June 17.
Napoleon arrived at Maubeuge on the 18th and the grand conflict has begun.
The Prussians were attacked on the 14th and 15th at Ligny and driven from their position.[13] They are said to have suffered immense loss and to be retreating with the utmost confusion. Our turn comes next. The thunder of the cannon was heard here distinctly the most part of yesterday and some part of our army must have been engaged. Our troops have all marched out of Bruxelles in the direction of the frontier. In the affair with the Prussians we learn that the Duke of Brunswick was killed and that Blucher narrowly escaped being made prisoner.
June 18.
The grand conflict has begun with us. It is now four o"clock p.m. The issue is not known. The roar of the cannon continues unabated. All is bustle, confusion and uncertainty in this city. Cars with wounded are coming in continually. The general opinion is that our army will be compelled to retreat to Antwerp, and it is even expected that the French will be in Bruxelles to-night. All the towns-people are on the ramparts listening to the sound of the cannon. This city has been in the greatest alarm and agitation since the 16th, when a violent cannonade was heard during the afternoon. From what I have been able to collect, the French attacked the Prussians on the 14th, and a desperate conflict took place on that day, and the whole of the 15th,[14] when the whole of the Prussian army at Ligny, Fleurus and Charleroy was totally defeated and driven from its position; a dislocation of our troops took place early in the morning of the 16th, and our advanced guard, consisting of the Highland Brigade and two Battalions of Na.s.sau-Usingen, fell in with the advanced guard of the French Army commanded by Marshal Ney near Quatre-Bras, and made such a gallant defence against his corps d"armee as to keep it in check the whole day and enable itself to fall back in good order to its present position with the rest of the army, about ten miles in front of Bruxelles. Indeed, I am informed that nothing could exceed the admirable conduct of the corps above mentioned.
Yesterday we heard no cannonade, but this afternoon it has been unceasing and still continues. All the caricatures and satires against Napoleon have disappeared from the windows and stalls. The shops are all shut, the English families flying to Antwerp; and the proclamation of the Baron de Capellen[15] to the inhabitants, wherein he exhorts them to be tranquil and a.s.sures them that the Bureaux of Government have not yet quitted Bruxelles, only serves to increase the confusion and consternation. The inhabitants in general wish well to the arms of Napoleon, but they know that the retreat of the English Army must necessarily take place through their town; that our troops will perhaps endeavour to make a stand, and that the consequences will be terrible to the inhabitants, from the houses being liable to be burned or pillaged by friend or foe. All the baggage of our Army and all the military Bureaux have received orders to repair and are now on their march to Antwerp, and the road thither is so covered and blocked up by waggons that the retreat of our Army will be much impeded thereby. Probably my next letter may be dated from a French prison.
BRUXELLES, June 21.
Judge, my friend, of my astonishment and that of almost everybody in this city, at the news which was circulated here early on the morning of the 19th, and has been daily confirmed, viz., that the French Army had been completely defeated and was in full flight, leaving behind it 220 pieces of cannon and all its baggage, waggons and _munitions de guerre_. I have not been able to collect all the particulars, but you will no doubt hear enough of it, for I am sure it will be _said_ or _sung_ by all the partisans of the British ministry and all the Tories of the United Kingdom for months and years to come; for further details, therefore, I shall refer you to the Gazette. The following, however, you may consider as a tolerably fair precis of what took place. The attack began on the 18th about ten o"clock[16] and raged furiously along the whole line, but princ.i.p.ally at Hougoumont, a large _Metairie_ on the right of our position, which was occupied by our troops, and from which all the efforts of the enemy could not dislodge them. The slaughter was terrible in this quarter. From twelve o"clock till evening several desperate charges of cavalry and infantry were made on the rest of our line. Both sides fought with the utmost courage and obstinacy, and were prodigal of life in the extreme. But it is generally supposed that our army must have succ.u.mbed towards the evening had it not been for the arrival of Bulow"s division of Prussians, followed closely by Blucher and the rest of the army, which had rallied with uncommon celerity.
These moved on the right flank of the French, and decided the fortune of the day by a charge which was seconded by a general charge from the whole of the English line on the centre and left of the French. Seeing themselves thus turned, a panic, it is said, spread among the young Guard of the French army, and a cry of "_Sauve qui peut! nous sommes trahis!_" spread like wildfire. The flight became universal; the old Guard alone remained, refused quarter and perished like Leonidas and his Spartans. The Prussian cavalry being fresh pursued the enemy all night, _l"epee dans les reins_, and it may be conceived from their previous disposition that they would not be very merciful to the vanquished. Indeed, on the 15th, it is said that the French were not very merciful to them. It was like the combat of Achilles and Hector.
No thought but rage and never ceasing strife Till death extinguish rage and thought and life.
France will now call out to Napoleon as Augustus did to Varus, "Give me back my legions!" The loss on both sides was very great, but it must have been prodigious on the side of the French. The whole Allied Army is in full pursuit. Several friends and acquaintances of mine perished in this battle, viz., Lieut.-General Sir T. Picton, Colonel Sir H. Ellis and Colonel Morice.
