where we were now standing, passes the farm-house of La Haye Sainte,
and ascends the opposite height, on the summit of which stands La
Belle Alliance, which was occupied by the French. We walked down the
hill to La Haye Sainte--its walls and slated roofs were shattered and
pierced through in every direction with cannon shot. We could not get
admittance into it, for it was completely deserted by its inhabitants.
Three wounded officers of the 42nd and 92nd Regiments were standing
here to survey the scene: they had all of them been wounded in the
battle of the 16th. One of them had lost an arm, another was on
crutches, and the third seemed to be very ill. Their carriage waited
for them, as they were unable to walk. After some conversation with
them, we proceeded up the hill to the hamlet of La Belle Alliance.
The principal house on the left side of the road was pierced through
and through with cannon balls, and the offices behind it were a heap
of dust from the fire of the British artillery. Notwithstanding the
ruinous state of the house, it was filled with inhabitants. Its broken
walls, "its looped and windowed wretchedness," might indeed defend them
sufficiently "well from seasons such as these," when the soft breezes
and the bright beams of summer played around it--but against "the
pelting of the storm," it would afford them but a sorry shelter. It was
immediately to be repaired; but I rejoiced that it yet remained in its
dilapidated state.
The house was filled with vestiges of the battle. Cuirasses, helmets,
swords, bayonets, feathers, brass eagles, and crosses of the Legion
of Honour, were to be purchased here. The house consisted of three
rooms, two in front, and a very small one behind. On the opposite side
of the road is a little cottage, forming part of the hamlet of La
Belle Alliance; and at a short distance, by the way side, is another
low-roofed cottage, which was pointed out to us as the place where
Buonaparte breakfasted on the morning of the battle. Farther along this
road, but not in sight, was the village of Planchenoit, which was the
head-quarters of the French on the night of the 17th.[27]
We crossed the field from this place to Château Hougoumont, descending
to the bottom of the hill, and again ascending the opposite side. Part
of our way lay through clover; but I observed that the corn on the
French position was not nearly so much beaten down as on the English,
which might naturally be expected, as they attacked us incessantly,
and we acted on the defensive, until that last, general, and decisive
charge of our whole army was made, before which theirs fled in
confusion. In some places patches of corn nearly as high as myself
was standing. Among them I discovered many a forgotten grave, strewed
round with melancholy remnants of military attire. While I loitered
behind the rest of the party, searching among the corn for some relics
worthy of preservation, I beheld a human hand, almost reduced to a
skeleton, outstretched above the ground, as if it had raised itself
from the grave. My blood ran cold with horror, and for some moments I
stood rooted to the spot, unable to take my eyes from this dreadful
object, or to move away: as soon as I recovered myself, I hastened
after my companions, who were far before me, and overtook them just as
they entered the wood of Hougoumont. Never shall I forget the dreadful
scene of death and destruction which it presented. The broken branches
were strewed around, the green beech leaves fallen before their time,
and stripped by the storm of war, not by the storm of Nature, were
scattered over the surface of the ground, emblematical of the fate of
the thousands who had fallen on the same spot in the summer of their
days. The return of spring will dress the wood of Hougoumont once more
in vernal beauty, and succeeding years will see it flourish:
"But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn,
Oh! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!"
The trunks of the trees had been pierced in every direction with
cannon-balls. In some of them I counted the holes, where upwards of
thirty had lodged:[28] yet they still lived, they still bore their
verdant foliage, and the birds still sang amidst their boughs. Beneath
their shade the hare-bell and violet were waving their slender
heads; and the wild raspberry at their roots was ripening its fruit.
I gathered some of it with the bitter reflection, that amidst the
destruction of human life these worthless weeds and flowers had escaped
uninjured.
Melancholy were the vestiges of death that continually met our eyes.
The carnage here had indeed been dreadful. Amongst the long grass lay
remains of broken arms, shreds of gold lace, torn epaulets, and pieces
of cartridge boxes; and upon the tangled branches of the brambles
fluttered many a tattered remnant of a soldier's coat. At the outskirts
of the wood, and around the ruined walls of the Château, huge piles
of human ashes were heaped up, some of which were still smoking. The
countrymen told us, that so great were the numbers of the slain, that
it was impossible entirely to consume them. Pits had been dug, into
which they had been thrown, but they were obliged to be raised far
above the surface of the ground. These dreadful heaps were covered with
piles of wood, which were set on fire, so that underneath the ashes lay
numbers of human bodies unconsumed.
The Château itself, the beautiful seat of a Belgic gentleman, had been
set on fire by the explosion of shells during the action, which had
completed the destruction occasioned by a most furious cannonade. Its
broken walls and falling roof presented a most melancholy spectacle:
not melancholy merely from its being a pile of ruins, but from the
vestiges it presented of that tremendous and recent warfare by which
those ruins had been caused. Its huge blackened beams had fallen in
every direction upon the crumbling heaps of stone and plaster, which
were intermixed with broken pieces of the marble flags, the carved
cornices, and the gilded mirrors, that once ornamented it.
