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Before his great battery of eighty guns belched forth at the centre and blotted out the view, he swept the horizon with his glass, and discerned on the skirts of the St. Lambert wood, six miles away, a dark object. Was it a spinney, or a body of troops? His staff officers could not agree; but his experienced eye detected a military formation. Thereupon some of the staff asserted that they must be Blücher's men, others that they were Grouchy's. Here he could scarcely be in a doubt. Not long after 10 a.m. he received from Grouchy a despatch, dated from Gembloux at 3 a.m., reporting that the Prussians were retiring in force on Brussels to concentrate or to join Wellington, and that he (Grouchy) was on the point of starting for Sart-
He had ordered Grouchy to follow them at dawn; Grouchy's lieutenant, Pajol, struck to the south-east, and by 4 a.m. reported that Blücher was heading for Namur. Such was the news that the Emperor heard from Grouchy about 8 a.m. he refused to grant him an audience earlier. If he could not effect that task, he must warn the Emperor, who would then come.
Grouchy's command was not sufficiently strong to oppose the whole Prussian army; two corps of which could certainly have "held" it, while the other two were free to support Wellington. Mr. Ropes thinks it might have been diminished by one-half, but then a single Prussian corps could have dealt with it.
Now Napoleon would certainly have prescribed an immediate concentration of Grouchy's force towards the north-west for one of the last two objects, had he believed Blücher about to attempt a flank march against the chief French army. Obviously it had not yet entered his thoughts that so daring a step would be taken by a foe whom he pictured as scattered and demoralized by defeat.
The relics of Waterloo, and Grouchy's division, having at length been gathered together under Soult at Laon; were now marching towards Paris, and followed hard behind by Wellington and Blucher. The provisional government began to be seriously alarmed lest Buonaparte should, by some desperate effort, escape from Malmaison, and once more place himself at the head of a considerable armed force.
These two divisions Blücher's and Grouchy's were sliding along toward Waterloo, and on the afternoon of the eighteenth it became one of the great questions in the history of this century which would first arrive on the field. Napoleon believed that Grouchy was at hand. Wellington in his desperation breathed out the wish that either night or Blücher would come.
He had ordered Grouchy to follow them at dawn; Grouchy's lieutenant, Pajol, struck to the south-east, and by 4 a.m. reported that Blücher was heading for Namur. Such was the news that the Emperor heard from Grouchy about 8 a.m. he refused to grant him an audience earlier. If he could not effect that task, he must warn the Emperor, who would then come.
This last was an act of appalling hardihood; but he explained to Cockburn on the voyage to St. Helena that, still confiding in Grouchy's approach, he felt no uneasiness at the Prussian movements, "which were, in fact, already checked, and that he considered the battle to have been, on the whole, rather in his favour than otherwise." The explanation has every appearance of sincerity.
But he had to deal with a tough and daring opponent. Throughout the winter Lannes had been a prey to ill-health and resentment at his chief's real or fancied injustice: but the heats of summer re-awakened his thirst for glory and restored him to his wonted vigour. Calling up the Saxon horse, Grouchy's dragoons, and Oudinot's grenadiers, he held his ground through the brief hours of darkness.
Certainly Grouchy's conduct is inexplicable to any one holding the belief, as I do, that there is nothing in the written order to account for Grouchy's denial of having received it. It is more inexplicable than Mr. Ropes appears to be aware of. It is true, as Mr. Ropes proves, that Grouchy vehemently denied receiving the written order in all his works printed from 1818 to 1829.
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