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It was about to deploy for action, when, on receiving from Ney a peremptory order to rejoin his command; and in absence of a command from Napoleon to strike the Prussian flank, it went about and tramped back towards Frasnes. D'Erlon's promenade was as futile as the famous march of the King of France up the hill and then down again. Mr.
D'Erlon's corps on this afternoon had achieved the doubly sinister distinction of having prevented Ney from gaining a probable victory at Quatre Bras, and of detracting from the thoroughness of Napoleon's actual victory at Ligny.
It was at this moment a troop of lancers, the advanced guard of D'Erlon's Division, came trotting up the road; the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" burst from them as they approached; its echo rang within the walls of the farm-house, when suddenly the dying man, as though some magic touch had called him back to life and vigor, sprang up erect between his bearers, his filmy eye flashing fire, a burning spot of red coloring his bloodless cheek.
Amand, and the remoteness of its left wing, which Grouchy's horsemen still held in check; and he now planned that, while Blücher assailed St. Amand and its hamlets, the Imperial Guard should crush the Prussian centre at Ligny, thrust its fragments back towards St. Amand, and finally shiver the greater part of the Prussian army on the anvil which D'Erlon's corps would provide further to the west.
After the loss of nearly two hours it was solved by an aide-de-camp, who found that the force was D'Erlon's, and that it had retired. Meanwhile the battle had raged with scarcely a pause, the French guns working frightful havoc among the dense masses on the opposite slope.
At nightfall the Marshal drew back to Frasnes; and there D'Erlon's errant corps at last appeared. Thanks to conflicting orders, it had oscillated between two battles and taken part in neither of them. Such was the bloody fight of Quatre Bras. It cost Wellington 4,600 killed and wounded, mainly from the flower of the British infantry, three Highland regiments losing as many as 878 men.
Domont's and Subervie's light horsemen were sent out towards Frischermont to observe the Prussians; the great battery of eighty guns, placed on the intermediate rise, now opened fire; and under cover of its deadly blasts D'Erlon's four divisions dipped down into the valley.
He now saw the need of husbanding his resources; for a disaster had overtaken the French right centre. He had fixed one o'clock for a great attack on La Haye Sainte by D'Erlon's corps of nearly 20,000 men. But a delay occurred owing to a cause that we must now describe.
The Duke, noting the confusion, waved on his whole line to the longed-for advance. Menaced in front by the thin red line, and in rear by Colborne's glorious charge, D'Erlon's divisions broke up in general rout. For a time, three rocks stood boldly forth above this disastrous ebb.
Napoleon, as he rode back to Fleurus after nightfall, could claim that he had won a great victory. Yet he had not achieved the results portrayed in Soult's despatch of 3.15 to Ney. This was due partly to Ney's failure to fulfil his part of the programme, and partly to the apparition of D'Erlon's corps, which led to the postponement of Napoleon's grand attack on Ligny.
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