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Updated: May 13, 2025
He gazed with some intentness at the English barricades of the two highways, two large abatis of trees, that on the road to Genappe above La Haie-Sainte, armed with two cannon, the only ones out of all the English artillery which commanded the extremity of the field of battle, and that on the road to Nivelles where gleamed the Dutch bayonets of Chasse's brigade.
He dismounted and wandered on foot for hours in the January night until smoke guided him to a charcoal burner, who conducted him to the more friendly shelter of a forester's hut. In the morning he made his way to Genappe. Meantime, in the palace, consternation reigned. Search parties seeking their sovereign were out all night.
From Louvain to Genappe is no great distance, and the sum of 1200 livres, furnished by Philip for the dauphin's journey to his new abode, seemed a large provision. The pension then settled on him was 36,000 livres, and when the dauphiness arrived 1000 livres a month were provided for her private purse . Pleasant was existence in this château.
The duke made good his words by giving his guest the estate of Genappe, of which Louis took possession at the end of July. Then as a further step to make things pleasant for the exile, Philip sent for Charlotte of Savoy who had remained under her father's care ever since the formal marriage in 1451. She was now eighteen. It was an agreeable spot, this estate at Genappe.
Genappe was too far and the anxious son moved to Avesnes in order to receive his messages more speedily. Our chronicler Chastellain begins his story of Louis's accession as follows: "Since I am not English but French, I who am neither Spanish nor Italian but French, I have written of two Frenchmen, the one king, the other duke.
On the road to Genappe in the mystery of the moonlit night a solitary rider turned into a field and dismounted. Carried along for a time by the stream of the panic, he found himself for a moment comparatively alone left as it were high and dry by the same stream which here had divided and flowed on to right and left of him. He wore a grey redingote and a shabby bicorne hat.
If three corps of the Prussian army should penetrate by the unguarded plateau of Rossomme, which was not improbable, Napoleon would be thrust from his line of retreat by Genappe, and might possibly lose even that by Nivelles. See Muffling, p. 246 and the QUARTERLY REVIEW, No. 178.
Until far into the night the air reverberated with incessant cannonade from the direction of Genappe and from that of Wavre but just before dawn all was still. The stream of convoys which bore the wounded along the road to Brussels from Mont Saint Jean and Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte had momentarily ceased its endless course.
Says Captain Mercer of the artillery: "We galloped for our lives through the storm, striving to gain the hamlets, Lord Uxbridge urging us on, crying 'Make haste; for God's sake gallop, or you will be taken." Gaining on the pursuit, they reached Genappe, and, filing over its bridge and up the narrow street, prepared to check the French.
The infantry now began to file off by degrees behind hedges or under cover of a screen of cavalry and skirmishers, these keeping Ney's men busy in front, until the bulk of the army was well through the narrow and crowded street of Genappe. And how came it that Napoleon and Ney missed this golden opportunity?
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