第46章 How the Brigadier Bore Himself at Waterloo(2)

Wellington had with him sixty-seven thousand men, but many of them were known to be Dutch and Belgian, who had no great desire to fight against us.Of good troops he had not fifty thousand.Finding himself in the presence of the Emperor in person with eighty thousand men, this Englishman was so paralysed with fear that he could neither move himself nor his army.You have seen the rabbit when the snake approaches.So stood the English upon the ridge of Waterloo.The night before, the Emperor, who had lost an aide-de- camp at Ligny, ordered me to join his staff, and I had left my Hussars to the charge of Major Victor.I know not which of us was the most grieved, they or I, that I should be called away upon the eve of battle, but an order is an order, and a good soldier can but shrug his shoulders and obey.With the Emperor I rode across the front of the enemy's position on the morning of the 18th, he looking at them through his glass and planning which was the shortest way to destroy them.Soult was at his elbow, and Ney and Foy and others who had fought the English in Portugal and Spain."Have a care, Sire," said Soult."The English infantry is very solid.""You think them good soldiers because they have beaten you," said the Emperor, and we younger men turned away our faces and smiled.But Ney and Foy were grave and serious.All the time the English line, chequered with red and blue and dotted with batteries, was drawn up silent and watchful within a long musket- shot of us.On the other side of the shallow valley our own people, having finished their soup, were assembling for the battle.It had rained very heavily, but at this moment the sun shone out and beat upon the French army, turning our brigades of cavalry into so many dazzling rivers of steel, and twinkling and sparklingon the innumerable bayonets of the infantry.At the sight of that splendid army, and the beauty and majesty of its appearance, I could contain myself no longer, but, rising in my stirrups, I waved my busby and cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" a shout which growled and roared and clattered from one end of the line to the other, while the horsemen waved their swords and the footmen held up their shakos upon their bayonets.The English remained petrified upon their ridge.They knew that their hour had come.

And so it would have come if at that moment the word had been given and the whole army had been permitted to advance.We had but to fall upon them and to sweep them from the face of the earth.To put aside all question of courage, we were the more numerous, the older soldiers, and the better led.But the Emperor desired to do all things in order, and he waited until the ground should be drier and harder, so that his artillery could manoeuvre.So three hours were wasted, and it was eleven o'clock before we saw Jerome Buonaparte's columns advance upon our left and heard the crash of the guns which told that the battle had begun.The loss of those three hours was our destruction.The attack upon the left was directed upon a farm-house which was held by the English Guards, and we heard the three loud shouts of apprehension which the defenders were compelled to utter.They were still holding out, and D'Erlon's corps was advancing upon the right to engage another portion of the English line, when our attention was called away from the battle beneath our noses to a distant portion of the field of action.

The Emperor had been looking through his glass to the extreme left of the English line, and now he turned suddenly to the Duke of Dalmatia, or Soult, as we soldiers preferred to call him.

"What is it, Marshal?" said he.

We all followed the direction of his gaze, some raising our glasses, some shading our eyes.There was a thick wood over yonder, then a long, bare slope, and another wood beyond.Over this bare strip between the two woods there lay something dark, like the shadow of a moving cloud.

"I think that they are cattle, Sire," said Soult.

At that instant there came a quick twinkle from amid the dark shadow."It is Grouchy," said the Emperor, and he lowered his glass."Theyare doubly lost, these English.I hold them in the hollow of my hand.They cannot escape me."He looked round, and his eyes fell upon me.

"Ah! here is the prince of messengers," said he."Are you well mounted, Colonel Gerard?"I was riding my little Violette, the pride of the brigade.I said so.