horseback--anxious, frigid and heroic, is Wellington--with a rain of
bullets all round him, watching, ceaselessly watching that horizon far
away, wrapped now in fog, anon in smoke and soon in gathering darkness:
watching for the promised Prussian army that was to ease the terrible
burden of that desperate stand which the British troops were bearing and
had borne all day with such unflinching courage and dogged tenacity.
It is in vain that his aides-de-camp beg him to move away from that
perilous position.
"My lord," cries Lord Hill at last in desperation, "if you are killed,
what are we to do?"
"The same as I do now," replies Wellington unmoved, "hold this place to
the last man."
Then with a sudden outburst of vehemence, that seems to pierce almost
involuntarily the rigid armour of British phlegm and British
self-control, he calls to his old comrades of Salamanca and Vittoria:
"Boys, which of us now can think of retreating? What would England think
of us, if we do?"
Heroic, unflinching and cool the British army has held its ground
against the overwhelming power of Napoleon's magnificent cavalry. Raw
recruits some of them, against the veterans of Jena and of Wagram! But
they have been ordered to hold the place to the last man, and in close
and serried squares they have held their ground ever since half-past
eleven this morning, while one after another the flower of Napoleon's
world-famed cavalry had been hurled against them.
Cuirassiers, chasseurs, lancers, up they come to the charge, like
whirlwinds up the declivities of the plateau. Like a whirlwind they rush
upon those stolid, immovable, impenetrable squares, attacking from every
side, making violent, obstinate, desperate onsets upon the stubborn
angles, the straight, unshakable walls of red coats; slashing at the
bayonets with their swords, at crimson breasts with their lances, firing
their pistols right between those glowing eyes, right into those firm
jaws and set teeth.
The sound of bullets on breastplates and helmets and epaulettes is like
a shower of hailstones upon a sheet of metal.
Twice, thrice, nay more--a dozen times--they return to the charge, and
the plateau gleams with brandished steel like a thousand flashes of
simultaneous fork-lightning on the vast canopy of a stormy sky.
From midday till after four, a kind of mysterious haze covers this field
of noble deeds. Fog after the rain wraps the gently-billowing Flemish
ground in a white semi-transparent veil--covers with impartial coolness
all the mighty actions, the heroic charges and still more heroic stands,
all the silent uncomplaining sufferings, the glorious deaths, all the
courage and all the endurance.
Through the grey mists we see a medley of moving colours--blue and grey
and scarlet and black--of shakos and sabretaches, of English and French
and Hanoverian and Scotch, of epaulettes and bare knees; we hear the
sound of carbine and artillery fire, the clank of swords and bayonets,
the call of bugle and trumpet and the wail of the melancholy pibroch:
tunics and gold tassels and kilts--a medley of sounds and of visions!
We see the attack on Hougoumont--the appearance of Bülow on the heights
of Saint Lambert--the charge of the Inniskillings and the Scots
Greys--the death of valiant Ponsonby. We see Marshal Ney Prince of
Moskowa--the bravest soldier in France--we see him everywhere where the
mêlée is thickest, everywhere where danger is most nigh. His magnificent
uniform torn to shreds, his gold lace tarnished, his hair and whiskers
singed, his face blackened by powder, indomitable, unconquered, superb,
we hear him cry: "Where are those British bullets? Is there not one left
for me?"
He knows--none better!--that the plains of Mont Saint Jean are the great
gambling tables on which the supreme gambler--Napoleon, once Emperor of
the French and master of half the world--had staked his all. "If we come
out of this alive and conquered," he cries to Heymès, his aide-de-camp,
"there will only be the hangman's rope left for us all."
And we see the gambler himself--Napoleon, Emperor still and still
certain of victory--on horseback all day, riding from end to end of his
lines; he is gayer than he has ever been before. At Marengo he was
despondent, at Austerlitz he was troubled: but at Waterloo he has no
doubts. The star of his destiny has risen more brilliant than ever
before.
"The day of France's glory has only just dawned," he calls, and his mind
is full of projects--the triumphant march back into Paris--the Germans
driven back to the Rhine--the English to the sea.
