| towards the English, and by their presence re-animated the flying. Their assistance was perhaps, unnecessary. Our infantry, retiring in close and excellent order, op gradually restored the fight. Pushed back as far as the heights of Frasnes, they established themselves there. Obliged to renounce offensive operations, they fought during the remainder of the day to maintain their ground. By de our line. Our troops appeared intimidated, and began to fall back with a sort of trepidation. In this emergency it became necessary to order up the reserve. Marshal Ney was however little alarmed, rely-posed a vigorous resistance, and ing upon the first corps to sustain him. He sent immediate orders for it to advance and charge the enemy. What must have been his astonishment and perplexity, when he learned that Bonaparte had already disposed of it? He, however, ordered the 8th and 11th cuiras-grees, order was restored in the siers who were at hand to charge the foremost battalions. This charge was executed with the greatest bravery; but the battalions resting upon a wood filled with infantry, kept up conjointly with the latter, such a terrible fire, that the cuirassiers, crippled with ball and grape, were unable to break them, and retired in disorder. It was in this bold, though unsuccessful charge, that a cuirassier of the 11th regiment, took a standard of the 64th regiment of the English line. The retrogade movement which now became sensible, and the crowd of wounded cuirassiers and soldiers who pressed to the rear, soon spread terror in that quarter. The baggage train, the ambulatory hospitals, the sutlers, the servants, all that multitude of noncombatants who follow an army, made off precipitately, carrying along with them every thing that they met, across the fields, and on the road to Charleroi, The disorder was complete and spread rapidly; every one fled in the greatest confusion, crying out" There is the enemy. There is the enemy." But the evil was not as great as had been at first supposed, or at any rate, it was promptly repaired. The division of cuirassiers of general Rousel, moved at full trot rear, and the fugitives halted when they were convinced they were not pursued. Meanwhile, the first corps detached from the left had been perfectly useless, and when it arrived at the village of St. Amand, the 3d corps was already in possession. Orders were, there fore, given, for it to return to its position, and thus was it kept traversing the field of battle, from left to right, and from right to left, without being of service on any point. The fire was kept up with the utmost vivacity along the whole line, particularly towards Ligny, the place where the greatest force was collected, and the greatest efforts were made. The cannonade did not remit for a moment, and our artillery, as far as we could judge, made great havoc with the Prussian columns, which, formed in masses on the ampitheatre of hills and plateaux, presented a fair mark for the numerous batteries placed along our line. Our troops being almost entirely concealed in the sinuosities of the ground, were infinitely less exposed to the effect of the Prussian artillery, which replied to ours with steady perseverance, though with little success. Towards seven o'clock in the evening we were masters of the villages, but the Prussians still kept their positions behind the ravine. At this moment, Bonaparte, who had been manœuvring, since the commencement of the action, so as to be able to throw a considerabel force across the ravine, when the proper time should arrive, with which to drive the Prussians from the heights around the wind-mill of Bussi, directed his guard and all his reserve upon the village of Ligny. This bold movement, which had been retarded by the events on the left, was intended to insulate entirely the right of the Prussians, which was posted behind St. Amand, and to cut off its retreat upon Namur. The whole guard advanced au pas de charge, sustained by a numerous cavalry and formidable artillery, traversed the village, and threw themselves into the ravine, which they crossed in the midst of a shower of balls and grape; the fire, which had seemed to slacken somewhat, now recommenced with double violence; a frightful, combat ensued at the moment when the guard, issuing from the ravine, rushed with the bayonet upon the Prussian squares, who stood the shock with firmness. But nothing could resist the impetuosity of the French grenadiers. They every where opened a passage for themselves by the most horrible carnage. Charges of cavalry were made on both sides, and increased the havoc and terror of the struggle. At last the Prussians, after the most desperate and murderous resistance, were broken through on all sides and retired, leaving us in possession of a field of battle covered with dead, wounded, prisoners and cannon. The guard immediately took possession of the plateaux which the enemy had occupied, and the cavalry were dis- patched in pursuit. During this decisive operation at Ligny, the 3d corps was endeavouring to amuse the right wing of the Prussians, to prevent them from observing the manoeuvre, the object of which was to uncover them. But the snare was too evident. Their movements were regulated by those of the centre, and as soon as they made preparations to retire, a retreat was resolved on along the whole Prussian line. They fought only to protect the rapid march of their columns, which filed off in excellent order towards Gembloux and Namur. The French