on its apex, and that the larger the pyramid, the broader should be the base.  Even in military affairs he was averse from every change, and I know of no improvements which came from his initiative during all those years when his authority was supreme.  The floggings which broke a man’s spirit and self-respect, the leathern stock which hampered his movements, all the old traditional regime found a champion in him.  On the other hand, he strongly opposed the introduction of the percussion cap as opposed to the flint and steel in the musket.  Neither in war nor in politics did he rightly judge the future.

And yet in reading his letters and dispatches, one is surprised sometimes at the incisive thought and its vigorous expression.  There is a passage in which he describes the way in which his soldiers would occasionally desert into some town which he was besieging.  “They knew,” he writes, “that they must be taken, for when we lay our bloody hands upon a place we are sure to take it, sooner or later; but they liked being dry and under cover, and then that extraordinary caprice which always pervades the English character!  Our deserters are very badly treated by the enemy; those who deserted in France were treated as the lowest of mortals, slaves and scavengers.  Nothing but English caprice can account for it; just what makes our noblemen associate with stage-coach drivers, and become stage-coach drivers themselves.”  After reading that passage, how often does the phrase “the extraordinary caprice which always pervades the English character” come back as one observes some fresh manifestation of it!

But let not my last note upon the great duke be a carping one.  Rather let my final sentence be one which will remind you of his frugal and abstemious life, his carpetless floor and little camp bed, his precise courtesy which left no humblest letter unanswered, his courage which never flinched, his tenacity which never faltered, his sense of duty which made his life one long unselfish effort on behalf of what seemed to him to be the highest interest of the State.  Go down and stand by the huge granite sarcophagus in the dim light of the crypt of St. Paul’s, and in the hush of that austere spot, cast back your mind to the days when little England alone stood firm against the greatest soldier and the greatest army that the world has ever known.  Then you feel what this dead man stood for, and you pray that we may still find such another amongst us when the clouds gather once again.

You see that the literature of Waterloo is well represented in my small military library.  Of all books dealing with the personal view of the matter, I think that “Siborne’s Letters,” which is a collection of the narratives of surviving officers made by Siborne in the year 1827, is the most interesting.  Gronow’s account is also very vivid and interesting.  Of the strategical narratives, Houssaye’s book is my favourite.  Taken from the French point of view, it gets the actions of the allies in truer perspective than any English or German account can do; but there is a fascination about that great combat which makes every narrative that bears upon it of enthralling interest.