Then I said, "I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhoods cheat-- I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet"s breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soar"d the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird; Beauty through my senses stole-- I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
LIX. WATERLOO.
CHARLES JAMES LEVER.--1806-1872.
_From_ CHARLES O"MALLEY.
"This is the officer that I spoke of," said an aid-de-camp, as he rode up to where I was standing, bare-headed and without a sword. "He has just made his escape from the French lines, and will be able to give your lordship some information."
The handsome features and gorgeous costume of Lord Uxbridge were known to me; but I was not aware, till afterwards, that a soldierlike, resolute looking officer beside him, was General Graham. It was the latter who first addressed me.
"Are you aware, Sir," said he, "if Grouchy"s force is arrived?"
"They had not: on the contrary, shortly before I escaped, an aid-de-camp was despatched to Gembloux, to hasten his coming. And the troops, for they must be troops, debouching from the wood yonder--they seem to form a junction with the corps to the right--they are the Prussians. They arrived there before noon from St. Lambert, and are part of Bulow"s corps. Count Lobau and his division of ten thousand men were despatched, about an hour since, to hold them in check."
"This is great news," said Lord Uxbridge. "Fitzroy must know it at once."
So saying he dashed spurs into his horse, and soon disappeared amid the crowd on the hill top.
"You had better see the Duke, Sir," said Graham: "your information is too important to be delayed. Captain Calvert, let this officer have a horse; his own is too tired to go much further."
"And a cap, I beg of you," added I, in an under tone; "for I have already found a sabre."
By a slight circuitous route, we reached the road upon which a ma.s.s of dismounted artillery-carts, baggage-wagons, and tumbrils, were heaped together as a barricade against the attack of the French dragoons, who more than once had penetrated to the very crest of our position. Close to this, and on a little rising ground, from which a view of the entire field extended from Hougoumont to the far left, the Duke of Wellington stood, surrounded by his staff. His eye was bent upon the valley before him, where the advancing columns of Ney"s attack still pressed onwards; while the fire of sixty great guns poured death and carnage into his lines. The second Belgian division, routed and broken, had fallen back upon the twenty-seventh regiment, who had merely time to throw themselves into square, when Milhaud"s cuira.s.siers, armed with a terrible long straight sword, came sweeping down upon them. A line of impa.s.sable bayonets, a living _chevaux-de-frise_ of the best blood of Britain, stood firm and motionless before the shock: the French _mitraille_ played mercilessly on the ranks; but the chasms were filled up like magic, and in vain the bold hors.e.m.e.n of Gaul galloped round the bristling files. At length the word "fire!" was heard within the square, and as the bullets at pistol range rattled upon them, the cuira.s.s afforded them no defence against the deadly volley. Men and horses rolled indiscriminately upon the earth: then would come a charge of our dashing squadrons, who, riding recklessly upon the foe, were, in their turn, to be repulsed by numbers, when fresh attacks would pour down upon our unshaken infantry.
"That column yonder is wavering: why does he not bring up his supporting squadrons?" inquired the Duke, pointing to a Belgian regiment of light dragoons, who were formed in the same brigade with the seventh hussars.
"He refuses to oppose his light cavalry to cuira.s.siers, my lord," said an aid-de-camp, who had just returned from the division in question.
"Tell him to march his men off the ground," said the Duke, with a quiet and impa.s.sive tone.
In less than ten minutes the regiment was seen to defile from the ma.s.s, and take the road to Brussels, to increase the panic of that city, by circulating and strengthening the report, that the English were beaten,--and Napoleon in full march upon the capital.
"What"s Ney"s force? can you guess, Sir?" said Lord Wellington turning to me.
"About twelve thousand men, my lord."
"Are the Guard among them?"
"No, Sir; the Guard are in reserve above La Belle Alliance."
"In what part of the field is Buonaparte?"
"Nearly opposite to where we stand."
"I told you, gentlemen, Hougoumont never was the great attack. The battle must be decided here," pointing, as he spoke, to the plain beneath us, where still Ney poured on his devoted columns, where yet the French cavalry rode down upon our firm squares.