His only anxiety--and it is a slight one still--is that Grouchy with his
fresh troops is so late in arriving.
Still, the Prussians are late too, and the British cannot hold the place
for ever.
II
At three o'clock the fog lifts--the veil that has wrapped so many
sounds, such awful and wonderful visions, in a kind of mystery, is
lifted now, and it reveals . . . what? Hougoumont invested--Brave Baring
there with a handful of men--English, German, Brunswickians--making a
last stand with ten rounds of ammunition left to them per man, and the
French engineers already battering in the gates of the enclosing wall
that surrounds the château and chapel of Goumont: the farm of La Haye
Sainte taken--Ney there with his regiment of cuirassiers and five
battalions of the Old Guard: and the English lines on the heights of
Mont Saint Jean apparently giving way.
We see too a vast hecatomb: glory and might must claim their many
thousand victims: the dead and dying lie scattered like pawns upon an
abandoned chessboard, the humble pawns in this huge and final gamble for
supremacy and power, for national existence and for liberty. Hougoumont,
La Haye Sainte, Papelotte are sown with illustrious dead--but on the
plateau of Mont Saint Jean the British still hold their ground.
Wellington is still there on the heights, with the majestic trees of
Soigne behind him, the stately canopy of the elm above his head--more
frigid than before, more heroic, but also more desperately anxious.
"Blücher or nightfall," he sighs as a fresh cavalry charge is hurled
against those indomitable British squares. The thirteenth assault, and
still they stand or kneel on one knee, those gallant British boys;
bayonet in hand or carbine, they fire, fall out and re-form again:
shaken, hustled, encroached on they may be, but still they stand and
fire with coolness and precision . . . the ranks are not broken yet.
Officers ride up to the field-marshal to tell him that the situation has
become desperate, their regiments decimated, their men exhausted. They
ask for fresh orders: but he has only one answer for them:
"There are no fresh orders, save to hold out to the last man."
And down in the valley at La Belle Alliance is the great gambler--the
man who to-day will either be Emperor again--a greater, mightier monarch
than even he has ever been--or who will sink to a status which perhaps
the meanest of his erstwhile subjects would never envy.
But just now--at four o'clock--when the fog has lifted--he is flushed
with excitement, exultant in the belief in victory.
The English centre on Mont Saint Jean is giving way at last, he is told.
"The beginning of retreat!" he cries.
And he, who had been anxious at Austerlitz, despondent at Marengo, is
gay and happy and brimming full of hope.
"De Marmont," he calls to his faithful friend, "De Marmont, go ride to
Paris now; tell them that victory is ours! No, no," he adds excitedly,
"don't go all the way--ride to Genappe and send a messenger to Paris
from there--then come back to be with us in the hour of victory."
And Victor de Marmont rides off in order to proclaim to the world at
large the great victory which the Emperor has won this day over all the
armies of Europe banded and coalesced against him.
From far away on the road of Ohain has come the first rumour that
Blücher and his body of Prussians are nigh--still several hours' march
from Waterloo but advancing--advancing. For hours Wellington has been
watching for them, until wearily he has sighed: "Blücher or nightfall
alone can save us from annihilation now."
The rumour--oh! it was merely the whispering of the wind, but still a
rumour nevertheless--means fresh courage to tired, half-spent troops.
Even deeds of unparalleled heroism need the stimulus of renewed hope
sometimes.
The rumour has also come to the ears of the Emperor, of Ney and of all
the officers of the staff. They all know that those magnificent British
troops whom they have fought all day must be nigh to their final
desperate effort at last--with naught left to them but their stubborn
courage and that tenacity which has been ever since the wonder of the
world.
They know, these brave soldiers of Napoleon--who have fought and admired
the brave foe--that the 1st and 2nd Life Guards are decimated by now;
that entire British and German regiments are cut up; that Picton is
dead, the Scots Greys almost annihilated. They know what havoc their
huge cavalry charges have made in the magnificent squares of British
infantry; they know that heroism and tenacity and determination must
give way at last before superior numbers, before fresh troops, before
persistent, ever-renewed attacks.
