CHAPTER XIII

AT WATERLOO

“AVE CAESAR! MORITURI TE SALUTANT!”

The Eagles figure in four episodes in the story of Waterloo.

They had their part at the outset in that intensely dramatic display on the morning of the battle, when, before the eyes of Wellington’s soldiers, drawn up with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, and guns in position ready to open fire, Napoleon passed his army in review; the last parade of the Last Army on the day of its last battle. Said Napoleon himself afterwards, in words that are in keeping with the resplendent spectacle: “The earth seemed proud to bear so many brave men!” (“La terre paraissait orgueilleuse de porter tant de braves!”)

It was a little after nine in the morning that the Last Army of Napoleon moved out from its bivouacs of the night before to take up its station for the battle. This is how a British hussar, who was looking on, describes the opening of the wonderful show: “Marching in eleven columns they came up to the front and deployed with rapidity, precision, and fine scenic effect. The drums beat, the bands played, the trumpets sounded. The light troops in front pressed forward, and the rattle of musketry was followed by the retreat of our horsemen and foot soldiers. Light wreaths of smoke curled upwards into the misty air, and through this thin veil the dense dark columns of the French infantry and the gay and gleaming squadrons of French horse were seen moving into their positions. Before them was the open valley, yet green with the heavy crops; behind them dark fringes of wood, and a thick curtain of dreary cloud.

“The French bands struck up so that we could distinctly hear them. Not long after, the enemy’s skirmishers, backed by their supports, were thrown out; extending as they advanced, they spread over the whole space before them. Now and then they saluted our ears with well-known music, the whistling of musket-balls. Their columns, preceded by mounted officers to take up the alignments, soon began to appear; the bayonets flashing over dark masses at different points, accompanied by the rattling of drums and the clang of trumpets.

“They took post, their infantry in front, in two lines, 60 yards apart, flanked by lancers with their fluttering flags. In rear of the centre of the infantry wings were the cuirassiers, also in two lines. In rear of the cuirassiers, on the right, the lancers and chasseurs of the Imperial Guard, in their splendid but gaudy uniforms: the former clad in scarlet; the latter, like hussars, in rifle-green, fur-trimmed pelisse, gold lace, bearskin cap. In rear of the cuirassiers, on the left, were the horse-grenadiers and dragoons of the Imperial Guard, with their dazzling arms. Immediately in rear of the centre was the reserve, composed of the 6th Corps, in columns; on the left, and on the right of the Genappe road, were two divisions of light cavalry. In rear of the whole was the infantry of the Imperial Guard in columns, a dense dark mass, which, with the 6th Corps and cavalry, were flanked by their numerous artillery. Nearly 72,000 men, and 246 guns, ranged with matches lighted, gave an awful presage of the approaching conflict.”

[Sidenote: AS THEY MARCHED ON TO THE FIELD]

Napoleon rode out to watch them as they deployed into position. He took his stand at the point where the columns reached the field and wheeled off to right and left to form up in readiness for the signal that should launch their massed ranks forward across the intervening valley against the British position in front. Marshal Soult, Chief of the General Staff, rode close behind Napoleon on one side; Marshal Ney, in charge of the main attack that day, was on the other. In rear followed in glittering array the cavalcade of staff officers, with, dragged along after them, tied by a rope to a dragoon orderly, Napoleon’s Waterloo guide, the innkeeper De Coster.

Hardly had Napoleon himself ever witnessed before the like of the tremendous display of enthusiasm that greeted his presence on the field on the morning of that final day. “The drums beat; the trumpets sounded; the bands struck up ‘Veillons au salut de l’Empire.’ As they passed Napoleon the standard-bearers drooped the Eagles; the cavalrymen waved their sabres; the infantrymen held on high their shakos on their bayonets. The roar of cheers dominated and drowned the beat of the drums and the blare of the trumpets. The ‘_Vive l’Empereurs!_’ followed with such vehemence and such rapidity that no commands could be heard. And what rendered the scene all the more solemn, all the more moving, was the fact that before us, a thousand paces away perhaps, we could see distinctly the dull red line [“la ligne rouge sombre”] of the English army.”

So one French officer (Captain Martin of the 45th of the Line) describes. The shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” says another, a veteran of Count d’Erlon’s First Army Corps, “rose more vehemently, louder and longer than I ever heard before, for our men were determined that they should be heard among the brick-red lines which fringed the crest of Mont Saint-Jean.”

It was for the Eagles the counterpart of the Day of the Field of Mars, the culminating act of homage to Napoleon from the soldiers of the Grand Army.

[Sidenote: HIS IN LIFE AND DEATH]

“The sight of him,” if we may use the words of Lamartine, “was for some a recompense for their death, for others an incitement to victory! One heart beat between these men and the Emperor. In such a moment they shared the same soul and the same cause! When all is risked for one man, it is in him his followers live and die. The army was Napoleon! Never before was it so entirely Napoleon as now. He was repudiated by Europe, and his army had adopted him with idolatry; it voluntarily made itself the great martyr of his glory. At such a moment he must have felt himself more than man, more than a sovereign. His subjects only bowed to his power, Europe to his genius; but his army bent in homage to the past, the present, and the future, and welcomed victory or defeat, the throne or death with its chief. It was determined on everything, even on the sacrifice of itself, to restore him his Empire, or to render his last fall illustrious. Accomplices at Grenoble, Pretorians at Paris, victims at Waterloo: such a sentiment in the generals and officers of Napoleon had in it nothing that was not in conformity with the habits and even the vices of humanity. His cause was their cause, his crime their crime, his power their power, his glory their glory. But the devotion of those 80,000 soldiers was more virtuous, for it was more disinterested. Who would know their names? Who would pay them for the shedding of their blood? The plain before them would not even preserve their bones! To have inspired such a devotion was the greatness of Napoleon; to evince it even to madness was the greatness of his Army!”

[Sidenote: SOME WHO HAD MET BEFORE]

They knew, too, not a few of them, the stamp of men they were about to meet. Never before that day, of course, had Napoleon met British soldiers on the battlefield; but there were others present who had, and a good many of them.

Many a French regiment at Waterloo had old scores of their own to settle, past days to avenge. The 8th of the Line, the fate of whose “Eagle with the Golden Wreath” at Barrosa has been recorded, were on the field, and dipped their glittering new Eagle, received at the “_Champ de Mai_,” in salute as they passed Napoleon that morning. So too did the 82nd, whose former battalion Eagles from Martinique are at Chelsea now; the 13th of the Line and the 51st, who lost their regimental Eagles in the Retiro arsenal of Madrid; the 28th, who met their fate, and lost their Eagle under the bullets of the British 28th in the Pyrenees. Others were there who had fought against Wellington in Spain, and, more fortunate, had preserved their Eagles. Among these were the 47th, who on the battlefield at Barrosa lost and regained their Eagle; and the 105th, mindful yet of their terrible Salamanca experience of what dragoon swords in strong hands could do. The 105th were destined, soldiers and Eagle alike, to undergo a fate more fearful still, ere the sun should set that day.

Two of the regiments that paraded before Napoleon to meet the soldiers of Wellington had met under fire the sailors of Nelson at Trafalgar: the 2nd of the Line, now in Jerome Bonaparte’s division of Reille’s Army Corps, and the 16th, serving with the Sixth Corps. A third regiment, the 70th, which did duty as marines at Trafalgar, was with Grouchy, not many miles away; as was the 22nd of the Line, whose Eagle, taken at Salamanca, is at Chelsea Hospital, and the 34th, whose drum-major’s staff is to this day a prized trophy of the British 34th (now the First Battalion of the Border Regiment), won in Spain, when, as it so befell, two regiments bearing the same number crossed bayonets on the battlefield.[42]

The famous 84th of the Line were at Waterloo, with their proud legend, “Un contre dix,” restored at the “_Champ de Mai_,” flaunting proudly on their new silken flag as the Eagle bent in salute to Napoleon; also, the hardly less widely renowned 46th, the corps of the First Grenadier of France, La Tour d’Auvergne, whose name was called at the head of the list at that morning’s roll-call and answered with the customary answer, “Dead on the Field of Honour”; also, too, Napoleon’s former-time favourite, the 75th, mindful still on that last day of their glorious youth when “Le 75me arrive et bât l’ennemi”--a motto that an earlier colonel of the corps had proposed once to replace on the flag by “Veni, Vidi, Vici.”

