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They'd say that there was 'considerable activity on a section of the line over near Hougomont Farm yesterday, where certain units under Napoleon and Wellington came in contact. The artillery fire was fairly strong, and there were clashes between a few infantry regiments and the French were repulsed. Apart from this there is nothing to report." The boys laughed.
For some time both parties opposed each other here, without either gaining or losing a foot of ground. At length the English fire forced back the French and the garrison of Hougomont were relieved and strengthened. The next attempt was made on the centre of the British line, by a great force of cuirassiers and four columns of infantry.
Mont-Saint-Jean was cannonaded, Hougomont was burned, La Haie-Sainte was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned, Plancenoit was burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked not in the battle, bears off all the honor.
Jean, and they had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock I looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain Florentin, and Buche, and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday, and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg.
At half-past two, near the wood of Hougomont, he heard the tread of a column on the march; he thought at the moment that it was a retreat on the part of Wellington. He said: "It is the rear-guard of the English getting under way for the purpose of decamping. I will take prisoners the six thousand English who have just arrived at Ostend."
This courtyard was more built up in 1815 than it is to-day. Buildings which have since been pulled down then formed redans and angles. The English barricaded themselves there; the French made their way in, but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the chateau, the only ruin now remaining of the manor of Hougomont, rises in a crumbling state, disembowelled, one might say.
For two or three hours, in the area between La Haie Sainte and Hougomont, the battle raged, the lines swaying with uncertain fortune back and forth. La Haie Sainte was taken and held by Ney. On the whole, the British lines receded. Wellington's attempt to retake La Haie Sainte ended in a repulse.
Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising buildings and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun's length away. Hougomont has two doors, the southern door, that of the chateau; and the northern door, belonging to the farm.
The frightful 18th of June lives again; the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in air, the battle-field resumes its reality, lines of infantry undulate over the plain, furious gallops traverse the horizon; the frightened dreamer beholds the flash of sabres, the gleam of bayonets, the flare of bombs, the tremendous interchange of thunders; he hears, as it were, the death rattle in the depths of a tomb, the vague clamor of the battle phantom; those shadows are grenadiers, those lights are cuirassiers; that skeleton Napoleon, that other skeleton is Wellington; all this no longer exists, and yet it clashes together and combats still; and the ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there is fury even in the clouds and in the shadows; all those terrible heights, Hougomont, Mont-Saint-Jean, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, appear confusedly crowned with whirlwinds of spectres engaged in exterminating each other.
The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once, Hougomont, La Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry "Treachery!" was followed by a cry of "Save yourselves who can!" An army which is disbanding is like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, hastens, is precipitated. The disintegration is unprecedented.
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