of the 1st division in the general line, and the appearance of the light companies of Byng's brigade on the eastern side of the wood, told the long-tried British infantry that their ordeal was over. Halkett emerged from the wood, and formed line; Picton's wasted infantry moved forward in echelon; Kielmansegge, well covered by skirmishers, steadily made way towards Péraumont, out-flanking the French right; and thus the British line pressed back the enemy, until the skirmishers alone held the enclosures about Gemioncourt. The Guards, who had so swiftly cleared the wood, now appeared outside its southern extremity, and the men formed up as they jumped across the ditch into the fields. Ney was retiring in splendid order with a line of skirmishers well supported, and Roussel's division of Kellerman's corps ready to charge, if an opportunity presented itself. The sudden apparition of the hastily-formed line of the Guards seemed to present that opportunity, but the Guards perceiving the danger, and knowing that they could not form square, spontaneously faced about and ran into the ditch, but no farther-a spontaneous movement, admirably executed, which told well for their training. The fire from the squares of the Brunswick battalions on the left, and from the Guards in the ditch, soon beat back the cavalry. This incident serves to show how impossible it is, without the support and protection of horsemen, to pursue even a defeated foe who is stronger in that arm. This well-aimed but bootless charge was the last effort made by Ney. The Allies swept onward with loud shouts; the battle was won; and in the twilight of a summer's evening victors and vanquished took up their positions for the night, Ney on his old ground in front of Frasne, and Wellington at Gemioncourt, Péraumont, and the southern block of the wood of Bossu; both covered by strong pickets, under

whose watchful eyes the exhausted armies lay down to rest.

Both armies had suffered severely. The Allies, inferior in cavalry and artillery, and attacked in detail, had lost 4,659 men in killed, wounded, and missing, of whom 2,480 were English. The brunt of the battle had, for several hours, been borne by Pack and Kempt, and the brigades commanded by these two gallant officers were diminished by 1,569, out of 5,063 men engaged. The three Highland regiments contributed 878 to this heavy total; but it must be remembered that the 79th rashly pursued Bachelu beyond the Valley of Gemioncourt; that the 42nd was surprised before it could form into square; and that the 92nd not only received the fire of Foy's columns, which it so splendidly defeated with the bayonet, but was exposed, in passing from the isolated house to the wood, to the fire of the French batteries. Halkett's four regiments lost 368 out of 2,618. Two regiments lost heavily; the 69th, because the Prince of Orange exposed it to a charge of cavalry; the 33rd, because, when standing in column, it was taken in flank by Ney's batteries concealed in the wood of Bossu. The total loss of these two regiments was 266 men. The Guards did not win the wood of Bossu without paying the penalty of intrepidity. Their total loss was 554, of whom all, except seven, belonged to the 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 1st Regiment.

The loss of the French is fixed by the best authorities at 4,375 men; a larger loss in proportion to their strength than that which fell upon the Allies-Ney losing about one-fourth, Wellington one-seventh of the force actually in the field.

§ 3. D'Erlon's Wanderings.

When the battle was completely at an end, Count d'Erlon, followed by the head of the 1st corps, reached Frasne for the second time; and as his troops came up during the night, he posted them in rear of that village. The extraordinary movements of this large body of men, more than 20,000 strong, form one of the most remarkable and perplexing incidents in the campaign.

d;