June 22.
This morning I went to visit the field of battle, which is a little beyond the village of Waterloo, on the plateau of Mont St Jean; but on arrival there the sight was too horrible to behold. I felt sick in the stomach and was obliged to return. The mult.i.tude of carcases, the heaps of wounded men with mangled limbs unable to move, and perishing from not having their wounds dressed or from hunger, as the Allies were, of course, obliged to take their surgeons and waggons with them, formed a spectacle I shall never forget. The wounded, both of the Allies and the French, remain in an equally deplorable state.
At Hougoumont, where there is an orchard, every tree is pierced with bullets. The barns are all burned down, and in the court-yard it is said they have been obliged to burn upwards of a thousand carcases, an awful holocaust to the War-Demon.
As nothing is more distressing than the sight of human misery when we are unable to silence it, I returned as speedily as possible to Bruxelles with Cowper"s lines in my head:
War is a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at.
I hope this battle will, at any rate, lead to a speedy peace.
June 28.
We have no other news from the Allied Army, except that they are moving forward with all possible celerity in the direction of Paris. You may form a guess of the slaughter and of the misery that the wounded must have suffered, and the many that must have perished from hunger and thirst, when I tell you that all the carriages in Bruxelles, even elegant private equipages, landaulets, barouches and berlines, have been put in requisition to remove the wounded men from the field of battle to the hospitals, and that they are yet far from being all brought in. The medical pract.i.tioners of the city have been put in requisition, and are ordered to make domiciliary visits at every house (for each habitation has three or four soldiers in it) in order to dress the wounds of the patients. The Bruxellois, the women in particular, have testified the utmost humanity towards the poor sufferers. It was suggested by some humane person that they who went to see the field of battle from motives of curiosity would do well to take with them bread, wine and other refreshments to distribute among the wounded, and most people did so. For my part I shall not go a second time. Napoleon, it is said, narrowly escaped being taken. His carriage fell into the hands of the Allies, and was escorted in triumph into Bruxelles by a detachment of dragoons. So confident was Napoleon of success that printed proclamations were found in the carriage dated from "Our Imperial Palace at Laecken," announcing his victory and the liberation of Belgium from the insatiable coalition, and wherein he calls on the Belgians to re-unite with their old companions in arms in order to reap the fruits of their victory. This was certainly rather premature, and reminds me of an anecdote of a Spanish officer at the siege of Gibraltar, related by Drinkwater in his narrative of that siege.[17] When the British garrison made a sortie, they carried the advanced Spanish lines and destroyed all their preparations; the Spanish officer on guard at the outermost post was killed, but on the table of his guard room was found his guard report filled up and signed, stating that "nothing extraordinary had happened since guard-mounting."
Mr L. of Northumberland, having proposed to me to make a tour with him to Aix-la-Chapelle and the banks of the Rhine, I shall start with him in a day or two.
[1] Sir Wiltshire Wilson (1762-1842), Commander of the Royal Artillery in Ceylon, 1810-1815.--Ed.
[2] Pulci, _Morgante_, canto XVIII, ottava 114-115. The Giant Morgante meets the villain Margutte and asks him if he be a Christian or a Saracen. Margutte answers that he cares not, but only believes in boiled or in roasted capon:
Rispose allor Margutte: A dirtel tosto Io non credo pio al nero ch"all" azzurro.
Ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogll arrosto....
[3] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, iv, 63, f.--ED.
[4] A work of H, Verbruggen of Antwerp (1677).--ED.
[5] Lord Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, caused this fountain to be erected in 1751, as a token of grat.i.tude to the town of Bruxelles where he had lived in exile.--E.D.
[6] Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville (1741-1811), elevated to the peerage in 1802.--ED.
[7] Xenophon, _Education of Cyrus_, II, 4, 4.--ED.
[8] Astley"s Amphitheatre, near Westminster Bridge.--ED.
[9] Uncle Toby, in Laurence Sterne"s _Tristram Shandy_.--ED.
[10] Lieutenant R.P. Campbell, aide-de-camp to Major-General Adam.--ED.
[11] In May, 1815, the officer commanding-in-chief at Tournai was General-Major A.C. Van Diermen.--ED.
[12] Karl Friedrich Ludwig Moritz, Furst zu Ysenburg-Bierstein (1766-1820), took service with Austria (1784), with Prussia (1804), and later with Napoleon (1806), who commissioned him as brigadier-general. The shameless conduct of this officer is exposed by B. Poten, _Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_, vol. XLIV, p. 611.--ED.
[13] The battle at Ligny was fought on June 16.--ED.
[14] The facts and dates here given are of course inaccurate; but this proves that Major Frye wrote his text in the very midst of the crisis, and that his ma.n.u.script has not been tampered with.--ED.
[15] Baron van Capellen, a Dutch statesman, was governor-general of the Belgian provinces, residing at Bruxelles. He was afterwards governor-general of Dutch India. Born in 1778, he died in 1848. His memoirs have been published in French by Baron Sirtema de Grovestins (1852), and contain an interesting pa.s.sage on that momentous day, 18th June, 1815.--ED.
[16] Not before half past eleven.--ED.
[17] John Drinkwater, also called Bethune (1762-1844), published a well-known _History of the Siege of Gibraltar, 1779-1783_.--ED.
CHAPTER II
From Bruxelles to Liege--A priest"s declamation against the French Revolution--Maastricht--Aix-la-Chapelle--Imperial relics--Napoleon regretted--Klingmann"s "Faust"--A Tyrolese beauty--Cologne--Difficulties about a pa.s.sport--The Cathedral--King-craft and priest-craft--The Rhine--Bonn and G.o.desberg--Goethe"s "Gotz von Berlichingen"--The Seven Mountains--German women--Andernach--Ehrenbreitstein--German hatred against France--Coblentz--Intrigues of the Bourbon princes in Coblentz--Mayence-- Bieberich--Conduct of the Allies towards Napoleon--Frankfort on the Mayn--An anecdote about Lord Stewart and Lafayette--German poetry--The question of Alsace and Lorraine--Return to Bruxelles--Napoleon"s surrender.
LIeGE, June 26.
Mr L. and myself started together in the diligence from Bruxelles at seven o"clock in the evening of the 24th inst. and arrived here yesterday morning at twelve o"clock. I experienced considerable difficulty in procuring a pa.s.sport to quit Bruxelles, my name having been included in that of General Wilson, which he carried back with him to England. Our Amba.s.sador was absent, and I was bandied about from bureau to bureau without success; so that I began at last to think that I should be necessitated to remain at Bruxelles all my life, when fortunately it occurred to Mr L. that he was intimately acquainted with the English Consul, and he kindly undertook to procure me one and succeeded. On arrival here we put up at the _Pommelette d"Or_. The price of a place in the diligence from Bruxelles to Liege is fifteen franks. We pa.s.sed thro" Louvain, but too late to see anything. The country about Liege is extremely striking and picturesque; the river Meuse flows thro" the city, and the banks of the river outside the town are very _riants_ and agreeable. Liege is a large, well-built city, but rather gloomy as to its appearance, and lies in a hollow completely surrounded by lofty hills. The remains of its ancient citadel stand on a height which completely commands the city; on another height stands a monastery, a magnificent building. There are a great many coal-pits in the vicinity of Liege, and a great commerce of coals is carried on between this city and Holland by the _treckschuyte_ on the Meuse. We visited the ancient Episcopal palace and the Churches. The Palace is completely dismantled.
This city suffered much during the revolt of the Belgian provinces against the Emperor Joseph II, and having distinguished itself by the obstinacy of its defence, it was treated with great rigour by the Austrian Government.
The fortifications were blown up, and nothing now remains on the site of the old citadel but a large barrack. I remained two whole hours on this height to contemplate the beauties of the expanse below. The banks of the river, which meanders much in these parts, and the numerous _maisons de campagne_ with the public promenades and allees lined with trees, exhilarate the scene of the environs, for the city itself is dull enough.
Several pretty villas are situated also on the heights, and were I to dwell here I should choose one of them and seldom descend into the valley and city below,
Where narrow cares and strife and envy dwell.
Liege, however sombre in its appearance, is a place of much opulence and commerce. A Belgian garrison does duty here. At the inn, after dinner, I fell into conversation with a Belgian priest, and as I was dressed in black he fancied I was one of the cloth, and he asked me if I were a Belgian, for that I spoke French with a Belgian accent; "Apparemment Monsieur est ecclesiastique?--Monsieur, je suis ne Anglais et protestant." He then began to talk about and declaim against the French Revolution, for that is the doctrine now constantly dinned into the ears of all those who take orders; and he concluded by saying that things would never go on well in Europe until they restored to G.o.d the things they had taken from Him. I told him that I differed from him very much, for that the sale of the Church domains and of the lands and funds belonging to the suppressed ecclesiastical establishments had contributed much to the improvement of agriculture and to the comfort of the peasantry, whose situation was thereby much ameliorated; and that they were now in a state of affluence compared with what they were before the French Revolution. I added: "Enfin, Monsieur, Dieu n"a pas besoin des choses terrestres." On my saying this he did not chuse to continue the conversation, but calling for a bottle of wine drank it all himself with the zest of a Tartuffe. I believe that he was surprised to find that an Englishman should not coincide with his sentiments, for I observe all the adherents of the ancient regime of feudality and superst.i.tion have an idea that we are anxious for the re-establishment of all those abuses as they themselves are, and it must be confessed that the conduct of our Government has been such as to authorize them fully in forming such conjectures, and that we shall be their staunch auxiliaries in endeavouring to arrest and retrograde the progress of the human mind. In fact, I soon perceived that my friend was not overloaded with wit and that he was one of those priests so well described by Metastasio:
Il di cui sapere Sta nel nostro ignorar....