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The sound of the bells as they responded to each other from Planchenois to Genappe, from Frichemont to Waterloo, reminded me of Pfalzbourg, and I thought: "To-day is Sunday, the day of rest and peace. Mr. Goulden has hung his best coat, with a white shirt, on the back of his chair.
The disbanded troops were flying, some on foot and some on horseback. A single battalion of the Guard in a square near the farm-house, and three other battalions farther on, with another square of the Guard at the junction of the route at Planchenois, stood motionless as some firm structure in the midst of an inundation which sweeps away everything else.
As we went up into this stable, we looked through these holes, and we could see our line of battle, the high-road to Brussels and Charleroi, the little farms of Belle-Alliance, Rossomme, and Gros-Caillou, which lie along this road at little distances from each other; the Old Guard which was stationed across it, with their shouldered arms, and the staff on a little eminence at the left, and farther away in the same direction, in the rear of the ravine of Planchenois, we could see the white smoke rising continually above the trees.
They gave a little, and then hung fast and could be moved no farther. In another part of the field Durutte carried the allied position of Papelotte, and Lobau routed Bülow from Planchenois. At half-past four everything seemed to portend disaster to the allies and victory to the French.
The moon rose above the wood behind Planchenois, and lighted up this crowd of shapskas, bear-skin caps, helmets, sabres, bayonets, broken caissons, and abandoned cannon; the crowd and confusion increased every moment, plaintive howls were heard from one end of the line to the other, rolling up and down the hill-side and dying away in the distance like a sigh. Polish military cap.
On the slope of this ravine on our side, behind the hedges and poplars and other trees, some thatched roofs indicated a hamlet; this was Planchenois. In the same direction but much higher, and in the rear of the enemy's left, the plain extended as far as the eye could reach, and was scattered over with little villages.
Along the ravine of Planchenois the dark sky was lighted up by the discharges of musketry; the one square of the Guard still held out against Bulow, and prevented him from cutting off our retreat, but nearer us the Prussian cavalry poured down into the valley like a flood breaking over its barriers. Old Blücher had just arrived with forty thousand men: he doubled our right wing and dispersed it.
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