Only a few fresh troops and Ney declares that he can conquer the final
dogged endurance of the British troops, before they in their turn
receive the support of Blücher and his Prussians, or before nightfall
gives them a chance of rest.
So he sends Colonel Heymès to his Emperor with the urgent message: "More
troops, I entreat, more troops and I can break the English centre before
the Prussians come!"
None knew better than he that this was the great hazard on which the
life and honour of his Emperor had been staked, that Imperial France was
fighting hand to hand with Great Britain, each for her national
existence, each for supremacy and might and the honour of her flag.
Imperial France--bold, daring, impetuous!
Great Britain--tenacious, firm and impassive!
Wellington under the elm-tree, calmly scanning the horizon while bullets
whiz past around his head, and ordering his troops to hold on to the
last man!
The Emperor on horseback under a hailstorm of shot and shell and bullets
riding from end to end of his lines!
Ney and his division of cuirassiers and grenadiers of the Old Guard had
just obeyed the Emperor's last orders which had been to take La Haye
Sainte at all costs: and the intrepid Maréchal now, flushed with
victory, had sent his urgent message to Napoleon:
"More troops! and I can yet break through the English centre before the
arrival of the Prussians."
"More troops?" cried the Emperor in despair, "where am I to get them
from? Am I a creator of men?"
And from far away the rumour: "Blücher and the Prussians are nigh!"
"Stop that rumour from spreading to the ears of our men! In God's name
don't let them know it," adjures Napoleon in a message to Ney.
And he himself sends his own staff officers to every point of the field
of battle to shout and proclaim the news that it is Grouchy who is
nigh, Grouchy with reinforcements, Grouchy with the victorious troops
from Ligny, fresh from conquered laurels!
And the news gives fresh heart to the Imperial troops:
"Vive l'Empereur!" they shout, more certain than ever of victory.
III
The grey day has yielded at last to the kiss of the sun. Far away at
Braine l'Alleud a vivid streak of gold has rent the bank of heavy
clouds. It is now close on seven o'clock--there are two more hours to
nightfall and Blücher is not yet here.
Some of the Prussians have certainly debouched on Plancenoit, but
Napoleon's Old Guard have turned them out again, and from Limale now
comes the sound of heavy cannonade as if Grouchy had come upon Blücher
after all and all hopes of reinforcements for the British troops were
finally at an end.
Napoleon--Emperor still and still flushed with victory--looks through
his glasses on the British lines: to him it seems that these are shaken,
that Wellington is fighting with the last of his men. This is the hour
then when victory waits--attentive, ready to bestow her crown on him who
can hold out and fight the longest--on him who at the last can deliver
the irresistible attack.
And Napoleon gives the order for the final attack, which must be more
formidable, more overpowering than any that have gone before. The
plateau of Mont Saint Jean, he commands, must be carried at all costs!
Cuirassiers, lancers and grenadiers, then, once more to the charge!
strew once more the plains of Waterloo with your dying and your dead!
Up, Milhaud, with your guards! Poret with your grenadiers! Michel with
your chasseurs! Up, ye heroes of a dozen campaigns, of a hundred
victories! Up, ye old growlers with the fur bonnets--Napoleon's
invincible Old Guard! With Ney himself to lead you! a hero among heroes!
the bravest where all are brave!
Have you ever seen a tidal wave of steel rising and surging under the
lash of the gale? So they come now, those cuirassiers and lancers and
chasseurs, their helmets, their swords, their lances gleaming in the
golden light of the sinking sun; in closed ranks, stirrup to stirrup
they swoop down into the valley, and rise again scaling the muddy
heights. Superb as on parade, with their finest generals at their head:
Milhaud, Hanrion, Michel, Mallet! and Ney between them all.
Splendid they are and certain of victory: they gallop past as if at a
revue on the Place du Carrousel opposite the windows of the Tuileries;
all to the repeated cry of "Vive l'Empereur!"