The Old Guard paraded in their fighting kit, with, as usual, in their knapsacks their full-dress uniforms, carried in readiness to be put on for Napoleon’s triumphal entry into Brussels.

Drouet d’Erlon rode past at the head of the First Army Corps; Count of the Empire in virtue of his rank as a general; once upon a time the little son of the postmaster at Varennes, where Louis Seize and Marie Antoinette so pitifully ended their attempted flight, harsh old Drouet, ex-sergeant of Condé dragoons, from whom he inherited his talent for soldiering. General Reille led past the Second Corps. He, curiously, had had something of a naval past. He had hardly forgotten that other battle-day morning, when he galloped on to the field of Austerlitz, and reported himself to the Emperor as having come direct from Cadiz, put ashore from the doomed French fleet of Admiral Villeneuve just a week before it sailed to fight Trafalgar. Both Reille and his men, above all others, were burning with excitement and eagerness that day to get at the enemy. They had missed taking part either at Ligny or Quatre Bras, through contradictory orders which had kept them marching and counter-marching between the two battlefields; unable to reach either in time. Smarting under the reproach that they had been useless in the campaign, though the pick of the Line was in their ranks, the men one and all were burning to retrieve their reputation.

Count Lobau--he took his name from the island in the Danube which played so vital a part in the battle of Aspern--was at the head of the Sixth Corps, the third of Napoleon’s grand divisions of the army at Waterloo. Formerly General Mouton, Napoleon renamed him when he made him a Count for his skill and heroism at Aspern. “Mon Mouton,” said Napoleon of him once as he watched the general in action, “est un lion.”

[Sidenote: NAPOLEON IN HIGH SPIRITS]

Napoleon himself was in the highest spirits, full of pride and confidence. In that mood had he announced his intention of holding the review. There was no need to hurry, he said; Blücher and Wellington had been driven apart. The parade would pass the time while waiting for the soaked ground to get dry, and make it easier for the guns to move from point to point. And there was also this. The spectacle would have assuredly a disquieting effect on the Dutch and Belgians in Wellington’s army. Many of the men in front of him had served with the Eagles in former days: all stood nervously in awe, it was notorious, of the mighty name and reputation of Napoleon. Hesitating, as some were known to be, between their fears and their patriotism, the influence of the imposing spectacle might well--believed Napoleon--turn the scale and induce them to come over.

This was Napoleon’s plan for the battle, as outlined that morning to his brother Jerome. First would be the general preparation for attack by a tremendous cannonade all along the line from massed batteries. On that, the two army corps of D’Erlon and Reille would advance simultaneously and assault in front, supported by cavalry charges of cuirassiers. Then, if the English had not yet been beaten, would follow the final assault, the crushing blow that it would be impossible to resist; to be delivered by the remaining army corps of Lobau and the Young Guard, supported by the Middle Guard and the Old Guard. So Napoleon planned to fight and win at Waterloo.

[Sidenote: “THE GAME IS WITH US”]

Of the ultimate issue of the day he flattered himself there could be no two opinions. “At the last I have them, these English!” “(Enfin je les tiens, ces Anglais!”) he exclaimed jubilantly as he reconnoitred Wellington’s position in the early morning. At breakfast with the two Marshals, Soult and Ney, he declared that the odds were 90 to 10 in his favour. “Wellington,” he said to Ney, “has thrown the dice, and the game is with us.”

He turned fiercely on Soult, who, knowing the mettle of the British soldier from experience, had entreated him to recall Grouchy’s 30,000 men from watching the Prussians near Wavre.

“You think because Wellington has defeated you, that he must be a very great general! I tell you he is a bad general, and the English are but poor troops! This, for us, will only be an affair of a _déjeuner_--a picnic!”

“I hope so,” was all that Soult said in reply.

At that moment Reille and General Foy, experienced Peninsular veterans both, whose opinions should have had weight, were announced. Said Reille, in reply to Napoleon’s asking what he thought: “If well placed, as Wellington knows how to draw up his men, and if attacked in front, the English infantry is invincible, by reason of its calm tenacity and the superiority of its fire. Before coming to close quarters with the bayonet we must expect to see half the assaulting troops out of action.”

Interposed Foy: “Wellington never shows his troops, but if he is yonder, I must warn your Majesty that the English infantry in close combat is the very devil!” (“L’infanterie Anglaise en duel c’est le diable!”)

Napoleon lost his temper. With an exclamation of angry incredulity he rose hastily from the breakfast table, and the party broke up.

He spent a great part of the day watching the battle from a little mound, a short distance from the farm of Rossomme; mostly pacing to and fro, his hands behind his back; at times violently taking snuff, occasionally gesticulating excitedly. Near by was a kitchen table from the farmhouse, covered with maps weighted down with stones, with a chair placed on some straw, on which at intervals he rested. Soult kept ever near at hand, and the staff remained a little in rear. It was not until the afternoon was well advanced that Napoleon got again on horseback.

As related by the guide De Coster in conversation with an English questioner a few months after Waterloo, this is what passed:

“He had frequent communications with his aides de camp during the day?”

“Every moment.”

“And when they reported what was going on?”

“His orders were always ‘Avancez!’”

“Did he eat or drink during the day?”

“No!”

“Did he take snuff?”

“In abundance.”

“Did he talk much?”

“Never, except when he gave orders.”

“What was the general character of his countenance during the day?”

[Sidenote: WHEN THE LAST CHARGE FAILED]

“_Riante!_--till the last charge failed.”

“How did he look then?”

“_Blanc-mort!_”

“Did he say ‘_Sauve qui peut_’?”

“No! When he saw the English infantry rush forward, and the cavalry in the intermediate spaces coming down the hill, he said: ‘_A present il est fini. Sauvons-nous!_’”[43]

HOW WELLINGTON’S TROPHIES WERE WON

It was in Napoleon’s second grand attack that our two Waterloo Eagle-trophies, the most famous spoils ever won by the British Army, came into Wellington’s hands.

The first attack began about half-past eleven, when Reille’s corps, on the French left, made its opening effort against Hougoumont. Intended by Napoleon at the outset rather as a feint to mislead Wellington into fixing his attention on that side, the stubborn defence of Hougoumont involved the Second Corps in a struggle that kept it fully occupied for the whole day; unable to take part or be of use elsewhere.

The second grand attack took place shortly after two in the afternoon, when Marshal Ney made his tremendous onslaught with thirty-three battalions of Drouet d’Erlon’s First Army Corps on the left-centre of the British position, to the east of the Charleroi road, where Picton’s men held the ground.

[Sidenote: A DARK OBJECT IN THE HAZE]

The launching of Ney’s attack just then came about as the result of Napoleon’s sudden and disquieting discovery that the Prussians were approaching. It was to have opened an hour earlier, but, because of that, had been held back at the last moment. Napoleon, while looking round with the idea that Grouchy’s troops might be in sight in that quarter, made the discovery with his own eyes. Those round him, indeed, at first doubted what the dark object--which appeared in the hazy atmosphere like a shadow on the high ground near Mont Saint-Lambert, some six miles off to the north-east--really was. Soult at first could make out nothing; then he was positive it was a column of troops--probably Grouchy’s. The staff, scanning the suspicious neighbourhood with their telescopes, asserted that what the Emperor saw was only a wood. The arrival of some hussars with a Prussian prisoner, whom they had just captured while trying to get round with a despatch from Bülow to Wellington to announce the approach of the Prussian Fourth Corps, settled the question.

