"We had no sooner passed them than we were ourselves attacked before we could form, by about 300 Polish lancers, who had hastened to their relief; the French artillery pouring in among us a heavy fire of grape, though for one of our men they killed three of their own.

"In the MELEE I was almost instantly disabled in both arms, losing first my sword, and then my reins, and followed by a few men, who were presently cut down, no quarter being allowed, asked or given, I was carried along by my horse, till, receiving a blow from a sabre, I fell senseless on my face to the ground.

"Recovering, I raised myself a little to look round, being at that time, I believe, in a condition to get up and run away; when a lancer passing by, cried out, 'Tu n'est pas mort, coquin!' and struck his lance through my back. My head dropped, the blood gushed into my mouth, a difficulty of breathing came on, and I thought all was over.

"Not long afterwards (it was impossible to measure time, but I must have fallen in less than ten minutes after the onset), a tirailleur stopped to plunder me, threatening my life. I directed him to a small side-pocket, in which he found three dollars, all I had; but he continued to threaten, and I said he might search me: this he did immediately, unloosing my stock and tearing open my waistcoat, and leaving me in a very uneasy posture.

"But he was no sooner gone, than an officer bringing up some troops, to which probably the tirailleur belonged and happening to halt where I lay, stooped down and addressed me, saying, he feared I was badly wounded; I said that I was, and expressed a wish to be removed to the rear. He said it was against their orders to remove even their own men; but that if they gained the day (and he understood that the Duke of Wellington was killed, and that some of our battalions had surrendered), every attention in his power would be shown me. I complained of thirst, and he held his brandy-bottle to my lips, directing one of the soldiers to lay me straight on my side, and place a knapsack under my head. He then passed on into action—soon, perhaps, to want, though not receive, the same assistance; and I shall never know to whose generosity I was indebted, as I believe, for my life. Of what rank he was, I cannot say: he wore a great coat. By- and-by another tirailleur came up, a fine young man, full of ardour. He knelt down and fired over me, loading and firing many times, and conversing with me all the while." The Frenchman, with strange coolness, informed Ponsonby of how he was shooting, and what he thought of the progress of the battle. "At last he ran off, exclaiming, 'You will probably not be sorry to hear that we are going to retreat. Good day, my friend.' It was dusk," Ponsonby adds, "when two squadrons of Prussian cavalry, each of them two deep, came across the valley, and passed over me in full trot, lifting me from the ground, and tumbling me about cruelly. The clatter of of their approach and the apprehensions they excited, may be imagined; a gun taking that direction must have destroyed me.

"The battle was now at an end, or removed to a distance. The shouts, the imprecations, the outcries of 'Vive l'Empereur!' the discharge of musketry and cannon, were over; and the groans of the wounded all around me, became every moment more and more audible. I thought the night would never end.

"Much about this time I found a soldier of the Royals lying across my legs: he had probably crawled thither in his agony; and his weight, his convulsive motions, and the air issuing through a wound in his side, distressed me greatly; the last circumstance most of all, as I had a wound of the same nature myself. "It was not a dark night, and the Prussians were wandering about to plunder; the scene in Ferdinand Count Fathom came into my mind, though no women appeared. Several stragglers looked at me, as they passed by, one after another, and at last one of them stopped to examine me. I told him as well as I could, for I spoke German very imperfectly, that I was a British officer, and had been plundered already; he did not desist, however, and pulled me about roughly.

"An hour before midnight I saw a man in an English uniform walking towards me. He was, I suspect, on the same errand, and he came and looked in my face. I spoke instantly, telling him who I was, and assuring him of a reward if he would remain by me. He said he belonged to the 40th, and had missed his regiment; he released me from the dying soldier, and being unarmed, took up a sword from the ground, and stood over me, pacing backwards and forwards.

"Day broke; and at six o'clock in the morning some English were seen at a distance, and he ran to them. A messenger being sent off to Hervey, a cart came for me, and I was placed in it, and carried to the village of Waterloo, a mile and a half off, and laid in the bed from which as I understood afterwards, Gordon had been just carried out. I had received seven wounds; a surgeon slept in my room, and I was saved by excessive bleeding."