Obedient to the orders issued by Ney between ten and eleven, D'Erlon, then at Gosselies and Jumet, collected his corps about noon, and put them in motion for Quatre Bras. When they had started, he rode off in advance towards the sound of the combat. Arrived at the entrance to Frasne, he fell in with the officers of the light cavalry of the Guard and while he was conversing with them, an aide-de-camp from Fleurus rode up, Laurent or Labédoyère, it is uncertain which, and as D'Erlon himself states, showed him a note in pencil, which he carried to Marshal Ney, ordering the marshal to direct the 1st corps upon Ligny. The aidede-camp stated that, having fallen in with the 1st corps, he had himself already given the order for this movement, by changing the direction of the head of the column. D'Erlon rode back to rejoin his command, and sent General d'Elcambre, his chief of the staff, to communicate with Ney. The aide-de-camp went on to Gemioncourt, and delivered his message to the marshal just before General d'Elcambre arrived. The text of this message seems to have been lost. It appears nowhere; its purport alone is stated in the various narratives of the proceedings of this day. May we not conjecture that it was one of the despatches addressed by Soult to Ney at two, and a little after three o'clock? If it were a positive order from Napoleon, would Ney have ventured to disobey it, as he did, by sending

General d'Elcambre from the field of Quatre Bras, with a peremptory command for the immediate countermarch of the 1st corps? Certainly not. Whereas, if the aide-decamp brought either the despatch written at two, or that dated a quarter past three o'clock, it would be natural that Ney, seeing that it directed him to defeat the British and then fall upon the Prussians, should endeavour to repair what he would consider the error of the aide-de-camp, and recall the 1st corps. The official account, written on the 20th at Laon, actually says that "Ney expected the 1st corps, which did not arrive until night; and gives that as a reason why the marshal confined his efforts to the maintenance of his position at Frasne.

D'Erlon, as we have seen, actually arrived close on to the field of Ligny, halted for a short time, and then, leaving Durutte's division of infantry and Jacquinot's brigade of horse on the right flank of the Prussians, led the bulk of his corps back to Frasne in obedience to Ney's order. Hence he was as totally useless, either to Ney or Napoleon, as if he had remained at Jumet. "Twenty thousand men and forty-six guns," says an able French author, “had been led about, from mid-day until nine in the evening, between two battle-fields, distant six miles from each other, without taking part in either." Their timely presence at Quatre Bras would have placed Wellington in an extremity of peril, while their action on the right flank of the Prussians would have destroyed Blucher. So reason the military critics; but while we may know what has been, speculations on what would or might have been, had something happened which did not happen, are seldom among the fruitful pages of history. Nevertheless the cause of D'Erlon's movement is a fair subject of inquiry; for undoubtedly, his promenade from Jumet to Villers Peruin, and from Villers Peruin to Quatre Bras, was a misfortune

for the French and a piece of good luck for the Allies. Therefore we may look a little closer into the facts.

Napoleon denies that he sent any order to the 1st corps, and Colonel Charras, accepting this denial, arrives at the conclusion that some staff officer, carried away by "zeal," gave the order himself. But how can this explanation be reconciled with the statement of Soult, in his despatch from Fleurus, dated June 17--overlooked by Charras because, perhaps, it is not to be found in the mutilated copy printed in the appendix to the ninth volume of the Memoirs of St. Helena? In that despatch Soult specifically says---"If Count d'Erlon had executed the movement upon St. Amand which the Emperor had ordered, the Prussian army would have been totally destroyed, and we should have taken, perhaps, 30,000 prisoners." Does this phrase," had ordered," refer to the scheme devised and set forth in the two despatches written after two o'clock on the 16th, or to some specific order from the Emperor, that, for instance, which D'Erlon says he saw in the hands of the aide-decamp? Not the latter, for in that case why, when he was on the spot, did not D'Erlon continue to obey Napoleon and complete the movement, instead of obeying Ney? The fair inference from Soult's despatch is that he thought D'Erlon had arrived expressly to fulfil that part in Napoleon's general scheme set forth in the afternoon despatches from Fleurus addressed to Ney, and not that D'Erlon was there in consequence of a specific order from Napoleon.

In this uncertainty conjecture is free, and we may presume the truth to be this: Napoleon, as is proved by every despatch to Ney, held Wellington too cheap. The French chief believed he had "surprised" the English general in his cantonments; he estimated that a march and a skirmish would give Ney possession of Quatre Bras; and find