Napoleon paced backwards and forwards for a minute, taking pinches of snuff incessantly. Then he ordered off his Light Cavalry to reconnoitre; dictated to Soult an urgent message recalling Grouchy; and sent off an aide de camp to tell Lobau to wheel the Sixth Corps to the right, facing towards Saint-Lambert. After that he gave Ney orders to open his attack.

Ney took in hand his work forthwith, and at once a terrific cannonade opened. Eighty French field-guns, a third of Napoleon’s artillery on the field, began firing together from the plateau in front of La Belle Alliance; storming furiously with shot and shell to break down the British resistance, and clear the way for the onset of the charging columns. Without slackening an instant the guns thundered incessantly for nearly an hour; getting back from the British artillery in reply a fire that was at least as vigorous and no less effective.

[Sidenote: “EN AVANT!” “VIVE L’EMPEREUR!”]

Then Ney gave the word to advance.

Immediately the French infantry were on the move. They went forward massed in four divisions; in four solid columns of from four to five thousand men each, advancing _en échelon_ from the left, with intervals between of about four hundred paces. Eight battalions made up each column, except that of the second division, which had nine. The battalions stood drawn up in lines, three deep, with a front of two hundred files. They were packed closely, one behind the other; with intervals between, from front to rear, of only five paces. So closely were they wedged together, that there was barely room between the battalions for the company officers. Two brigadiers, Quiot and Bourgeois, led the left column, General Allix, their chief, being elsewhere; General Donzelot, a keen soldier and universally popular as the best hearted and most genial of good fellows, headed the second column; Marcognet, a grim, hard-bitten veteran, a prime favourite with Marshal Ney for his dogged determination in action, had the third; General Durutte was in charge of the fourth, away to the right.

With their battalion-drums jauntily rattling out the _pas de charge_, amid excited cries and loud exultant shouts of “En avant!” “Vive l’Empereur!” the columns stepped off. Ahead of them raced forward at a run swarming crowds of _tirailleurs_; extending fan-wise as they went, spreading out widely across the front in skirmishing array. The four massed columns surged quickly forward and over the edge of the plateau down the slope on to the space of shallow valley between the armies. As they did so, from the moment they crossed the crest-line and dipped below, a fierce hurricane of fire beat in their faces. Round-shot and shrapnel swept the columns through and through, tearing long bloody lanes through the densely packed masses of men.

Marshal Ney accompanied the first column for some part of the way, riding by the side of Drouet d’Erlon.

As they crossed the intervening ground below, the death-dealing British guns fired down on them incessantly, but in spite of all, they stoutheartedly moved forward, without checking their pace. It was terribly toilsome work in places: now they had to plough laboriously over sodden and slippery ground; now to trample their way through cornfields with standing grain-crops nearly breast-high, or, where trodden down, tangling round the men’s feet.

Quiot’s brigade turned off to attack La Haye Sainte, but the rest of the division, Bourgeois’ men and the three other columns, held on their way, moving in dense phalanxes of gleaming bayonets up the slopes.

The second column, Donzelot’s, reached the top a little in advance of the others, and was met by Kempt’s brigade of Picton’s troops, which charged it and forced it to yield ground.

A moment later Marcognet’s column reached the British line, coming up over the crest of the hill immediately in front of Picton’s Highland Brigade.

Received with a furious outburst of musketry from all along the extended British line, Marcognet’s leading files were thrown into some confusion by the hail of bullets. They were, however, veterans, and though their ranks were shaken, they still pressed on, amid a tumult of fierce cries and shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” and the wild clash and rattle of their drums.

But they got no farther. The British brigadier on the spot, Sir Dennis Pack, called on the nearest Highland regiment, the 92nd, to charge them with the bayonet. A moment after that, all unexpectedly, the cavalry of the Union Brigade were on them.

[Sidenote: THE HIGHLANDERS DASH FORWARD]

The Highlanders dashed forward with exultant cheers and levelled bayonets, taking the French volley that met them without firing back a shot. They did not, however, get up to the French, nor actually cross steel on steel. As the Highlanders got within a dozen yards the column suddenly stopped short, and some of the men in front seemed suddenly to be panic-stricken. A moment before all were madly yelling out: “Forward!” “Victory!” Now they began to turn their backs in disorder.

It was not, though, at the sight of the bayonets. They had seen and heard something else. The thundering beat of approaching horse-hoofs shook the ground.

With a trampling turmoil of horse-hoofs the cavalrymen of the British Union Brigade burst on the scene, galloping forward from their former post in rear of Picton’s infantry. The Scots Greys were on the left; the Inniskillings in the centre; the Royal Dragoons on the right.

Marcognet’s men heard their approach, and the next moment saw the horsemen coming at them. The unexpected sight startled and staggered them; and some of those in the front line gave way. The alarm spread at once, as most of the rest realised what was approaching. The whole column swayed to and fro violently. Then it lost cohesion and began to roll back in mingled ranks down-hill.

A moment later the Greys were among them. “The smoke in which the head of the French column was enshrouded had not cleared away when the Greys dashed into the mass.

“Highlanders and Greys charged together, while shrill and wild from the Highland ranks sounded the mountain pipe, mingled with shouts of ‘Scotland for ever!’” So an officer describes. The men of the 92nd seized hold of the stirrup-leathers of the horsemen, and charged with them. “All rushed forward, leaving none but the disabled in their rear.”

[Illustration: WATERLOO

The Charge of the Union Brigade]

[Sidenote: A SHOUT OF “ATTENTION! CAVALRY!”]

“The dragoons,” describes Captain Siborne, “having the advantage of the descent, appeared to mow down the mass, which, bending under the pressure, quickly spread itself outwards in all directions. Yet in that mass were many gallant spirits who could not be brought to yield without a struggle; and these fought bravely to the death.”

Says some one on the French side: “We heard a shout of ‘Attention! Cavalry!’ Almost at the same instant a crowd of red dragoons mounted on grey horses swept down upon us like the wind. Those who had straggled were cut to pieces without mercy. They did not fall upon our columns to ride through and break us up--we were too deep and massive for that; but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with their sabres and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns to cut them in two. Though they did not succeed in this, they killed great numbers and threw us into confusion.”

The foremost French battalion of Marcognet’s column was the 45th of the Line, one of Napoleon’s favourite corps, recruited in the capital, and always spoken of by him as “Mes braves Enfants de Paris.” Said he of them indeed once, when pointing them out to the Russian Envoy at the grand review of June 1810: “Mark those soldiers, Prince: that is my 45th--my brave children of Paris! If ever cartridges are burned between my brother the Emperor of Russia and me, I will show him the efficiency of my 45th. It was they who stormed your Russian batteries at Austerlitz. They are scamps [“des vauriens”] off duty, but lions on campaign; you should see their dash, their intrepidity; above all, their cheerfulness under fire!” Small men--“ideal voltigeurs” Napoleon also called the 45th--they stood a poor chance against the stalwart swordsmen of the Scots Greys.

[Illustration: THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD.

Sergeant Ewart of the Scots Greys taking the Eagle of the 45th at Waterloo.

From the picture by R. Andsell, A.R.A., at Royal Hospital, Chelsea.]

It was they who were to yield up the first of our British Eagle-trophies of Waterloo. The prize fell to a non-commissioned officer of the Greys, Sergeant Charles Ewart, a Kilmarnock man, who achieved the feat of taking it single-handed. Ewart, an athletic fellow of splendid physique and herculean strength, six feet four in his stockings, and a notable _sabreur_, was plunging through the struggling press of infantry, slashing out to right and left, when he caught sight of the Eagle of the 45th, with its gorgeous new silken flag, bearing the glittering inscription in letters of gold--“Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Essling, Wagram.” It was being hurried away to the rear for safety in the middle of a small band of devoted men who surrounded it, and were fighting hard with their bayonets to keep the British off. Sergeant Ewart saw that and rode straight for the Eagle-bearer. Parrying the bayonet-thrusts at him as he got up, he cut down the French officer who carried the Eagle, and then had a fight with two others. These, first one and then the other, were killed or disabled by the sergeant, who in the end carried off the splendid trophy triumphantly.