And as they gallop past the wounded and the dying lift themselves up
from the blood-stained earth, and raise their feeble voices to join in
that triumphant call: "Vive l'Empereur!" There's an old veteran there,
who fought at Austerlitz and at Jena; he has three stripes upon his
sleeve, but both his legs are shattered and he lies on the roadside
propped up against a hedge, and as the superb cavalry ride proudly by he
shouts lustily: "Forward, comrades! a last victorious charge! Long live
the Emperor!"
After that who was to blame? Was human agency to blame? Did Ney--the
finest cavalry leader in Napoleon's magnificent army, the veteran of an
hundred glorious victories--did he make the one blunder of his military
career by dividing his troops into too many separate columns rather than
concentrating them for the one all-powerful attack upon the British
centres? Did he indeed mistake the way and lead his splendid cavalry by
round-about crossways to the plateau instead of by the straight Brussels
road?
Or did the obscure traitor--over whom history has thrown a veil of
mystery--betray this fresh advance against the British centre to
Wellington?
Was any man to blame? Was it not rather the hand of God that had already
fallen with almighty and divine weight upon the ambitious and reckless
adventurer?--was it not the voice of God that spoke to him through the
cannon's roar of Waterloo: "So far but no farther shalt thou go! Enough
of thy will and thy power and thy ambition!--Enough of this scourge of
bloodshed and of misery which I have allowed thee to wield for so
long!--Enough of devastated homes, of starvation and of poverty! enough
of the fatherless and of the widow!"
And up above on the plateau the British troops hear the thunder of
thousands of horses' hoofs, galloping--galloping to this last charge
which must be irresistible. And sturdy, wearied hands, black with powder
and stained with blood, grasp more firmly still the bayonet, the rifle
or the carbine, and they wait--those exhausted, intrepid, valiant men!
they wait for that thundering charge, with wide-open eyes fixed upon the
crest of the hill--they wait for the charge--they are ready for
death--but they are not prepared to yield.
Along the edge of the plateau in a huge semicircle that extends from
Hougoumont to the Brussels road the British gunners wait for the order
to fire.
Behind them Wellington--eagle-eyed and calm, warned by God--or by a
traitor but still by God--of the coming assault on his positions--scours
the British lines from end to end: valiant Maitland is there with his
brigade of guards, and Adam with his artillery: there are Vandeleur's
and Vivian's cavalry and Colin Halkett's guards! heroes all! ready to
die and hearing the approach of Death in that distant roar of
thunder--the onrush of Napoleon's invincible cavalry.
Here, too, further out toward the east and the west, extending the
British lines as far as Nivelles on one side and Brussels on the other,
are William Halkett's Hanoverians, Duplat's German brigade, the Dutch
and the Belgians, the Brunswickers, and Ompteda's decimated corps. The
French royalists are here too, scattered among the foreign
troops--brother prepared to fight brother to the death! St. Genis is
among the Brunswickers. But Bobby Clyffurde is with Maitland's guards.
And now the wave of steel is surging up the incline: the gleam of
shining metal pierces the distant haze, casques and lances glitter in
the slowly sinking sun, whilst from billow to billow the echo brings to
straining ears the triumphant cry "Vive l'Empereur!"
Five minutes later the British artillery ranged along the crest has made
a huge breach in that solid, moving mass of horses and of steel. Quickly
the breach is repaired: the ranks close up again! This is a parade! a
review! The eyes of France are upon her sons! and "Vive l'Empereur!"
Still they come!
Volley after volley from the British guns makes deadly havoc among those
glistering ranks!
But nevertheless they come!
No halt save for the quick closing up into serried, orderly columns. And
then on with the advance!--like the surging up of a tidal wave against
the cliffs--on with the advance! up the slopes toward the crest where
those who are in the front ranks are mowed down by the British
guns--their places taken by others from the rear--those others mowed
down again, and again replaced--falling in their hundreds as they reach
the crest, like the surf that shivers and dies as it strikes against the
cliffs.
Ney's horse is killed under him--the fifth to-day--but he quickly
extricates himself from saddle and stirrups and continues on his way--on
foot, sword in hand--the sword that conquered at Austerlitz, at Eylau
and at Moskowa. Round him the grenadiers of the Old Guard--they with
the fur bonnets and the grizzled moustaches--tighten up their ranks.