As he spoke an aid-de-camp rode up from the valley.
"The ninety-second requires support, my lord: they cannot maintain their positions half an hour longer, without it."
"Have they given way, Sir?"
"No----"
"Well, then, they must stand where they are. I hear cannon towards the left; yonder, near Frischermont."
At this moment the light cavalry swept past the base of the hill on which we stood, hotly followed by the French heavy cuira.s.sier brigade.
Three of our guns were taken; and the cheering of the French infantry, as they advanced to the charge, presaged their hope of victory.
"Do it, then," said the Duke, in reply to some whispered question of Lord Uxbridge; and shortly after the heavy trot of advancing squadrons was heard behind.
They were the Life Guards and the Blues, who, with the first Dragoon Guards and the Enniskilleners, were formed into close column.
"I know the ground, my Lord," said I to Lord Uxbridge.
"Come along, Sir, come along," said he, as he threw his hussar jacket loosely behind him, to give freedom to his sword-arm.--"Forward, my men, forward; but steady, hold your horses in hand; threes about, and together charge."
"Charge!" he shouted; while, as the word flew from squadron to squadron, each horseman bent upon his saddle, and that mighty ma.s.s, as though instinct with but one spirit, dashed like a thunder-bolt upon the column beneath them. The French, blown and exhausted, inferior beside in weight both of man and horse, offered but a short resistance. As the tall corn bends beneath the sweeping hurricane, wave succeeding wave, so did the steel-clad squadrons of France fall before the nervous arm of Britain"s cavalry. Onward they went, carrying death and ruin before them, and never stayed their course, until the guns were recaptured, and the cuira.s.siers, repulsed, disordered, and broken, had retired beneath the protection of their artillery.
There was, as a brilliant and eloquent writer on the subject mentions, a terrible sameness in the whole of this battle. Incessant charges of cavalry upon the squares of our infantry, whose sole manoeuvre consisted in either deploying into line to resist the attack of infantry, or falling back into square when the cavalry advanced--performing those two evolutions under the devastating fire of artillery, before the unflinching heroism of that veteran infantry whose glories had been reaped upon the blood-stained fields of Austerlitz, Marengo, and Wagram--or opposing an unbroken front to the whirlwind swoop of infuriated cavalry;--such were the enduring and devoted services demanded from the English troops, and such they failed not to render. Once or twice had temper nearly failed them, and the cry ran through the ranks, "Are we never to move forward?--Only let us at them!" But the word was not yet spoken which was to undam the pent-up torrent, and bear down with unrelenting vengeance upon the now exulting columns of the enemy.
It was six o"clock: the battle had continued with unchanged fortune for three hours. The French, masters of La Haye Sainte, could never advance further into our position. They had gained the orchard of Hougoumont, but the chateau was still held by the British Guards, although its blazing roof and crumbling walls made its occupation rather the desperate stand of unflinching valor than the maintenance of an important position. The smoke which hung upon the field rolled in slow and heavy ma.s.ses back upon the French lines, and gradually discovered to our view the entire of the army. We quickly perceived that a change was taking place in their position. The troops which on their left stretched far beyond Hougoumont, were now moved nearer to the centre.
The attack upon the chateau seemed less vigorously supported, while the oblique direction of their right wing, which, pivoting upon Planchenoit, opposed a face to the Prussians,--all denoted a change in their order of battle. It was now the hour when Napoleon was at last convinced that nothing but the carnage he could no longer support could destroy the unyielding ranks of British infantry; that although Hougoumont had been partially, La Haye Sainte, completely, won; that although upon the right the farm-houses Papelotte and La Haye were nearly surrounded by his troops, which with any other army must prove the forerunner of defeat: yet still the victory was beyond his grasp. The bold stratagems, whose success the experience of a life had proved, were here to be found powerless. The decisive manoeuvre of carrying one important point of the enemy"s lines, of turning him upon the flank, or piercing him through the centre, were here found impracticable. He might launch his avalanche of grape-shot, he might pour down his crashing columns of cavalry, he might send forth the iron storm of his brave infantry; but, though death in every shape heralded their approach, still were others found to fill the fallen ranks, and feed with their heart"s blood the unslaked thirst for slaughter. Well might the gallant leader of this gallant host, as he watched the reckless onslaught of the untiring enemy, and looked upon the unflinching few, who, bearing the proud badge of Britain, alone sustained the fight, well might he exclaim, "Night, or Blucher!"