[Sidenote: HOW EWART TOOK THE EAGLE]

Ewart himself, in a letter to his father, tells his own story of the taking of the Eagle:

“He and I had a hard contest for it. He thrust for my groin; I parried it off and cut him through the head, after which I was attacked by one of their lancers, who threw his lance at me, but missed the mark by my throwing it off with my sword, at my right side. Then I cut him from the chin upwards, which went through his teeth. Next I was attacked by a foot-soldier, who, after firing at me, charged me with his bayonet; but he very soon lost the combat, for I parried it and cut him down through the head. That finished the contest for the Eagle.”

Napoleon was watching the progress of the fight through his glasses. He witnessed the charge of the Scots Greys--unaware, of course, that it was his pet “Enfants de Paris” who were undergoing their fate. “Qu’ils sont terribles ces chevaux gris!” was the exclamation that, according to the guide De Coster, fell from Napoleon’s lips at the sight. The Greys cut his unlucky 45th to pieces, and had overthrown the rest of Marcognet’s Division in three minutes. “In three minutes,” says a British officer in the charge, “the column was totally overthrown and numbers of them taken prisoners.”

Sabring their way through the remnants of the 45th, and leaving the prisoners to be secured by the Highlanders, the Greys then charged the supporting regiment, the 25th of the Line. These, “lost in amazement at the suddenness and wildness of the charge and its terrific effect on their comrades on the higher ground in front,” were caught in the act of trying to form square. Some of them fired a few shots at the dragoons, but the impetus of the first charge carried the Greys in among them with a rush, driving in the foremost ranks and making the rest of the column in rear roll back and break up. In panic and despair they threw down their muskets and, according to a British officer, “surrendered in crowds.” The Eagle of the 25th, however, was saved. It was carried safely off the field, and is now one of the Napoleonic relics at the Invalides.

Ewart was at once sent to Brussels with the trophy, and on his arrival carried it through the crowded streets “amidst the acclamations of thousands of spectators who saw it.” He was given an ensigncy in the 3rd Royal Veteran Battalion in recognition of his exploit. The sword he used at Waterloo is now among the treasures of Chelsea Hospital, and Ewart’s old regiment bears embroidered on its standard a French Eagle, with the legend “Waterloo.”[44]

[Sidenote: THE CHARGE OF THE “ROYALS”]

Within a few moments of Sergeant Ewart capturing the Eagle of the 45th, an officer of the Royal Dragoons, Captain A. K. Clark (afterwards Sir A. K. Clark-Kennedy) took, also in hand-to-hand fight, the other Eagle sent home by Wellington from Waterloo--that of the 105th of the Line, the leading regiment of Bourgeois’ Brigade.

The Royals, on the right of the Union Brigade, came down on the French left column. That, as yet, had had no enemy in front of it, and was advancing with cheers and shouts of triumph across the crest-line of the ridge. It overlapped and extended beyond the flank of what had been Picton’s line, and so far had only been fired at from a distance by artillery and part of the 95th. Suddenly the French were startled by the apparition of a mass of cavalry quite near; coming on within eighty or ninety yards of them--emerging from the battle-smoke at a gallop.

The sight took them completely by surprise. The loud shouts of triumph stopped abruptly. “The head of the column,” describes one of the Royals, “appeared to be seized with a panic, gave us a fire which brought down about twenty men, went instantly about, and endeavoured to regain the opposite side of the hedges.” They had just crossed the Wavre road along the slope, about halfway up.

It was the men of one corps, the 105th of the Line, who so turned back. They, of all in the regiments of Napoleon’s army, knew what it was to be charged by cavalry. They had had one fearful experience of what cold steel in strong hands could do, and wanted no second. They were the same 105th whom Wellington’s Hanoverian Dragoons, in the pursuit after Salamanca, had ridden down and slaughtered so mercilessly. Once more the fearful fate was about to overtake them--was at hand, was on them! In the ranks were many veterans who had served in the 105th in Spain before 1814, and had rejoined on Napoleon’s return from Elba. The slaughter after Salamanca was a grim and horrifying memory in the regiment that every man shuddered to recall. It all came back vividly to them now, as the flashing sabres of the Royal Dragoons burst into view, making for them across the ridge. The whole regiment gave back and broke, turning for help to the supporting 28th in rear.

But they were not able to reach their refuge in time. Without drawing rein the Royals pressed home their charge. They were into the 105th in a moment, cutting them down on all sides.

[Sidenote: HOW THE SECOND EAGLE WAS TAKEN]

In that _mêlée_ the Eagle of the 105th met its fate. Captain Clark-Kennedy himself describes how that came about--how he came to take the Eagle. He was in command of the centre squadron, leading through the thick of the ill-fated infantrymen.

“I did not see the Eagle and Colour (for there were two Colours, but only one with an Eagle) until we had been probably five or six minutes engaged. It must, I should think, have been originally about the centre of the column, and got uncovered from the change of direction. When I first saw it, it was perhaps about forty yards to my left, and a little in my front. The officer who carried it, and his companions, were moving with their backs towards me, and endeavouring to force their way through the crowd.

“I gave the order to my squadron, ‘Right shoulders forward! Attack the Colour!’ leading direct on the point myself. On reaching it I ran my sword into the officer’s right side, a little above the hip-joint. He was a little to my left side, and he fell to that side, with the Eagle across my horse’s head. I tried to catch it with my left hand, but could only touch the fringe of the flag; and it is probable it would have fallen to the ground, had it not been prevented by the neck of Corporal Styles’ horse, who came close up on my left at the instant, and against which it fell. Corporal Styles was standard-coverer: his post was immediately behind me, and his duty to follow wherever I led.

“When I first saw the Eagle, I gave the order ‘Right shoulders forward! Attack the Colour!’ and on running the officer through the body I called out twice together, ‘Secure the Colour! Secure the Colour! It belongs to me!’ This order was addressed to some men close to me, of whom Corporal Styles was one.

“On taking up the Eagle I endeavoured to break the Eagle off the pole, with the intention of putting it into the breast of my coat, but I could not break it. Corporal Styles said, ‘Pray, sir, do not break it,’ on which I replied, ‘Very well. Carry it to the rear as fast as you can. It belongs to me!’”

Taking hold of the Eagle, Corporal Styles turned away. He had a fight to get through with it, and had, we are told, literally to cut his way back to safety.

Captain Clark-Kennedy, who received two wounds and had two horses killed under him, was given the C.B. He was granted later, as an augmentation to his family arms, the representation of a Napoleonic Eagle and flag; with for crest a “demi-dragoon holding a flag with an Eagle on it.” Corporal Styles was appointed to an ensigncy in the West India Regiment. The Royal Dragoons wear the device of a Napoleonic Eagle as collar-badge, and bear an Eagle embroidered on their standard.

[Sidenote: WHERE ANOTHER FLAG WAS FOUND]

As with the 45th, so with the 105th--both battalions of each regiment lost their colours; the regimental Eagle and the “fanion” of the second battalion. The “fanion” of the 105th, described as “a dark blue silken flag, with on it the words ‘105me Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne,’” came into British possession in a manner that is not clear. It was not taken in fight by the Royals. Was it picked up on the field after the battle by some camp-follower and sold? Its existence and whereabouts remained unknown until some twenty-four years afterwards. As it happened, curiously, General Clark-Kennedy, as he then was, himself lighted upon it by chance, hanging in the hall of Sir Walter Scott’s home at Abbotsford. How it got there, in spite of all inquiries, the general was unable to discover.

Two other Eagles, it would appear, had adventures at Waterloo.

One, according to an unconfirmed story, was taken and lost by the Inniskillings, who charged the 54th and 55th of the Line, stationed at the rear of Bourgeois’ Brigade, just after the Royals attacked the leading battalion of that column. A trooper named Penfold claimed to have taken the Eagle of one of the two regiments. “After we charged,” he said, “I saw an Eagle which I rode up to, and seized hold of it. The man who bore it would not give it up, and I dragged him along by it for a considerable distance. Then the pole broke about the middle, and I carried off the Eagle. Immediately after that I saw a comrade, Hassard, in difficulties, and, giving the Eagle to a young soldier of the Inniskillings, I went to his aid. The Eagle got dropped and lost.”