Major Macready, in the journal already cited, [See SUPRA. p. 368.] justly praises the deep devotion to their Emperor which, marked the French at Waterloo. Never, indeed, had the national bravery of the French people been more nobly shown. One soldier in the French ranks was seen, when his arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other; and throwing it up in the air, he exclaimed to his comrades, "Vive l'Empereur jusqu'a la mort!" Colonel Lemonnier-Delafosse mentions in his Memoirs, [Page 388.] that at the beginning of the action, a French soldier who had had both legs carried off by a cannon- ball, was borne past the front of Foy's division, and called out to them, "Ca n'est rien, camarades; Vive l'Empereur! Gloire a la France!" The same officer, at the end of the battle, when all hope was lost, tells us that he saw a French grenadier, blackened with powder, and with his clothes torn and stained, leaning on his musket, and immoveable as a statue. The colonel called to him to join his comrades and retreat; but the grenadier showed him his musket and his hands; and said, "These hands have with this musket used to-day more than twenty packets of cartridges: it was more than my share: I supplied myself with ammunition from the dead. Leave me to die here on the field of battle. It is not courage that fails me, but strength." Then, as Colonel Delafosse left him, the soldier stretched himself on the ground to meet his fate, exclaiming, "Tout est perdu! pauvre France!" The gallantry of the French officers at least equalled that of their men. Ney, in particular, set the example of the most daring courage. Here, as in every French army in which he ever served or commanded, he was "le brave des braves." Throughout the day he was in the front of the battle; and was one of the very last Frenchmen who quitted the field. His horse was killed under him in the last attack made on the English position; but he was seen on foot, his clothes torn with bullets, his face smirched with powder, striving, sword in hand, first to urge his men forward, and at last to check their flight.

There was another brave general of the French army, whose valour and good conduct on that day of disaster to his nation should never be unnoticed when the story of Waterloo is recounted. This was General Polet, who, about seven in the evening, led the first battalion of the 2d regiment of the Chasseurs of the Guard to the defence of Planchenoit; and on whom Napoleon personally urged the deep importance of maintaining possession of that village. Pelet and his men took their post in the central part of the village, and occupied the church and churchyard in great strength. There they repelled every assault of the Prussians, who in rapidly increasing numbers rushed forward with infuriated pertinacity. They held their post till the utter rout of the main army of their comrades was apparent, and the victorious Allies were thronging around Planchenoit. When Pelet and his brave chasseurs quitted the churchyard, and retired with steady march, though they suffered fearfully from the moment they left their shelter, and Prussian cavalry as well as infantry dashed fiercely after them. Pelet kept together a little knot of 250 veterans, and had the eagle covered over, and borne along in the midst of them. At one time the inequality of the ground caused his ranks to open a little; and in an instant the Prussian horseman were on them, and striving to capture the eagle. Captain Siborne relates the conduct of Pelet with the admiration worthy of one brave soldier for another:—

"Pelet, taking advantage of a spot of ground which afforded them some degree of cover against the fire of grape by which they were constantly assailed, halted the standard-bearer, and called out, "A moi chasseurs! sauvons l'aigle ou mourons autour d'elle!" The chasseurs immediately pressed around him, forming what is usually termed the rallying square, and, lowering their bayonets, succeeded in repulsing the charge of cavalry. Some guns were then brought to bear upon them, and subsequently a brisk fire of musketry; but notwithstanding the awful sacrifice which was thus offered up in defence of their precious charge, they succeeded in reaching the main line of retreat, favoured by the universal confusion, as also by the general obscurity which now prevailed; and thus saved alike the eagle and the honour of the regiment."

