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To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it to-day. It always reaches its goal strangely. It employs Wellington to make of Foy, who was only a soldier, an orator. Foy falls at Hougomont and rises again in the tribune. Thus does progress proceed. There is no such thing as a bad tool for that workman.
It was no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired, the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it was thirty-five minutes past eleven. The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than the Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting on Hougomont.
Napoleon was superior in artillery, but Wellington's soldiers had seen longer service in the field. They were his veterans from the Peninsular War, perhaps the stubbornest fighters in Europe. Napoleon's first plan was to double back the allied left on the centre. This involved the capture of La Haie Sainte, and, as a strategic corollary, the taking of Hougomont.
The beast was so rebellious and strong that the old lord found it harder to contend with than with the Frenchmen who fought so stoutly with him for the possession of Hougomont.
"What is the name of this place?" inquired the wayfarer. "Hougomont," said the peasant woman. The traveller straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces, and went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizon through the trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation, and on this elevation something which at that distance resembled a lion. He was on the battle-field of Waterloo.
But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English, were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command. Hougomont we could not carry.
Our feet sucked in the damp ground, the wet grain brushed our knees, as our compact column spread out into more open order and went into fire. What a smoke there was about La Haye Sainte and Hougomont, with now lines of red infantry, or a column in dark blue, or a mass of flashing cuirassiers hidden for a moment, then reappearing!
"I have them!" he cried, as he saw the English line drawn up on a low rise of ground which stretched across the high-road from the château of Hougomont on its right to the farm and straggling village of La Haye Sainte on its left. He had some grounds for his confidence of success.
Bauduin, killed, Foy wounded, conflagration, massacre, carnage, a rivulet formed of English blood, French blood, German blood mingled in fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the English Guards mutilated, twenty French battalions, besides the forty from Reille's corps, decimated, three thousand men in that hovel of Hougomont alone cut down, slashed to pieces, shot, burned, with their throats cut, and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the traveller: Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will explain to you the affair of Waterloo!
One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons. The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there. On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed themselves in the woods.
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