The second of these two Eagles is said to have been captured by the Blues, the Royal Horse Guards, and then lost in much the same way. “A private in the Blues,” records Wellington’s Supplemental Despatches, “killed a French officer and took an Eagle; but his own horse being killed, he could not keep it.” A French officer also mentions the taking of the Eagle by the Blues and its recovery.

About the time that the ill-fated 45th of the Line and the 105th lost their Eagles in front of Picton’s Division, another Eagle elsewhere had a narrow escape from capture, being saved by its colonel’s personal act. That took place in front of Hougoumont, with the Eagle of the 1st of the Line. The regiment was in Jerome Bonaparte’s Division in front of Hougoumont, and had made an attack on the outbuildings of the château, which the defenders had beaten off. At the last moment, as the French assault recoiled, the Eagle-bearer and his two fellows were shot down together. The battalion fell back, leaving the Eagle lying on the ground in the open, beside its dead guardians. For the moment, apparently, the British defenders did not see the trophy thus left within their reach. Before they did so Colonel Cubières, of the 1st of the Line, discovered its loss and saw where it had fallen. He ran out by himself, picked up the Eagle, and, escaping harm of any kind, carried it back to the regiment. According to M. Thiers, “the English officers checked the fire of their men while the deed was being performed, in admiration of his courage”--an interesting detail in the story if true!

THE LAST ATTACK AND AFTER: THE EAGLES OF THE GUARD

[Sidenote: THE EAGLES OF THE GUARD]

In the third episode in the story of Waterloo we strike another note. How the Eagles of the Guard fared in the closing hour of the battle, when Napoleon staked his last desperate throw and lost--that final phase remains to tell.

Fourteen Eagles of the Guard were on the field. All came safely through the battle and survived the risks and perils of the night retreat that followed, to recross the frontier with the rallied remnants of the stricken host. Only three, however, are now in existence: one at the Invalides; the other two in private keeping in France. The remaining eleven were, some of them at any rate, destroyed by the officers on the final disbanding of the Grand Army, refusing to give them up to the emissaries of the Bourbon _régime_ sent to receive them for conveyance to Vincennes, where as many as could be got hold of among the regimental Eagles underwent their fate by fire.

Five Eagles went forward in the great last-hope attack of the Guard against the centre of Wellington’s position, the overthrow of which cost Napoleon the battle. They were the Eagles of the 3rd and 4th Grenadiers of the Guard, and of three regiments of the Chasseurs of the Guard, the 1st, 3rd, and 4th. All five are among those that have disappeared since Waterloo.

Close beside the Eagle of the 3rd Grenadiers it was that Marshal Ney fought so heroically, as he led in person the historic grand attack of the Imperial Guard. His fifth horse was shot under Ney in the advance, and he then drew his sword and strode forward on foot alongside the Eagle-bearer. So he led until the column reeled back and broke under the sudden attack of the British Guards across the crest-line of the slope. At that moment Ney lost his footing, and fell in the confusion. “He disappeared,” says a French officer, “just at the moment that the Guard gave way. But he was up again in a moment, and with voice and gesture strove his hardest to rally them.” It was to no purpose. The great column wavered, swayed, and then fell apart in disorder. “Mitraillée, fusillée, reduit à quinze ou seize cent hommes, la Garde recule!” Ney was swept off his feet in the retreat, and borne backwards; carried away in the rush of the fugitives, struggling helplessly in the crowd. “Bathed in perspiration, his eyes blazing with indignation, foaming at the mouth, his uniform torn open, one of his epaulets cut away by a sabre-slash, his star of the Legion of Honour dented by a bullet, bleeding, muddy, heroic, holding a broken sword in his hand, he shouted to the men, ‘See how a Marshal of France dies on the battlefield!’ But it was in vain: he did not die.”

[Sidenote: NEY’S LAST HEROIC EFFORT]

Then Ney, mounting a trooper’s horse, made for a regiment near, whose men were falling back in fair order, with their Eagle borne defiantly in their midst--the 8th of the Line. With them was a battalion of the 95th, also displaying their Eagle gallantly as they, too, tried to withdraw in regular formation. Ney made them face about, and put himself at their head. He appealed to them in the words he had used just before, when trying to rally the Guard: “Suivez moi, camarades. Je vais vous montrer comment meurt un Maréchal de France sur le champ de bataille!” The men turned to face the enemy, with a shout of “Vive le Maréchal Ney!” They charged forward towards where some of the red-coats of Kempt’s and Pack’s infantry showed themselves in the van of the pursuers. But at the same instant some horsemen of a Prussian hussar regiment dashed at them at a gallop. The sight of the horsemen was too much for their shattered nerves. They turned their backs and ran off panic-stricken. Ney’s last rallied band broke and fled, with cries of “Sauve qui peut!”

Yet not quite all. A small band of the men of the 8th kept round their Eagle, and retired in order, still holding it up. _Chef de Bataillon_ Rullière, of the 95th, snatched the Eagle of that regiment from its bearer, broke the staff, and carried off the Eagle concealed under his coat.

Ney’s sixth horse was shot under him as the men turned. Again getting to his feet he staggered on in the midst of the crowd of fugitives until he at last found his way into one of the rallying squares formed in rear by some of the survivors of the Guard. There now, beside the Eagle of the 4th Chasseurs of the Guard, Ney made his last stand at Waterloo--at bay, desperate. He fought in the square, “shoulder to shoulder with the rest, shooting and thrusting with a musket and bayonet he got hold of,” as the square slowly made its retreat off the field, until in the darkness it broke up, and the men dispersed. The devotion of a mounted officer who met the marshal on foot, utterly worn out and by himself, and gave up his horse to him, enabled Ney in the end to reach a place of safety.

Napoleon was watching the Second Column of the Guard at the moment of its disaster. How the overwhelming catastrophe burst on his gaze, abruptly and all unexpectedly, makes one of the most dramatic of historic scenes. At that moment Napoleon was about to lead in person the reserve of the Guard, three battalions which he had retained near him throughout, to reinforce the fighting line.

“While they were being marshalled for the attack--one battalion deployed, with a battalion in close column on either side--he kept his glass turned upon the conflict in which he intended to bear a part.

“Suddenly his hand fell.

[Sidenote: NAPOLEON IS HORROR-STRICKEN]

“‘Mais ils sont mêlée!’ he ejaculated in a tone of horror, his voice hollow and quavering. He addressed his aide de camp, Count Flahault, who was under no illusion as to what troops were meant. The sun had just set. There was no radiance to prevent all men seeing what was going on out there in the north-west.”

Immediately on that followed the general collapse: the almost instantaneous break up of the French army all along the line.

“First the trampled corn in rear was sprinkled, then it was covered, with a confused mass of men moving south; behind and among them the sabres of Vivian’s hussars and Vandeleur’s dragoons rose and fell, hacking and hewing on every side.

“‘La Garde recule!’ sounded like a sob in the motionless ranks of the Old Guard (the three battalions near Napoleon), and sped with astonishing swiftness to every part of the field. ‘La Garde recule!’ cried the men of Allix, Donzelot, and Marcognet, and began to melt away from the vantage ground they had recently so nobly won. ‘La Garde recule!’ whispered Reille’s columns, still unbroken on the left. Far on the right, Durutte’s battalions, suddenly confronted by the heads of Ziethen’s columns, where they had been told to look for Grouchy’s, caught up the word. Next, the uneasy murmur, ‘Nous sommes trahis!’ was heard--for was there not treason? Had not General Bourmont and his staff, and other officers, openly gone over to the enemy? ‘La Garde recule!’ Oh fatal cry! soon swelling into one still more dreadful--last tocsin of the soldier’s agony--‘Sauve qui peut!’ Papelotte and La Haye were abandoned, and from the east, as already from the west, the wreck of the Last Army rolled towards the Charleroi road.”