We went into the garden, which had sustained comparatively little
injury, while every thing around it was laid waste. Its gay parterres
and summer flowers made it look like an island in the desert. A
berçeau, or covered walk, ran round it, shaded with creeping plants,
amongst which honey-suckles and jessamines were intermixed, en
treillage. The trees were loaded with fruit; the myrtles and fig-trees
were flourishing in luxuriance, and the scarlet geraniums, July
flowers, and orange-trees, were in full blow. My native country can
boast of no such beauty as bloomed at Château Hougoumont: its rugged
clime produces no fruitful fig-trees, no flowers rich in the fragrance
of orange blossom:--but it is the land of heroes!
"Man is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky."
I saw the pure and polished leaves of the laurel shining in the sun,
and I could not restrain my tears at the thought that the laurels, the
everlasting laurels which England had won upon this spot, were steeped
in the heart-blood of thousands of her brave, her lamented sons. But
if not immortal in their lives, they will be so in their fame: their
laurels will never wither; and no British heart, henceforward, will
ever visit this hallowed spot without paying a tribute of veneration
and regret to those gallant spirits who here fought and fell for their
country.
At the garden gate I found the holster of a British officer, entire,
but deluged with blood. In the inside was the maker's name--Beazley
and Hetse, No. 4, Parliament-street. All around were strewed torn
epaulets, broken scabbards, and sabretashes stained and stiffened
with blood--proofs how dreadfully the battle had raged. The garden
and courts were lined during the engagement with Nassau troops, as
sharpshooters, who did great execution.
A poor countryman, with his wife and children, inhabited a miserable
shed amongst these deserted ruins. This unfortunate family had only
fled from the spot on the morning of the battle. Their little dwelling
had been burnt, and all their property had perished in the flames. They
had scarcely clothes to cover them, and were destitute of everything.
Yet the poor woman, as she told me the story of their distresses, and
wept over the baby that she clasped to her breast, blessed heaven that
she had preserved her children. She seemed most grateful for a little
assistance, took me into her miserable habitation, and gave me the
broken sword of a British officer of infantry (most probably of the
Guards), which was the only thing she had left; and which, with some
other relics before collected, I preserved as carefully as if they had
been the most valuable treasures.
It is a remarkable circumstance that amidst this scene of destruction,
and surrounded on all sides by the shattered walls and smoking piles
of "this ruined and roofless abode," the little chapel belonging to
the Château stood uninjured. Its preservation appeared to these simple
peasants an unquestionable miracle; and we felt more inclined to
respect than to wonder at the superstitious veneration with which they
regarded it. No shot nor shell had penetrated its consecrated walls;
no sacrilegious hand had dared to violate its humble altar, which was
still adorned with its ancient ornaments and its customary care. A type
of that blessed religion to which it was consecrated, it stood alone,
unchanged, amidst the wreck of earthly greatness--as if to speak to our
hearts, amidst the horrors of the tomb, the promises of immortality;
and to recal our thoughts from the crimes and sorrows of earth to the
hopes and happiness of heaven. The voice of the Divinity himself within
his holy temple seemed to tell us, that those whom we lamented here,
and who, in the discharge of their last and noblest duty to their
country, had met on the field of honour "the death that best becomes
the brave,"--should receive in another and a better world their great
reward! Blackened piles of human ashes surrounded us; but I felt that
though "the dust returns to the earth, the spirit returns unto Him that
gave it."
The countryman led me to one of these piles within the gates of the
court belonging to the Château, where, he said, the bodies of three
hundred of the British Guardsmen who had so gallantly defended it, had
been burnt as they had been found, heaped in death.[29] I took some of
the ashes and wrapped them up in one of the many sheets of paper that
were strewed around me; perhaps those heaps that then blackened the
surface of this scene of desolation are already scattered by the winds
of winter, and mingled unnoticed with the dust of the field; perhaps
the few sacred ashes which I then gathered at Château Hougoumont are
all that is now to be found upon earth of the thousands who fell upon
this fatal field!
It was not without regret that we left this ever-memorable spot,
surrounded as it was by horrors that shocked the mind, and vestiges
that were revolting to the senses. Still we lingered around it, till
at length, after gazing for the last time at its ruined archways and
desolated courts, we struck into the wood, and lost sight for ever of
the Château Hougoumont. The road to Nivelles, which strikes off to the
right from the highroad to Genappe at the village of Mont St. Jean,
passes the Château on the other side. The right wing of the British
army crossed this road, and in the deep ditches on each side of it we
were told that human remains still lay uninterred. Some of the party
returned to Mont St. Jean by this road, which is considerably nearer;
but my brother, my sister, and myself, once more crossed the field in
order to pay another visit to La Belle Alliance.
I could not be persuaded to go to see the skeleton of a calf which had
been burnt in one of the outhouses of Hougoumont, and over which one
of the ladies of our party uttered the most pathetic lamentations.
It seemed to fill her mind with more concern than anything else.
At another time I might have been sorry for the calf; but when I
remembered how many poor wounded men had been burnt alive in these
ruins, it was impossible to bestow a single thought upon its fate.
