disappear, and he also knows something of the enemy’s loss by seeing the dead in front of him.  Warmed by the contest, he thus believes in success.  The man placed in rear or advancing with reinforcements, having nothing of the excitement of the struggle, sees only the long and increasing column of wounded, stragglers, and perhaps of fliers.  He sees his companion fall without being able to answer the fire.  He sees nothing of the corresponding loss of the enemy, and he is apt to take a most desponding view of the situation.  Thus Englishmen reading the accounts of men who fought at Waterloo are too ready to disbelieve representations of what was taking place in the rear of the army, and to think Thackeray’s life-like picture in Vanity Fair of the state of Brussels must be overdrawn.  Indeed, in this very battle of Waterloo, Zieten began to retreat when his help was most required, because one of his aides de camp told him that the right wing of the English was in full retreat.  “This inexperienced young man,” says Muffling, p. 248, “had mistaken the great number of wounded going, or being taken, to the rear to be dressed, for fugitives, and accordingly made a false report.”  Further, reserves do not say much of their part or, sometimes, no part of the fight, and few people know that at least two English regiments actually present on the field of Waterloo hardly fired a shot till the last advance.

The Duke described the army as the worst he ever commanded, and said that if he had had his Peninsular men, the fight would have been over much sooner.  But the Duke, sticking to ideas now obsolete, had no picked corps.  Each man, trusting in and trusted by his comrades, fought under his own officers and under his own regimental colours.  Whatever they did not know, the men knew how to die, and at the end of the day a heap of dead told where each regiment and battery had stood.]—­

the career of both had been marked by signal victory; Napoleon had carried his triumphant legions across the stupendous Alps, over the north of Italy, throughout Prussia, Austria, Russia, and even to the foot of the Pyramids, while Wellington, who had been early distinguished in India, had won immortal renown in the Peninsula, where he had defeated, one after another, the favourite generals of Napoleon.  He was now to make trial of his prowess against their Master.

Among the most critical events of modern times the battle of Waterloo stands conspicuous.  This sanguinary encounter at last stopped the torrent of the ruthless and predatory ambition of the French, by which so many countries had been desolated.  With the peace which immediately succeeded it confidence was restored to Europe.

CHAPTER X.

1815

   Interview with Lavallette—­Proceedings in the French Chambers—­
   Second abdication of Napoleon—­He retires to Rochefort, negotiates
   with Captain Maitland, and finally embarks in the ‘Bellerophon’.