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Waterloo Dreadful night before the battle Opening of the battle Unpleasant contiguity with a shell A recruit taken suddenly and conveniently ill The regiment in the thick of it Rout of Napoleon's Bodyguards Repeated charges of the French infantry and cavalry successfully repulsed Lawrence in charge of the colours Death of his captain Gallant stand of the British until the arrival of the Prussians Lawrence on the tactics of the enemy The French finally driven off the field by Blucher's army Bivouac on the enemy's ground Fatal results of trifling with a powder-wagon Lawrence's supper in danger He invites a guest to supper, who, however, takes French leave On the march again.

But we shall see that in proper time, for there is nothing more dramatically timely, or untimely, than this incident in the history of battles, unless it be Blücher's miraculous appearance at Waterloo, when Napoleon supposed that Grouchy was pummeling him twenty miles away.

But the sins of the commanders had cost the allies dear. In four days the army of Silesia lost fully 15,000 men, and its corps were driven far asunder by Napoleon's incursion. His brilliant moves and trenchant strokes astonished the world. With less than 30,000 men he had burst into Blücher's line of march, and scattered in flight 50,000 warriors advancing on Paris in full assurance of victory.

Wellington, after being repeatedly urged by Blucher, collected his scattered corps, but neither completely nor with sufficient rapidity; and on Blucher's announcement of Napoleon's arrival, exerted himself on the following morning so far as to make a reconnaissance.

They mean to trust in God, even though, from their blind trust alone, all Prussia fall to ruins; but as for bravely defending themselves, that is what they do not understand. It is too much like old Blucher's way of doing things, and that is the reason why the learned gentlemen do not like it. Ah!

It was in full reliance on Blucher's promise to join him that the Duke stood his ground and fought at Waterloo; and those who have ventured to impugn the Duke's capacity as a general, ought to have had common-sense enough to perceive, that to charge the Duke with having won the battle of Waterloo by the help of the Prussians, is really to say that he won it by the very means on which he relied, and without the expectation of which the battle would not have been fought.

The Prussians did not wholly capture Planchenoit until the French opposing Wellington were in full flight. But, of course, Blücher's advance and onset made the victory the overwhelming triumph that it was.

Truly heroic was Blücher's determination to push on to Leipzig, even when the enemy was seizing the Elbe bridges in his rear. The veteran saw clearly that a junction with Schwarzenberg near Leipzig was the all-important step, and that it must bring back the French to that point.

Blücher's army was stationed amidst hilly country deeply furrowed by the valleys of the Katzbach and the "raging Neisse." Less than half of the allied army of 95,000 men was composed of Prussians: the Russians naturally obeyed his orders with some reluctance, and even his own countryman, Yorck, grudgingly followed the behests of the "hussar general."

Schwarzenberg, for instance, pursued a system of procrastination, separated his corps d'armee at long intervals, advanced with extreme slowness, or remained entirely stationary. Napoleon took advantage of this dilatoriness on the part of his opponents to make an unexpected attack on Blucher's corps at Brienne on the 29th of January, in which Blucher narrowly escaped being made prisoner.