It was now seven o"clock, when a dark ma.s.s was seen to form upon the heights above the French centre, and divide into three gigantic columns, of which the right occupied the Brussels road. These were the reserves, consisting of the Old and Young Guards, and amounting to twelve thousand--the _elite_ of the French army--reserved by the Emperor for a great _coup-de-main_. These veterans of a hundred battles had been stationed, from the beginning of the day, inactive spectators of the fight; their hour was now come, and, with a shout of "_Vive l"Empereur!_" which rose triumphantly over the din and crash of battle, they began their march. Meanwhile, aids-de-camp galloped along the lines, announcing the arrival of Grouchy, to reanimate the drooping spirits of the men; for, at last, a doubt of victory was breaking upon the minds of those who never before, in the most adverse hour of fortune, deemed _his_ star could set that led them on to glory.
"They are coming: the attack will be made on the centre, my lord," said Lord Fitzroy Somerset, as he directed his gla.s.s upon the column.
Scarcely had he spoke when the telescope fell from his hand, as his arm, shattered by a French bullet, fell motionless to his side.
"I see it," was the cool reply of the Duke, as he ordered the Guards to deploy into line, and lie down behind the ridge, which now the French artillery had found the range of, and were laboring at with their guns.
In front of them the fifty-second, seventy-first, and ninety-fifth were formed; the artillery, stationed above and partly upon the road, loaded with grape, and waited but the word to open.
It was an awful, a dreadful moment: the Prussian cannon thundered on our left; but so desperate was the French resistance, they made but little progress: the dark columns of the Guard had now commenced the ascent, and the artillery ceased their fire as the bayonets of the grenadiers showed themselves upon the slope. Then began that tremendous cheer from right to left of our line which those who heard never can forget. It was the impatient, long-restrained burst of unslaked vengeance. With the instinct which valor teaches, they knew the hour of trial was come; and that wild cry flew from rank to rank, echoing from the blood-stained walls of Hougoumont to the far-off valley of La Papelotte. "They come!
they come!" was the cry; and the shout of "_Vive l"Empereur!_" mingled with the outburst of the British line.
Under an overwhelming shower of grape, to which succeeded a charge of cavalry of the Imperial Guard, the head of Ney"s column fired its volley and advanced with the bayonet. The British artillery now opened at half range, and although the plunging fire scathed and devastated the dark ranks of the Guards, on they came,--Ney himself, on foot, at their head.
Twice the leading division of that gallant column turned completely round, as the withering fire wasted and consumed them; but they were resolved to win.
Already they had gained the crest of the hill, and the first line of the British were falling back before them. The artillery closes up; the flanking fire from the guns upon the road opens upon them; the head of their column breaks like a sh.e.l.l; the Duke seizes the moment, and advances on foot towards the ridge.
"Up, Guards, and at them!" he cried.
The hour of triumph and vengeance had arrived. In a moment the Guards were on their feet; one volley was poured in; the bayonets were brought to the charge; they closed upon the enemy: then was seen the most dreadful struggle that the history of all war can present. Furious with long restrained pa.s.sion, the guards rushed upon the leading divisions; the seventy-first, and ninety-fifth, and twenty-sixth overlapped them on the flanks. Their generals fell thickly on every side; Michel, Jamier, and Mallet are killed: Friant lies wounded upon the ground; Ney, his dress pierced and ragged with b.a.l.l.s, shouts still to advance; but the leading files waver; they fall back; the supporting divisions thicken; confusion, panic succeeds; the British press down; the cavalry come galloping up to their a.s.sistance; and, at last, pell-mell, overwhelmed and beaten, the French fall back upon the Old Guard. This was the decisive moment of the day;--the Duke closed his gla.s.s, as he said: