longer than the front of our 52nd regiment.”  It is difficult to reconcile all this with the attack in hollow squares; but probably the squares (or oblongs?) followed each other so closely as to seem like a serried column.  None of our men could see whether the masses were solid or hollow, but naturally assumed them to be solid, and hence greatly over-estimated their strength.  A column made up of hollow squares is certainly an odd formation, but perhaps is not unsuitable to withstand cavalry and overthrow infantry.

I cannot accept Houssaye’s statement (p. 393) that the French squares attacked our front at four different places, from the 52nd regiment on our right to the Brunswickers in our centre, a quarter of a mile to the east.  The only evidence that favours this is Macready’s ("Waterloo Letters,” p. 330); he says that the men who attacked his square (30th and 73rd regiments) were of the Middle Guard; for their wounded said so; but Kelly, of the same square, thought they were Donzelot’s men, who certainly attacked there.  Siborne, seemingly on the strength of Macready’s statement, says that part of the Guards’ column diverged thither:  but this is unlikely.  Is it credible that the Guards, less than 4,000 strong, should have spread their attacks over a quarter of a mile of front?  Was not the column the usual method of attack?  I submit, then, that my explanation of the Guard attacking in hollow oblongs, formed in two chief columns, harmonizes the known facts.  See Petit’s “Relation” in “Eng.  Hist.  Rev.,” April, 1903.]

[Footnote 524:  Janin, p. 45.]

[Footnote 525:  Bertrand at St. Helena said he heard Michel utter these words (Montholon, vol. iii., ch. iv.).]

[Footnote 526:  Maitland’s “Narrative,” p. 222.  Basil Jackson, who knew Gourgaud well at St. Helena, learnt from him that he could not finish his account of Waterloo, “as Napoleon could never decide on the best way of ending the great battle:  that he (Gourgaud) had suggested no less than six different ways, but none were satisfactory” ("Waterloo and St. Helena,” p, 102).  Gourgaud’s “Journal” shows that Napoleon blamed in turn the rain, Ney, Grouchy, Vandamme, Guyot, and Soult; but he ends—­“it was a fatality; for in spite of all, I should have won that battle.”]

[Footnote 527:  “Lettres inedites de Napoleon.”]

[Footnote 528:  Gourgaud, “Journal inedit de Ste. Helene,” vol. ii., p. 321, small edit.]

[Footnote 529:  Lucien, “Mems.,” vol. iii., p. 327.]

[Footnote 530:  Stuart’s despatch of June 28th, “F.O.,” France, No. 117; Gneisenau to Mueffling, June 27th, “Passages,” App.]

[Footnote 531:  Croker ("Papers,” vol. iii., p. 67) had this account from Jaucourt, who had it from Becker.]

[Footnote 532:  Ollech, pp. 350-360.  The French cavalry success near Versailles was due to exceptional circumstances.]