The Eagle that was close beside Napoleon at that most awful moment of his life, as he saw his Guard break and fall back in confusion, is at the Invalides now. It is the Eagle of the 2nd Grenadiers of the Guard; one of the three reserve battalions that were forming up to go forward at the moment of the catastrophe.

[Illustration: WATERLOO

THE FINAL PHASE

Sketch Plan to show the attack and the defeat of the columns of the Guard.]

Napoleon watched the panic begin to spread over the field for a brief moment. Then he roused himself to try to meet the impending crash. First he formed the Guard battalions nearest him into square. Then he sent off his last remaining gallopers, in the futile hope that it might be possible to rally the men of the nearest divisions to him before they had time to scatter. But the effort was hopeless: it was beyond possibility to stem the raging torrent of frantic soldiers, now in full flight on every side, racing past in the direction of Jemmapes. The lie that he had sent round just before the Guard started on its charge, that Grouchy had arrived, recoiled on his own head. The panic-stricken soldiers would not be stopped. “They had been told that Grouchy had arrived. They had found instead Ziethen’s terrible Prussians. Now they would listen to nothing. The fugitives streamed past, rushing on and bellowing as they went that they had been betrayed and that all was lost!”

[Sidenote: NAPOLEON SHELTERS IN A SQUARE]

After that Napoleon rode into the nearest square, and took shelter in its midst. It was that of the Second Battalion of the 2nd Chasseurs of the Guard. The square moved off at once towards La Belle Alliance, and, turning there into the Charleroi road, took its way back towards Rossomme, half a mile in rear, where the two battalions of the 1st and 2nd Grenadiers of the Old Guard had remained all day.

At Rossomme Napoleon passed to the square of the First Battalion of the 1st Grenadiers of the Old Guard. The two battalions of the Guard there had already formed in squares of their own accord, with their Eagles held on high in their midst. They were joined by the 1st Chasseurs of the Guard, coming up from Caillou, a short distance in rear. The three squares held their ground firmly, beating off the headmost of the Prussian attacks. They remained halted until, on some of the Prussian artillery nearing the place, Napoleon himself gave the order to move away in retreat.

At a slow step, the drums rolling out the stately “Grenadier’s March,” sullen and defiant, the Old Guard, with Napoleon in the midst of the square of the 1st Grenadiers, set forth on their last journey. Their Eagle was still borne on high in their midst--close beside Napoleon. It is the Eagle that is now treasured in Paris by the descendants of General Petit, the commander of the Grenadiers at Waterloo--the Eagle of the Adieu of Fontainebleau; the same Eagle that led the Guard at Austerlitz and Jena, at Eylau and Friedland, at Wagram, and throughout all the horrors of the retreat from Moscow. It escorted Napoleon off the field after Waterloo.

[Illustration: THE SQUARE OF THE OLD GUARD AT BAY AFTER WATERLOO.

From the picture by H. Bellangé.]

[Sidenote: THE OLD GUARD MARCH AWAY]

The Grenadiers of the Guard escorted Napoleon for four miles from the battlefield, beating back repeated efforts that were made by Prussian cavalry to break up their ranks. To maintain their formation to the last was their only hope of safety; and terrible were the measures they took to safeguard themselves and keep their ranks intact. Friend or foe who attempted to get in among them was mercilessly shot down. “Nous tirons,” describes General Petit, “sur tout ce qui presentaient, amis et ennemis, de peur de laisser entrer les uns avec les autres.” They took their way along the Charleroi road; the 2nd Grenadiers marching on the _chaussée_ itself, the 1st Grenadiers to the left of the road. With marvellous calmness and cool courage did the veterans proceed on their way. “Every few minutes they stopped to rectify the alignment of the faces of the square, and to keep off pursuit by means of rapid and well-sustained musketry.”

Erckmann-Chatrian’s soldier of the 25th, who was amongst the fugitives streaming across country on either side of the high-road, tells how he heard from afar the stately drum-beat of their march. “In the distance _La Grenadière_ sounded like an alarm-bell in the midst of a conflagration. Yet, indeed, this was much more terrible--it was the last drum-beat of France! This rolling of the drums of the Old Guard sounding forth in the midst of disaster had in it something infinitely pathetic as well as terrible.”

And of the scene with Napoleon in the square of the Grenadiers as it tramped its way along, we have this from Thiers: “With sombre but calm countenance, he rode in the centre of the square, his far-seeing glance as it were probing futurity and realising that more than a battle had been lost that day. He only interrupted his gloomy meditations to inquire now and again for his lieutenants, some of whom were among the wounded near him. The soldiers all round seemed stupefied by the disaster. The men moved stolidly on, almost without a word to one another. Napoleon alone seemed to be able to speak; occasionally addressing a few words to the Major-General (Soult), or to his brother Jerome, who rode beside him. Now and again, when harassed by the Prussian squadrons, the square would halt, and the side that was attacked fired on the assailants, after which the sad and silent march was resumed.”

Throughout the march, keeping their position at a little distance from the squares of the Grenadiers, rode the Horse-Grenadiers and the Mounted Chasseurs of the Guard. One of the finest displays of soldierly endurance ever made, perhaps, was that given by the Horse-Grenadiers of the Guard as the magnificent regiment left the field, “moving at a walk, in close columns and in perfect order; as if disdaining to allow itself to be contaminated by the confusion that prevailed around it.” So describes a British officer who saw them ride away. They beat off all attacks and kept steadily and compactly together. “They literally walked from the field in the most orderly manner, moving majestically along, with their Eagle in their midst, as though merely marching to take up their ground for a field-day.” This, further, is what a British officer of Light Dragoons, who came up with them in the pursuit, says of their heroic demeanour: “Seeing the men of our brigade approach, they halted, formed line, and fired a volley--a rare thing for dragoons--and waited a few minutes, as much as to say, ‘We are ready to receive your charge if you are so disposed’; then finding we did not advance, they again continued their slow retreat.”

[Sidenote: A FAMOUS EAGLE NOW IN FRANCE]

The Eagle of the Horse-Grenadiers has disappeared since Waterloo: that of the Mounted Chasseurs of the Guard is in existence, in France, in the custody of a member of the Bonaparte family. It was preserved by General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment, who commanded the Chasseurs at Waterloo. Carried in safety to France, the Eagle was then taken to America, when the General, on whose head a price had been placed, escaped across the Atlantic in the autumn of 1815. He presented it later to Joseph Bonaparte, in the possession of whose representatives the Eagle is now. It still bears attached to the staff the green silk guidon-shaped flag, inscribed “Chasseurs de la Garde,” and embroidered with gold and silver laurel-leaves, which it bore at Waterloo.

Napoleon quitted the square of Grenadiers about two miles from Jemmapes. By that time the Prussians had ceased their attacks on the Guard for easier prey elsewhere. He rode on at a little distance ahead; the battalions of the Guard at the same time re-forming into columns of march. They kept with the Emperor until the neighbourhood of Jemmapes was reached. There Napoleon and Soult and the others quitted the road, betaking themselves across the fields to make their way as best they could to Charleroi, whence Napoleon was able to continue his flight in a post-chaise.

Yet another of the Waterloo Eagles of the Guard with a story to be told of it was that of the 2nd Chasseurs--one of the Eagles that have now disappeared. How the Eagle was saved from capture, and finally brought through to safety, recalls a remarkable and dramatic incident of the battle.

The 2nd Chasseurs was one of the twelve battalions of the Young Guard detached by Napoleon late in the afternoon to assist General Lobau and the Sixth Army Corps to keep off the Prussian flank attack. Between them they saved the army from an even worse catastrophe than that which actually befell Napoleon at Waterloo--from having to surrender. For nearly an hour after the rout had become general, the Sixth Corps, and the battalions of the Young Guard assisting it, by their heroic resistance, prevented the Prussians from breaking in on the only line of retreat open to the defeated army, and enabled Napoleon to get clear away.