They advance behind the cavalry! and after every volley from the British
guns they shout loudly: "Vive l'Empereur!"
And anon the tidal wave--despite the ebb, despite the constant breaking
of its surf--has by sheer force of weight hurled itself upon the crest
of the plateau.
The Brunswickers on the left are scattered. Cleeves and Lloyd have been
forced to abandon their guns: the British artillery is silenced and the
chasseurs of Michel hold the extreme edge of the upland, and turn a
deadly fusillade upon Colin Halkett's brigade already attacked by
Milhaud and his guards and now severely shaken.
"See the English General!" cries Duchaud to his cuirassiers, "he is
between two fires. He cannot escape."
No! he cannot but he seizes the colours of the 33rd whose young
lieutenant has just fallen, and who threaten to yield under the
devastating cross-fire: he brandishes the tattered colours, high up
above his head--as high as he can hold them--he calls to his men to
rally, and then falls grievously wounded.
But his guards have rallied. They stand firm now, and Duchaud, chewing
his grey moustache, murmurs his appreciation of so gallant a foe.
"That side will win," he mutters, "who can best keep on killing."
IV
"Up, guards, and at them!"
Maitland's brigade of guards had been crouching in the
corn--crouching--waiting for the order to charge--red-coated lions in
the ripening corn--ready to spring at the word.
And Death the harvester in chief stands by with his scythe ready for the
mowing.
"Up, guards, and at them!"
It is Maitland and his gallant brigade of guards--out of the corn they
rise and front the three battalions of Michel's chasseurs who were the
first to reach the highest point of the hill. They fire and Death with
his scythe has laid three hundred low. The tricolour flag is riddled
with grapeshot and Général Michel has fallen.
Then indeed the mighty wave of steel can advance no longer: for it is
confronted with an impenetrable wall--a wall of living, palpitating,
heroic men--men who for hours have stood their ground and fought for the
honour of Britain and of her flag--men who with set teeth and grim
determination were ready to sell their lives dearly if lives were to be
sold--men in fact who have had their orders to hold out to the last man
and who are going to obey those orders now.
"Up, guards, and at them," and surprised, bewildered, staggered, the
chasseurs pause: three hundred of their comrades lie dead or dying on
the ground. They pause: their ranks are broken: with his last dying sigh
brave Général Michel tries to rally them. But he breathes his last ere
he succeeds: his second in command loses his head. He should have
ordered a bayonet charge--sudden, swift and sure--against that red wall
that rushes at them with such staggering power: but he too tries to
rally his men, to reform their ranks--how can they re-form as for parade
under the deadly fire of the British guards?
Confusion begins its deathly sway: the chasseurs--under conflicting
orders--stand for full ten minutes almost motionless under that
devastating fire.
And far away on the heights of Frischemont the first line of Prussian
bayonets are seen silhouetted against the sunset sky.
Wellington has seen it. Blücher has come at last! One final effort, one
more mighty gigantic, superhuman struggle and the glorious end would be
in sight. He gives the order for a general charge.
"Forward, boys," cries Colonel Saltoun to his brigade. "Now is the
time!"
Heads down the British charge. The chasseurs are already scattered, but
behind the chasseurs, fronting Maitland's brigade, fronting Adam and his
artillery, fronting Saltoun and Colborne the Fire-Eater, the Old Guard
is seen to advance, the Old Guard who through twelve campaigns and an
hundred victories have shown the world how to conquer and how to die.
When Michel's chasseurs were scattered, when their General fell; when
the English lines, exhausted and shaken for a moment, rallied at
Wellington's call: "Up, guards, and at them!" when from far away on the
heights of Frischemont the first line of Prussian bayonets were
silhouetted against the sunset sky, then did Napoleon's old growlers
with their fur bonnets and their grizzled moustaches enter the line of
action to face the English guards. They were facing Death and knew it
but still they cried: "Vive l'Empereur!"
Heads down the British charge, whilst from Ohain comes the roar of
Blücher's guns, and up from the east, Zieten with the Prussians rushes
up to join in the assault.
Then the carnage begins: for the Old Guard is still advancing--in solid
squares--solemn, unmoved, magnificent: the bronze eagles on their
bonnets catch the golden rays of the setting sun. Thus they advance in
face of deadly fire: they fall like corn before the scythe. A sublime
suicide to the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" and not one of the brigade is
missing except those who are dead.
They know--none better--that this is the beginning of the end. Perhaps
they do not care to live if their Emperor is to be Emperor no longer,
if he is to be sent back to exile--to the prison of Elba or worse: and
so they advance in serried squares, while Maitland's artillery has
attacked them in the rear. Great gaps are made in those ranks, but they
are quickly filled up again: the squares become less solid, smaller, but
they remain compact. Still they advance.
But now close behind them Blücher's guns begin to thunder and Zieten's
columns are rapidly gaining ground: all round their fur bonnets a
hailstorm of grape-shot is raging whilst Adam's artillery is in action
within fifty paces at their flank. But the old growlers who had suffered
death with silent fortitude in the snows of Russia, who had been as
grand in their defeat at Moscow and at Leipzic as they had been in the
triumphs of Auerstadt or of Friedland--they neither staggered nor paused
in their advance. On they went--carrying their muskets on their
shoulders--a cloud of tirailleurs in front of them, right into the
cross-fire of the British guns: their loud cry of "Vive l'Empereur"
drowning that other awesome, terrible cry which someone had raised a
while ago and which now went from mouth to mouth: "We are betrayed!
_Sauve qui peut!_"
The Prussians were in their rear; the British were charging their front,
and panic had seized the most brilliant cavalry the world had ever seen.
"Sauve qui peut" is echoed now and re-echoed all along the crest of the
plateau. And the echo rolls down the slope into the valley where
Reille's infantry and a regiment of cuirassiers, and three more
battalions of chasseurs, are making ready to second the assault on Mont
Saint Jean. Reille and his infantry pause and listen: the cuirassiers
halt in their upward movement, whilst up on the ridge of the plateau
where Donzelot's grenadiers have attacked the brigade of Kempt and
Lambert and Pack, the whisper goes from mouth to mouth:
"We are betrayed! _Sauve qui peut!_"
Panic seizes the younger men: they turn their horses' heads back toward
the slopes. The stampede has commenced: very soon it grows. The British
in front, the Prussians in the rear: "Sauve qui peut!"
Ney amongst them is almost unrecognisable. His face is coal-black with
powder: he has no hat, no epaulettes and only half a sword: rage,
anguish, bitterness are in his husky voice as he adjures, entreats,
calls to the demoralised army--and insults it, execrates it in turn. But
nothing but Death will stop that army now in its headlong flight.
"At least stop and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of
honour," he calls.
But the voice which led these same men to victory at Moskowa has lost
its potency and its magic. The men cry "Vive Ney!" but they do not
stand. The stampede has become general. In the valley below the infantry
has started to run up the slope of La Belle Alliance: after it the
cavalry with reins hanging loose, stirrups lost, casques, sabretaches,
muskets--anything that impedes--thrown into the fields to right and
left. La Haye Sainte is evacuated, Hougoumont is abandoned; Papelotte,
Plancenoit, the woods, the plains are only filled with running men and
the thunder of galloping chargers.
Alone the Old Guard has remained unshaken. Whilst all around them what
was once the Grand Army is shattered, destroyed, melted like ice before
a devastating fire, they have continued to advance, sublime in their
fortitude, in their endurance, their contempt for death. One by one
their columns are shattered and there are none now to replace those that
fall. And as the gloom of night settles on this vast hecatomb on the
plateau of Mont Saint Jean the conquerors of Jena and Austerlitz and
Friedland make their last stand round the bronze eagle--all that is left
to them of the glories of the past.
