Very noteworthy, too, is Lavalette’s narrative.  When he saw Napoleon before his departure from Paris to the Belgian frontier, he found him suffering from depression and a pain in the chest; but he avers that, on the return from Waterloo, apart from one “frightful epileptic laugh,” Napoleon speedily settled down to his ordinary behaviour:  not a word is added as to his health. (Sir W. Scott, “Life of Napoleon,” vol. viii., p. 496; Gourgaud, “Campagne de 1815,” and “Journal de St. Helene,” vol. ii., Appendix 32; “Narrative of Captain Maitland,” p. 208; Lavalette, “Mems.,” ch. xxxiii.; Houssaye ridicules the stories of his ill-health.)

What is the upshot of it all?  The evidence seems to show that, whatever was Napoleon’s condition before the campaign, he was in his usual health amidst the stern joys of war.  And this is consonant with his previous experience:  he throve on events which wore ordinary beings to the bone:  the one thing that he could not endure was the worry of parliamentary opposition, which aroused a nervous irritation not to be controlled and concealed without infinite effort.  During the campaign we find very few trustworthy proofs of his decline and much that points to energy of resolve and great rallying power after exertion.  If he was suffering from three illnesses, they were assuredly of a highly intermittent nature.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XL

WATERLOO

Would Wellington hold on to his position?  This was the thought that troubled the Emperor on the night after the wild chase from Quatre Bras.  Before retiring to rest at the Caillou farm, he went to the front with Bertrand and a young officer, Gudin by name, and peered at the enemy’s fires dimly seen through the driving sheets of rain.  Satisfied that the allies were there, he returned to the farm, dictated a few letters on odious parliamentary topics, and then sought a brief repose.  But the same question drove sleep from his eyes.  At one o’clock he was up again and with the faithful Bertrand plashed to the front through long rows of drenched recumbent forms.  Once more they strained their ears to catch through the hiss of the rain some sound of a muffled retirement.  Strange thuds came now and again from the depths of the wood of Hougoumont:  all else was still.  At last, over the slope on the north-east crowned by the St. Lambert Wood there stole the first glimmer of gray; little by little the murky void bodied forth dim shapes, and the watch-fires burnt pale against the orient gleams.  It was enough.  He turned back to the farm.  Wellington could scarcely escape him now.