Finding that her sensibility obtained no sympathy from me, the lady
turned to my sister, and began to bewail the calf anew, till at last,
wearied out with such folly, "out of her grief and her impatience,"
she exclaimed, "that she did not care if all the calves in the world
had been burnt, compared to one of the brave men who had perished here."
As we passed again through the wood of Hougoumont, I gathered some
seeds of the wild broom, with the intention of planting them at
H. Park, and with the hope that I should one day see the broom of
Hougoumont blooming on the banks of the Tweed. In leaving the wood I
was struck with the sight of the scarlet poppy flaunting in full bloom
upon some new-made graves, as if in mockery of the dead. In many parts
of the field these flowers were growing in profusion: they had probably
been protected from injury by the tall and thick corn amongst which
they grew, and their slender roots had adhered to the clods of clay
which had been carelessly thrown upon the graves. From one of these
graves I gathered the little wild blue flower known by the sentimental
name of "Forget me not!" which to a romantic imagination might have
furnished a fruitful subject for poetic reverie or pensive reflection.
While my sister was taking a view of the field of battle, and my
brother was overlooking and guarding her, I entered the cottage of "La
Belle Alliance," and began to talk to Baptiste la Coste, Buonaparte's
guide, whom I found there. He is a sturdy, honest-looking countryman,
and gave an interesting account of Buonaparte's behaviour during the
battle. He said that he issued his orders with great vehemence, and
even impatience: he took snuff incessantly, but in a hurried manner,
and apparently from habit, and without being conscious that he was
doing so: he talked a great deal, and very rapidly--his manner of
speaking was abrupt, quick, and hurried: he was extremely nervous and
agitated at times, though his anticipations of victory were most
confident. He frequently expressed his astonishment, rather angrily,
that the British held out so long--at the same time he could not
repress his admiration of their gallantry, and often broke out into
exclamations of amazement and approbation of their courage and conduct.
He particularly admired the Scotch Greys--"Voilà ces chevaux gris--ah!
ce sont beaux cavaliers--très beaux;" and then he said they would all
be cut to pieces. He said--"These English certainly fight well, but
they must soon give way;" and he asked Soult, who was near him, "if
he did not think so?" Soult replied, "He was afraid not." "And why?"
said Napoleon, turning round to him quickly. "Because," said Soult,
"I believe they will first be cut to pieces." Soult's opinion of the
British army, which was founded on experience, coincided with that of
the Duke of Wellington. "It will take a great many hours to cut them
in pieces," said the Duke, in answer to something that was said to him
during the action; "and I know they will never give way."
Buonaparte, however, who knew less of them, and whose head always ran
upon the idea of the English flying to their ships, had never dreamt
that with a force so inferior they would think of giving him battle,
but imagined that they would continue their retreat during the night,
and that he should have to pursue them. It is said that he expressed
great satisfaction when the morning broke and he saw them still there;
and that he exclaimed, "Ah! pour le coup--je les tiens donc--ces
Anglais!"
Before the engagement began he harangued the army, promising them the
plunder of Brussels and Ghent. Once, towards the close of the battle,
he addressed himself to the Imperial Guard, leading them on to the
brink of the hill, and telling them "that was the road to Brussels."
Regardless of the waste of human life, he incessantly ordered his
battalions to advance--to bear down upon the enemy--to carry every
thing before them. He inflamed their ardour by the remembrance of past,
as well as the prospect of present victory, and the promise of future
reward: but he never led them on to battle himself--he never once
braved the shock of British arms. It is not true as has been reported,
that he was ever near Lord Uxbridge, or in any danger of being taken
prisoner by the English. Indeed, he exposed himself to very little
personal risk--a proof of which is, that not one of those who attended
him the whole day was wounded.
La Coste said, that at first, when he was told that the Prussians were
advancing, he obstinately and angrily refused to believe it, declaring
it was the French corps under Marshal Grouchy.[30] He then commanded
this news to be spread amongst the army, and ordered Marshal Ney, at
the head of two columns, each composed of four battalions of the old
Imperial Guard, and seconded by all the available force of the French
army, both cavalry and infantry, to charge, and to penetrate to the
centre of the British position. He stood to witness the desperate
struggle which ensued, and the final and complete overthrow of the
_élite_ of his gallant army, of immensely preponderating force, by
a handful of determined British troops; but when he perceived his
"invincible legions" give way, and retreat in confusion before the
grand simultaneous charge of the British army, which immediately
ensued, led by the Duke of Wellington in person, who was amongst the
foremost in the onset, he turned pale, his perturbation became extreme,
and exclaiming, "All is lost--let us save ourselves" (Tout est perdu;
or, Sauve qui peut!), or words to that effect; he put spurs to his
horse, and galloped from the field. La Coste expressly said, that he
was among the first of the officers to set the example of flight.[31]
His own old Imperial Guard still remained--disputed every foot of
ground--fought desperately to the last, and at length, overpowered by
numbers, fell gloriously--as their leader should have fallen.
But he!--not even despair could prompt him to one noble thought, or
rouse him to one deed of desperate valour. He fled--as at Egypt, at
Moscow, and at Leipsic he had fled--while his faithful veterans were
still fighting with enthusiastic gallantry, and shedding the last drop
of their blood in his cause!
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.