troops were disposed to follow up their success, but fatigue and the approach of night prevented them. They contented themselves with crossing the ravine, and seizing upon all the positions of the enemy. At 10 o'clock the fire had ceased along the whole line, and the army was in its bivouacs. A great number of contradictory statements circulated in the army, of this affair of Ligny, results of which were never in fact well known. The Prussian army, it was at first said with us, must be totally destroyed, for they had left more than 25,000 dead upon the field of battle, and an equal number had been taken prisoners. Moreover, marshal Blucher was killed, and his army must be in a state of dissolution, since marshal Grouchy wrote that he collected more prisoners and cannon than he wished. The fact is that marshal Blucher had a horse killed under him at the commencement of the retreat, which fell upon him; unable to disengage himself, he remained in the midst of the French cuirassiers, and owed his safety to the darkness of the night, and the turmoil of the charge which prevented them from seeing him. What is certain, however, is that the French carried the position of the Prussians, who from all appearances, suffered greatly; but the extent of their loss was never ascertained with exactness; and the circumstance of its not being stated in our order of the day is sufficient to induce the presump. tion of its not being as considerable as was supposed. The field of battle was covered with Prussian dead. The number of slain was great; but with the exception of the wounded, there were few pri soners. On the left, where the battle though less desperate had been fought with great spirit, the English appeared to have lost many men. Both parties, however, remained on the ground which they had occupied at the commencement of the action. We heard of the death of the duke of Brunswick, who was killed by the fire of a division under the nominal command of Jerome Bonaparte, and also of the death of the English general Hill. The first was confirmed on the day following, and gave an opportunity to the French officers to pay their court to the ex-king of Westphalia, by indulging in witticisms upon the fatality which pursued this unfortunate duke of Brunswick, and which, after exhibiting him so often as the unlucky antagonist of the conqueror of his states, had at last condemned him as it were to fall by his hand. Hence they inferred that fortune had destined Jerome to be his heir! It was reported also that Jerome had been struck by a spent ball. Without stopping to enquire into the truth of this report, it is well to remark that these spent balls appear made for great personages, whose valor it is of consequence to illustrate. In this division of the army, much complaint VOL. I. was made of the cuirassiers; to the failure of whose charge was attributed all the evil suffered. They were accused of not having freely approached the enemy's' battalions, from the midst of which however, they had plucked a standard; some even suspected them of treachery. These surmises which were soon propagated throughout the whole army, hav ing made an injurious impression upon the spirits of the soldiers, it was speedily and studiously rumoured that a number of recreant generals, among whom was general Bourmont, had been tried by a military commission and shot. Although the battle of Ligny, which we should connect with that of Quatre Bras, did not present any of those results which characterize a great victory, it was regarded as highly important in reference to the ulterior events of the campaign. Every one agreed that Bonaparte had attained his end of separating the English and Prussian armies, and cutting off all communication between them. This advantage was held inestimable, and of the more importance, inasmuch as a small corps would be sufficient to watch and pursue the Prussians after the losses they had suffered, and the French army' would be left free to throw itself entirely upon the English. With the intention of realizing these calculations, Bonaparte, as soon as the day dawned on the 17th, leaving the 3d and 4th corps, and the cavalry of general Pajol, under the orders of marshal Grouchy, to follow and watch the Prussians, marched towards Quatre Bras with the reserve and the 6th corps. The English appeared to occupy the same position as on the preceding day. Bonaparte was engaged in reconnoitring them, and the M French army remained quiet until sometimes sunk up to the belly in eleven o'clock in the morning, this black, soft and viscous soil. waiting for the troops on the right, The efforts necessary to disengage whose proper stations were assign- them, retarded and aggravated the ed them as fast as they arrived. | march. We encountered here and It rained continually, and the cross there, upon the road, caissons and roads which the previous rains had broken waggons which the Engalready much injured, became lish had been obliged to abandon. more and more difficult for artillery. All the necessary dispositions for attack were at length completed, and on the French masses advancing in line upon the heights of Frasnes, it was discovered that the English had manœuvred in such a way as to mask their retreat, influenced no doubt by the intelligence which had been communicated to them of the battle at Ligny. To the accomplishment of this purpose, they had devoted a part of the night and the time which we had consumed in the concentration of our forces. The troops who