towards Namur and Liége; but those who remained thirsted for one more opportunity of meeting the French in battle. This they were promised by their unshaken chief. "I will lead you against the enemy, and you will beat him," was the succinct address of Blucher to his soldiers; "for," he added with characteristic emphasis, “it is your duty to do so."

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§ 5. Grouchy in Pursuit.

We have already described the circumstances under which the French Emperor arrived at the determination to detach Marshal Grouchy against the Prussians. Napoleon was informed that Wellington was still at Quatre Bras. He had also been informed that Pajol had captured a Prussian battery on the road to Namur. He appears to have believed that Blucher had fallen back upon his natural line of communications with Germany. He therefore told Grouchy to pursue the Prussians, complete their defeat, and not lose sight of them. We have seen that these instructions were all based on conjectures, and not on facts. Wellington held Quatre Bras with his cavalry only; the Prussians were already lost to the view of the French; and Blucher had quitted his direct line of communications with Germany expressly to carry his army into line at Mont St. Jean. Grouchy, we are told, raised some objections, and begged that he might follow the Emperor, but the Emperor simply repeated his commands. Grouchy obeyed and departed. The corps of Gérard and Vandamme, placed under his orders, were not in readiness to march, and during the time occupied in collecting the troops and completing the preparations, Napoleon learned that at least a portion of the Prussian army had retired upon Gembloux.

This information seems to have been

obtained by an infantry patrol, which, late in the morning, had been detached from Pajol's force. Napoleon now formally instructed Grouchy to move upon Gembloux. He was to patrol in the direction of Namur and Maestricht, and communicate with Napoleon by the Namur road. Yet some doubts of the correctness of his views had entered the mind of the Emperor before he quitted Ligny, and he remarked to Grouchy that it was important to learn whether the Prussians were separating themselves from the British, or whether they were bent on uniting to cover Brussels and (!) Liége.

Grouchy did not march till two o'clock, Vandamme did not reach Gembloux until nearly nine, and it was ten before the whole of Gérard's corps joined him. The heavy by-roads, saturated by the continuous torrents of rain, had rendered it impossible for the tired soldiers of these corps to get over more than ten miles in seven hours. Even at Gembloux Grouchy could learn little of the movements of the Prussians. He had preceded the main body, and had sent Excelmans to Sauvenières with orders to patrol the roads to Sart-lez-Walhain and Perwez. The result of these inquiries was unsatisfactory. At ten that night Grouchy wrote to Napoleon, but he could only inform him that the Prussians appeared to be divided into three columns. One, he says, had taken the road to Wavre, one to Perwez, one with the artillery to Liége. He conjectured that one part sought to join Wellington. Thus, on the night of the 17th, Grouchy stood at Gembloux, nearly as ignorant of the true state of affairs as he was when he quitted Ligny. He had patrolled on his right; he had not patrolled on his left. This was a fatal negligence. Napoleon, it is true, had not directed him, in so many words, to keep a good look-out on his left, and Grouchy did not supply the grave omission. Yet, as we have seen, the

greater part of the Prussian army retreated from Ligny by the defile of Mont St. Guibert, a few miles on the west of Gembloux. This fact remained unknown at the headquarters of both the French generals throughout the night of the 17th, and to Grouchy at least until late on the 18th, when he received the information from Napoleon in a despatch written from Caillou at ten in the morning of the 18th, in answer to a report from Grouchy despatched at two in the morning, notifying his intention to march upon Sartlez-Walhain.

CHAPTER VIII.

RETROSPECTIVE.

E have now traced the course of the campaign

WE since the evening of the 14th. We have seen

Napoleon gather up his splendid army between the Sambre and Meuse with a rapidity and precision almost unparalleled in warfare. We have seen Wellington and Blucher keenly watchful and prepared to encounter the greatest strategist of his age—a soldier whose eye was sure, whose plans were profound, whose hand was swift to strike, and whose soldiers were the finest in quality he had ever led into the field; men of one nation, greedy of glory, and animated by a spirit of absolute devotion to their leader. We have seen this army, at a signal from its chief, project itself suddenly across the frontier, and, by a series of brilliant movements, open a campaign which, in its issues, promised to rival the grand triumphs of the Empire. None in that joyous host could have dreamed that, in a few weeks from that day, the aggressive spirit of France would be stricken down and laid in bonds for five-and-thirty years. Before we proceed to the military climax of our story, it may be well, for the convenience of the reader, to offer him a concise estimate of the results of the campaign up to the evening of the 17th.

In order to measure those results, we must compare the

intentions of Napoleon with his actual achievements. When he selected the inner flanks of the allied armies for attack, he calculated that he should beat both in detail. He looked over the wide range of their cantonments, stretching from Liége to the Scheldt, and he believed he could drive his army like a bolt through them, crushing in its progress the fragments of armies with which alone, as he assumed, the Allies could oppose him. He did not contemplate the gigantic task of fighting four considerable battles within three days; he did not believe that either the fiery Prussians or the cool Englishmen could concentrate across the road to Brussels any force which he could not overwhelm. He had collected his army with great speed, skill, secrecy; he had devised a brilliant plan of action; and he had a right to count on success, providing he had appreciated the ability and activity of his adversaries.

We are endeavouring to place ourselves in the position of Napoleon on the night of the 14th, and to exclude from view, as much as possible, the events of the four subsequent days; the only method whereby we can learn how those events came to pass.

Napoleon put his army in motion at the dawn of day. The broad and deep torrents of men and guns rolled across the frontier. In that magnificent development of wellcombined force only one serious contretemps occurred, for even the desertion of Bourmont was too late to be as deadly as it was intended. Although the exact movement of the French had not been foreseen, the Prussians were so vigilant that they were not surprised, and Ziethen, acting on the instructions he had received from headquarters, offered a cool and calculated resistance, in order that he might cover the retreat of his distant detachments upon Fleurus, and give his commander time to concentrate his army. He could do no more. The French columns