French writers do injustice to their own army and general, when they revive malignant calumnies against Wellington, and speak of his having blundered into victory. No blunderer could have successfully encountered such troops as those of Napoleon, and under such a leader. It is superfluous to cite against these cavils the testimony which other continental critics have borne to the high military genius of our illustrious chief. I refer to one only, which is of peculiar value, on account of the quarter whence it comes. It is that of the great German writer Niebuhr, whose accurate acquaintance with every important scene of modern as well as ancient history was unparalleled: and who was no mere pedant, but a man practically versed in active life, and had been personally acquainted with most of the leading men in the great events of the early part of this century. Niebuhr, in the passage which I allude to, [Roman History, vol. v. p. 17.] after referring to the military "blunders" of Mithridates, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal, uses these remarkable words, "The Duke of Wellington is, I believe, the only general in whose conduct of war we cannot discover any important mistake." Not that it is to be supposed that the Duke's merits were simply of a negative order, or that he was merely a cautious, phlegmatic general fit only for defensive warfare, as some recent French historians have described him. On the contrary, he was bold even to audacity when boldness was required. "The intrepid advance and fight at Assaye, the crossing of the Douro, and the movement on Talavera in 1809, the advance to Madrid and Burgos in 1812, the actions before Bayonne in 1813, and the desperate stand made at Waterloo itself, when more tamely-prudent generals would have retreated beyond Brussels, place this beyond a doubt." [See the admirable parallel of Wellington and Marlborough at the end of Sir Archibald Alison's "Life of the Duke of Marlborough." Sir Archibald justly considers Wellington the more daring general of the two.]

The overthrow of the French military power at Waterloo was so complete, that the subsequent events of the brief campaign have little interest. Lamartine truly says: "This defeat left nothing undecided in future events, for victory had given judgment. The war began and ended in a single battle." Napoleon himself recognised instantly and fully the deadly nature of the blow which had been dealt to his empire. In his flight from the battle-field he first halted at Charleroi, but the approach of the pursuing Prussians drove him thence before he had rested there an hour. With difficulty getting clear of the wrecks of his own army, he reached Philippeville, where he remained a few hours, and sent orders to the French generals in the various extremities of France to converge with their troops upon Paris. He ordered Soult to collect the fugitives of his own force, and lead them to Laon. He then hurried forward to Paris, and reached his capital before the news of his own defeat. But the stern truth soon transpired. At the demand of the Chambers of Peers and Representatives, he abandoned the throne by a second and final abdication on the 22d of June. On the 29th of June he left the neighbourhood of Paris, and proceeded to Rochefort in the hope of escaping to America; but the coast was strictly watched, and on the 15th of July the ex-emperor surrendered himself on board of the English man-of-war the Bellerophon.

Meanwhile the allied armies had advanced steadily upon Paris, driving before them Grouchy's corps, and the scanty force which Soult had succeeded in rallying at Laon. Cambray, Peronne, and other fortresses were speedily captured; and by the 29th of June the invaders were taking their positions in front of Paris. The Provisional Government, which acted in the French capital after the Emperor's abdication, opened negotiations with the allied chiefs. Blucher, in his quenchless hatred of the French, was eager to reject all proposals for a suspension of hostilities, and to assault and storm the city. But the sager and calmer spirit of Wellington prevailed over his colleague; the entreated armistice was granted; and on the 3d of July the capitulation of Paris terminated the War of the Battle of Waterloo.

In closing our observations on this the last of the Decisive Battles of the World, it is pleasing to contrast the year which it signalized with the year that is now [Written in June 1851.] passing over our heads. We have not (and long may we be without) the stern excitement of martial strife, and we see no captive standards of our European neighbours brought in triumph to our shrines. But we behold an infinitely prouder spectacle. We see the banners of every civilized nation waving over the arena of our competition with each other, in the arts that minister to our race's support and happiness, and not to its suffering and destruction.

"Peace hath her victories No less renowned than War;"

and no battle-field ever witnessed a victory more noble than that which England, under her Sovereign Lady and her Royal Prince, is now teaching the peoples of the earth to achieve over selfish prejudices and international feuds, in the great cause of the general promotion of the industry and welfare of mankind.

THE END