[Sidenote: TO SAVE THE REST OF THE ARMY]

“Lobau,” to quote the words of a modern military writer, “recognised to the full that he alone interposed between the Prussians and the French line of retreat. If he failed, retreat would be cut off, and the army taken in rear as well as in front and flank; not a man would get away. The fate of the Army, the Emperor, of France, rested on Lobau at the supreme moment, and splendidly he did his duty. Dusk had given way to dark, only illuminated by the blazing ruins of Planchenoit, before Lobau retired, but by that time the rear of the flying army had cleared the point of peril, and comparative safety was assured. Still steady, and in good order, he took post on the high-road to close the line of flight and block pursuit, and the gallant remnant of the Sixth Corps and the Young Guard had to bear the full fury of the combined advance of the enemy. Nothing at Waterloo can surpass for coolness, courage, and determination the heroic resistance of Lobau.”

It was in the village of Planchenoit that the 2nd Chasseurs fought side by side with the other battalions of the Guard in that quarter under the leadership of General Pelet, to whom Napoleon had specially entrusted the defence of the post. Planchenoit was defended foot by foot at the point of the bayonet against ever-increasing numbers of the Prussians. The 2nd Chasseurs were the last troops of all to quit, after contesting the village house by house, cottage by cottage, fighting the Prussians man to man among the bushes and walls of the gardens, and finally in the churchyard, where they made their last stand at bay, desperately combating among the tombstones. Fresh Prussians kept coming up to join in the attack, but the 2nd Chasseurs, their Eagle defiantly displayed in the midst of the battling throng, resisted stubbornly. When at the last they drew off, the whole of Planchenoit was a mass of flames, blazing from end to end.

There remained a rough half-mile of open ground before they could get to the Charleroi road--the line of retreat along which, by that time, a large proportion of the fugitives from the main army had got away. The 2nd Chasseurs, in rear of all, as they left their last shelter in Planchenoit and were beyond the churchyard walls, were swept down on by a furious rush of Prussian cavalry, and half the regiment was cut to pieces. The moon was rising by that time, and the Prussians had sufficient light for their deadly work.

The survivors, broken up, and thrown in irremediable disorder, could after that only run for their lives. But they still bore their Eagle among them. It was draped under a black cloth. Somebody, in some house in the village, as they were falling back to the churchyard, had, it would appear, caught up a strip of crape or black cloth, and hastily wrapped it round the Eagle to conceal it in that way from hostile eyes. The Eagle-bearer refused to break the Eagle from the staff, and hide it under his coat, as others had done elsewhere with other Eagles.

With the Eagle so covered, a small party of devoted soldiers were accompanying their standard as the survivors of the Prussian charge hastened towards the Charleroi road, when there came yet another attack from the Prussian horse, who charged among them and trampled them down as the troopers slashed mercilessly at the fugitives. At that moment the Eagle and its guardians found themselves near the General. They were isolated and cut off in the midst of the wild _mêlée_. Pelet caught sight of them, desperately striving to protect the Eagle-bearer, who was frantically clutching at the Eagle-staff as he held on to it and tried to get through.

[Sidenote: “SAVE YOUR EAGLE OR DIE ROUND IT!”]

Pelet made for the group, shouting at the top of his voice: “Rally, Chasseurs! Rally on me! Save your Eagle or die round it!” (“A moi, Chasseurs! A moi! Sauvons l’Aigle ou mourons autour d’elle!”)

In the midst of the frenzied tumult his cry for help was somehow heard by the men ahead. They turned back in their flight and fought their way to the threatened Eagle. Others pressed round to join them, until by degrees was formed a compact body between two and three hundred in number, who with their bayonets kept the cavalry back as they fought their way towards the high-road step by step.

More than once they had to halt and face about, as the Prussian horsemen in their repeated attempts to capture the Eagle circled round them, and dashed in at them again and again, but, “forming what is usually termed a rallying square, and lowering their bayonets, they succeeded in repulsing the charges of the cavalry.” At one point in the retreat “some guns were brought to bear upon them, and subsequently a brisk fire of musketry; but notwithstanding the awful sacrifice which was thus offered up in defence of their precious charge, they succeeded in reaching the main line of retreat, and saved alike the Eagle and the Honour of the Regiment.”

* * * * *

The Eagles of the Guard all came safely through the turmoil and horrors of the night of the rout after Waterloo. And--it seems incredible, but the fact is vouched for by several officers--so did the other Eagles of the army. All at Waterloo, it is declared, were brought back to France, except the two taken from the ill-fated 45th and the 105th of the Line by the Scots Greys and the Royals. Those two only remained as trophies in the hands of the victors. General Charras, whose good faith we have no right to impugn, declares the fact in explicit language, and another officer relates how, on the day after the battle, when the rallied remains of the army assembled at Phillippeville and Maubeuge, “the soldiers wept tears of joy at learning how many of their Eagles had been saved.”

[Sidenote: “MAKE WAY FOR THE EAGLE!”]

Says General Charras, describing how the Eagles were saved that night: “Two standards had been lost on the battlefield. There was none other lost. In the crowd of disbanded horsemen and foot-soldiers, marching and running pell-mell, some still armed, others having thrown away or broken their sabres and guns under the impulse of rage, of despair, of terror, there were to be seen, by the pale light of the moon, little groups of officers of every grade, and of soldiers, spontaneously collected round the standard of each regiment, and advancing sabre in hand, bayonet on the gun, resolute and imperturbable in the midst of the general disorder. ‘Place au drapeau!’ cried they when the rout arrested their march, and this cry always sufficed to cause the very men who had become deaf to every word of command and to all discipline to stand aside before them and open a passage. They had often to endure peril, they had often to repulse the enemy’s attacks, but they saved their conquered flags from the attempts and hands of the conqueror.”

Grouchy also saved all his Eagles--although one had its adventures in the attack on Wavre, and was nearly lost to the Prussians. The story this time is not exactly creditable to some of those concerned; but the regiment in question, it must be said, had but few old soldiers in its ranks, having been made up almost entirely of recently levied and half-trained conscripts. Also, it had just previously been very roughly handled by the Prussians on the battlefield of Ligny. There, indeed, it had been charged by cavalry, and had suffered severely. The unfortunate regiment was the 70th of the Line.

In Grouchy’s fighting at Wavre they were in Vandamme’s Division, which had orders to carry the bridge over the Dyle and storm the town, held by the Prussians in considerable force. To give the 70th a chance of getting their revenge for Ligny, and winning back the old good name of the regiment, Vandamme specially chose them for the post of honour in the attack; appointing the 70th to lead the van in the preliminary storming of the bridge. They led the attack, dashing forward bravely enough at the outset, and got halfway across. Then they stopped short, their ranks decimated by the furious fire with which the Prussians received them from the houses on the opposite bank, hesitated, went on a few paces, stopped again, and finally ran back in panic.

[Sidenote: SAVED BY ANOTHER REGIMENT]

The sight of the sudden rout maddened their leader, Colonel Maury. Stooping from his charger, he snatched hold of the Eagle from its bearer, and held it up before the men. “What! you scoundrels! You dishonoured me two days ago; you are again disgracing me to-day! Forward! Follow me!” (“Comment, canaille! Vous m’avez deshonoré avant-hier, et vous recidiviez aujourdhui! En avant! Suivez moi!”) Brandishing the Eagle the colonel turned his horse to ride back across the bridge. The drums beat the charge: the regiment followed. But all was to no purpose. As fate willed it, the gallant colonel fell, shot dead before he could get across, and at the sight of his fall panic again seized the regiment. They ran wildly back again, leaving the dead colonel’s body and the Eagle lying halfway across the bridge. The Eagle was rescued and brought back by the men of another regiment. Had it not been for the sudden rush forward of the leading company of the 22nd of the Line, the regiment supporting the 70th in the attack, the Eagle would have been taken. Several Prussian soldiers had indeed already run forward to pick it up, and their leader was in the act of doing so when the foremost of the rescuers arrived, beat back the Prussians, and recovered the fallen Eagle.

