that Marshal was left a prey to his fatal notion that Wavre was the one point to be aimed at and attacked.  Despite the heavy cannonade on the west he persisted in this strange course; while Napoleon staked everything on a supreme effort against Wellington.  This last was an act of appalling hardihood; but he explained to Cockburn on the voyage to St. Helena that, still confiding in Grouchy’s approach, he felt no uneasiness at the Prussian movements, “which were, in fact, already checked, and that he considered the battle to have been, on the whole, rather in his favour than otherwise.”  The explanation has every appearance of sincerity.  But would any other great commander have staked his last reserve and laid bare his rear solely in reliance on the ability of an almost untried leader who had sent not a single word that justified the hopes now placed in him?

We here touch the weak points in Napoleon’s intellectual armour.  Gifted with almost superhuman insight and energy himself, he too often credited his paladins with possessing the same divine afflatus.  Furthermore, he had a supreme contempt for his enemies.  Victorious in a hundred fights over second-rate opponents in his youth, he could not now school his hardened faculties to the caution needed in a contest with Wellington, Gneisenau, and Bluecher.  Only after he had ruined himself and France did he realize his own errors and the worth of the allied leaders.  During the voyage to England he confessed to Bertrand:  “The Duke of Wellington is fully equal to myself in the management of an army, with the advantage of possessing more prudence."[526]

NOTE ADDED TO THE FOURTH EDITION.—­I have discussed several of the vexed questions of the Waterloo Campaign in an Essay, “The Prussian Co-operation at Waterloo,” in my volume entitled “Napoleonic Studies” (George Bell and Sons, 1904).  In that Essay I have pointed out the inaccuracy or exaggeration of the claims put forward by some German writers to the effect that (1) Wellington played Bluecher false at Ligny, (2) that he did not expect Prussian help until late in the day at Waterloo, (3) that the share of credit for the victory rested in overwhelming measure with Bluecher and Gneisenau.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLI

FROM THE ELYSEE TO ST. HELENA

Napoleon was far from accepting Waterloo as a final blow.  At Philippeville on the day after the battle, he wrote to his brother Joseph that he would speedily have 300,000 men ready to defend France:  he would harness his guns with carriage-horses, raise 100,000 conscripts, and arm them with muskets taken from the royalists and malcontent National Guards:  he would arouse Dauphine, Lyonnais, and Burgundy, and overwhelm the enemy.  “But the people must help me and not bewilder me....  Write to me what effect this horrible piece of bad luck has had on the Chamber.  I believe the deputies will feel convinced that their duty in this crowning moment is to rally round me and save France."[527]