And when from far away the cry of "Sauve qui peut" has become only an
echo, and the bronze eagle shattered by a bullet lies prone upon the
ground shielded against capture in its fall by a circling mountain of
dead, when finally Night wraps all the heroism, the glory, the sorrow
and the horrors of this awful day in the sable folds of her
all-embracing mantle, Napoleon's Old Guard has ceased to be.
And out in the western sky a streak of vivid crimson like human blood
has broken the bosom of the clouds: the glow of the sinking sun rests on
this huge dissolution of what was once so glorious and unconquered and
great. Then it is that Wellington rides to the very edge of the plateau
and fronts the gallant British troops at this supreme hour of oncoming
victory, and lifting his hat high above his head he waves it three times
in the air.
And from right and left they come, British, Hanoverians, Belgians and
Brunswickers to deliver the final blow to this retreating army, wounded
already unto death.
They charge now: they charge all of them, cavalry, infantry, gunners,
forty thousand men who have forgotten exhaustion, forgotten what they
have suffered, forgotten what they had endured. On they come with a rush
like a torrent let loose; the confusion of sounds and sights becomes a
pandemonium of hideousness, bugles and drums and trumpets and bagpipes
all mingle, merge and die away in the fast gathering twilight.
And the tidal wave of steel recedes down the slopes of Mont Saint Jean,
into the valley and thence up again on Belle Alliance, with a mêlée of
sounds like the breaking of a gigantic line of surf against the
irresistible cliffs, or the last drawn-out sigh of agony of dying giants
in primeval times.
V
On the road to Genappe in the mystery of the moonlit night a solitary
rider turned into a field and dismounted.
Carried along for a time by the stream of the panic, he found himself
for a moment comparatively alone--left as it were high and dry by the
same stream which here had divided and flowed on to right and left of
him. He wore a grey redingote and a shabby bicorne hat.
Having dismounted he slipped the bridle over his arm and started to walk
beside his horse back toward Waterloo.
A sleep-walker in pursuit of his dream!
Heavy banks of grey clouds chased one another with mad fury across the
midsummer sky, now obscuring the cold face of the moon, now allowing her
pale, silvery rays to light up this gigantic panorama of desolation and
terror and misery. To right and left along the roads and lanes, across
grassland and cornfields, canals, ditches and fences the last of the
Grand Army was flying headlong, closely pursued by the Prussians. And at
the farm of La Belle Alliance Wellington and Blücher had met and shaken
hands, and had thanked God for the great and glorious victory.
But the sleep-walker went on in pursuit of his dream--he walked with
measured steps beside his weary horse, his eyes fixed on the horizon far
away, where the dull crimson glow of smouldering fires threw its last
weird light upon this vast abode of the dead and the dying. He walked
on--slowly and mechanically back to the scene of the overwhelming
cataclysm where all his hopes lay irretrievably buried. He walked
on--majestic as he had never been before, in the brilliant throne-room
of the Tuileries or the mystic vastness of Notre Dame when the Imperial
crown sat so ill upon his plebeian head. . . . He walked on--silent,
exalted and great--great through the magnitude of his downfall.
And to right and left of him, like the surf that recedes on a pebbly
beach, the last of his once invincible army was flying back to
France--back in the wake of those who had been lucky enough to fly
before--bodies of men who had been the last to realise that an heroic
stand round a fallen eagle could no longer win back that which was lost,
and that if life be precious it could only be had in flight--bits of
human wreckage too, forgotten by the tide--they all rolled and rushed
and swept past the silent wayfarer . . . quite close at times: so close
that every man could see him quite distinctly, could easily distinguish
by the light of the moon the grey redingote and the battered hat which
they all knew so well--which they had been wont to see in the forefront
of an hundred victorious charges.
Now half-blinded by despair and by panic they gazed with uncomprehending
eyes on the man and on the horse and merely shouted to him as they
rushed galloping or running by, "The Prussians are on us! _Sauve qui
peut!_"
And the dreamer still looked on that distant crimson glow and in the
bosom of those wind-swept clouds he saw the pictures of Austerlitz and
Jena and Wagram, pictures of glory and might and victory, and the shouts
which he heard were the ringing cheers round the bivouac fires of long
ago.