The failure of this one regiment at Wavre is the only recorded instance of bad behaviour before the enemy in the Waterloo campaign. And for it too, in view of the composition of the regiment in question, some allowance may surely be made.

THE EAGLES ANNOUNCE VICTORY TO LONDON

The last of the four episodes is supplemental: the story of how Wellington’s Eagle-trophies themselves first announced Waterloo to London.

The two Eagles were sent to England immediately after the battle, together with Wellington’s Waterloo despatch, by Major the Hon. Henry Percy, of the 11th Light Dragoons, who was almost the only member of Wellington’s staff who went through the battle unwounded. He arrived in London, displaying the Eagles from his post-chaise as he travelled through the streets, on the stroke of eleven o’clock on the night of Wednesday, June 21.

Up to then not a word had come from Wellington: not a word of reliable news as to what had happened had reached England. Rumours of an early check to the French had arrived, from unofficial sources, during the previous day, but nothing more had been heard, and all London was on tenterhooks of suspense.

[Sidenote: THE FIRST RUMOURS IN LONDON]

The battle was fought on Sunday the 18th. But no news of it, or in regard to it, of any kind reached England during either Monday or Tuesday. There was no intelligence from the seat of war at all. On the Wednesday morning the _Times_ announced vaguely that Napoleon had struck the first blow unsuccessfully. A Mr. Sutton, of Colchester, it said, the owner of packet-boats running between Harwich and Ostend, had forwarded a message to the effect that there had been fighting on the 15th and 16th and skirmishing on the 17th, and that a fresh battle was beginning on the morning of the 18th. His informant at Brussels had sent that news. There was no more news until Wednesday afternoon, when the _Sun_ came out with a special edition stating that the Government had received no despatches, but that “a gentleman who left Ghent on Monday, and two others from Brussels, brought word that Sunday’s battle had been successful.” All London was in the streets until between ten and eleven that night, in a state of eager expectation; but repeated inquiries at the Horse Guards, at the War Office, and at the Mansion House only met with the answer--“No news yet.”

It was just as the crowds were dispersing, tired of waiting, and taking it as certain that nothing could be known until the morning, as the clocks were on the stroke of eleven, that Major Percy arrived in London.

“He left the Duchess of Richmond’s ball,” says his niece, Lady Bagot, in whose words the story may best be told, “on the night before the battle, and had no time to change his dress, or even his shoes, before going into action. When he received orders to go to England with the despatches, he posted to Antwerp, and there took the first sailing boat he could find to convey him to Dover, where he landed in the afternoon. He found that a report of the victory had preceded him there. The Rothschilds had chartered a fast sloop to lie off Antwerp, and bring the first news of the battle to the English shore--news which was to be used for Stock Exchange purposes.

“My uncle’s confirmation of the rumour of a great victory was received with the greatest relief and enthusiasm. At that time the hotel-keeper at Dover, a certain Mr. Wright, had the monopoly of the posting arrangements between that port and London. He immediately placed his best horses at my uncle’s disposal, and despatched an express to order fresh relays all along the road. Besides the despatches my uncle took the two captured Eagles of the Imperial Guard with him. These, being too large to go into the carriage, were placed so as to stick out of the windows, one on each side. In this manner he drove straight to the Horse Guards, where he learnt that the Commander-in-Chief, at that time the Duke of York, was dining out. He next proceeded to Lord Castlereagh’s, and was told that he and the Duke of York were both dining with a lady in St. James’s Square. To this house he drove, and there learnt that the Prince Regent was also of the dinner-party.

[Sidenote: PRESENTED TO THE PRINCE REGENT]

“Requesting to be shown immediately into the dining-room, he entered that apartment bearing the despatches and the Eagles with him. He was covered with dust and mud, and, though unwounded himself, bore the marks of battle upon his coat. The dessert was being placed upon the table when he entered, and as soon as the Prince Regent saw him he commanded the ladies to leave the room. The Prince Regent then held out his hand, saying, ‘Welcome, Colonel Percy!’ ‘Go down on one knee,’ said the Duke of York to my uncle, ‘and kiss hands for the step you have obtained.’ Before the despatch could be read, my uncle was besieged with inquiries of various prominent officers engaged, and had to answer ‘Dead’ or ‘Severely wounded’ so often that the Prince Regent burst into tears. The Duke of York, though greatly moved, was more composed.

“By this time my uncle was exhausted from fatigue, and begged the Prince’s permission to go to his father’s house in Portman Square. The crowd was so great in St. James’s Square, that he had the greatest difficulty in getting through it and reaching my grandfather’s house, which was soon surrounded by anxious multitudes begging for news of relations and friends. My uncle told them that the victory was complete, but that the number killed and wounded was very large. He told them that he would answer more questions next morning.”

The Eagles themselves in fact announced the victory in London. People in the streets saw the chaise as it passed on its way with its horses at a gallop, racing at full speed along the Old Kent Road, across Westminster Bridge, and through Parliament Street to Whitehall, “the gleaming lamps showing a French Eagle and the French flags projecting from each window.”

The news spread like wild-fire, and before Colonel Percy could reach the house where the Prince Regent was dining--Mrs. Boehm’s, in St. James’s Square--South London was flocking over Westminster Bridge to Whitehall. The West End heard the news immediately afterwards, and everybody hurried out again into the streets.

It became quickly known where the chaise had gone after leaving the Horse Guards, and promptly an ever-increasing crowd hurried off there. Before the despatch had been read an enormous mass of people had assembled in St. James’s Square, outside the house. They were in time to hear the cheering by the company inside the house that greeted the reading of the despatch; the cheers were instantly echoed back, accompanied by an outburst of vociferous shouting followed by a tremendous chorus of “God save the King!” The windows of the dining-room were open, and a moment later the two Eagles with their tricolor flags were thrust through. They were held up, with candles at either side, to show them plainly, so that all might know that the victory had been decisive.

“For a few minutes dustmen’s bells and watchmen’s rattles were sprung all over London. Liquor was produced at many a street-corner, and toasts were drunk to Wellington and confusion to Bonaparte.”[45]

[Sidenote: HOW PARIS HEARD THE NEWS]

The closing scene took place on Thursday, January 18, 1816--on the “General Thanksgiving Day for the Restoration of Peace.” The two Eagles were on that day publicly paraded at the Horse Guards and laid up in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, with ceremonies similar to those that attended the reception of the Barrosa and Salamanca trophies. Again the battalions of the Brigade of Guards in England, with their bands “in State clothing,” turned out to take part in the display, the Eagles, as before, being made to march round the square and do formal obeisance to the British flag by being prostrated in the dust before the Colour of the King’s Guard of the day, at which sight, as on the former occasions, both the troops and the crowd of spectators “instantaneously gave three loud huzzas with the most enthusiastic feeling.” The Duke of York, as Commander-in-Chief, presided this time at the parade. Two sergeants of the Grenadier and Third Guards who had been wounded at Waterloo were selected to carry the Eagles; escorted by a picked company of eighty-four officers and men “drawn from among the heroic defenders of Hougoumont on the field of battle.” Lifeguardsmen and Blues just arrived from the Army of Occupation, in France, assisted the Foot Guards on parade.

[Sidenote: IN THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL]

The escort entered the Chapel Royal by the two doors in equal divisions, the band playing and marching up to the steps of the Communion Table, where they filed off to right and left. As soon as the band had ceased, the two sergeants bearing the Eagles approached the Altar and fixed upon it their consecrated banners. Both the Chaplain-General to the Forces (Archdeacon Owen) and the Bishop of London, with two Royal Chaplains (“the Rev. Mr. Jones and the Rev. Mr. Howlett”), officiated in the service; the Bishop preaching a special sermon, with for his text Psalm xx. verses 7 and 8:

“_Some trust in chariots and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God._

“_They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen and stand upright._”

“After the customary blessing, the band played ‘God save the King!’ the whole congregation standing. Among those who attended were a considerable number of persons of fashion and distinction in public life, the Dukes of Gloucester and York, and the Earl of Liverpool, and several officers of the Army and Navy, with many elegant and distinguished females.”