showed themselves on the plateaux, along the skirts of the wood, and in the road, were only a strong rear-guard destined to protect this movement, which they imitated as soon as it was fully effected. Bonaparte immediately pursued with the cavalry, and the whole army quickened its step towards Brussels. During this rapid march, the ardor of our troops was incredible; they saw, in this adroit and admirably managed retreat of the English, nothing but a flight which must terminate in an embarkation. It was certain that the enemy would make no further stand, but abandon Brussels, and hasten to regain their ships. The artillery, waggons and infantry filed with precipitation, and almost pell mell, by the road covered with a thick and black mud; whilst the cavalry advanced on the flanks, through fields of luxuriant grain, which they soon laid waste. The horses As we traversed the field on which the battle of Quatre Bras had been fought, we found it strewed with bodies and fragments, together with a number of wounded Frenchmen who had not been taken away. We had an opportunity of judging how destructive the affair had been for both parties. According to appearances the English suffered much more than the French, for the pieces of level ground which separated the road from the wood where they were posted, and particularly the skirts of this wood and the hollow way beyond it, were almost concealed by heaps of bodies, the greater part of them Scotch. Their costume, which consisted of a plaid descending only to the end of the thigh, and leaving a part of the leg naked, strongly attracted the attention of the French soldiers, who designated them by the title of sans-culottes, Bonaparte with his advanced guard, continued the pursuit until a late hour, when he reached the entrance of the forest of Soignes, and met with a resistance which he despaired of overcoming that evening. After cannonading and harrasing the English as long as the light allowed, he disposed of his troops for the night and established his head quarters at the farm of Caillou, near Planchenois. The principal part of the army encamped at Gemappe and in the environs of this little town. The night was dreadful. The troops had bivouacked in the midst of the mud and trampled grain, and having had no time to construct any sufficient shelter were exposed to a continual rain which fell in torrents. The wretched inhabitants suffered still more than the soldiery. Abandoning their houses to pillage, they fled in all directions, with abundant reason to ask whether their merciless invaders were French, or Tartars suddenly let loose from the deserts of Asia to gorge themselves with plunder. We were generally persuaded that the English army would employ the night in continuing its retreat, and no one entertained a doubt of our arriving the next day, at Brussels. This was looked forward to as the termination of the campaign, since marshal Grouchy, who was to pass the night at Namur, could not fail to arrive at Liege, at the same time that Bonaparte entered the capital of the Low countries. Some pretended deserters, who were, doubtless, spies, assured us that the Belgian army only waited for an engagement to pass over in a body to our side; that this being suspected, they were always kept in the rear; -that since the commencement of hostilities, they had been restrained with so much difficulty as to make it matter of little astonishment if they should suddenly fall upon the Prussians, to whom they bore an implacable hatred. him-"Ah-I have them thenthese English!" With the imprudent impatience which has always characterized him, he then urged the march of the columns which were in the rear, and without waiting to receive any further information, without knowing either the exact distribution or the force of the enemy, without being certain that the Prussian army was kept in check by the corps of Grouchy, he resolved to attack immediately. The French army, which consisted of four corps of infantry, including the guard, and three corps of cavalry, presented an effective force of perhaps 120,000 men, About ten o'clock the whole of this force was assembled upon the heights parallel to those which were occupied by the English army, whom we discovered in position upon the plateaux in front of the forest of Soignes upon which the entire line rested. We perceived towards the centre, in rear of the village of Mount St. Jean, strong masses of infantry, in whose front it was easy to distinguish redoubts, as the colour of the earth recently turned up, was different from that of the general surface. These masses crowned an extensive plateau, which extended on both sides along the skirts of the forest, diminishing gradually in breadth, and was covered with bat At break of day the army form-teries. The right of the English ed, and was surprised to discover that the English had not only maintained their positions of the preceding evening, but evinced an intention of defending them. Bonaparte, who had seemed to fear that they would escape him in the night, was extremely rejoiced at discovering them in the morning; and unable to conceal his satisfaction, exclaimed to those around army rested upon the village of Merke Braine, having in its front the farm of Hougoumont surrounded by a thick wood, intersected with many ravines or deep sinuosities. Its left extended far towards Wavres, covered likewise by a ravine, and the farm of La Haye Sainte. Except upon the great plateau which we regarded as the centre of the ar |