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At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling Quiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right wing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested on Papelotte. The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to draw Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left.
Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, "to guard the chateau," and concealed himself in the cellar. The English discovered him there. They tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of their swords. They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water. It was from this well that he drew it.
At Waterloo his division formed the extreme left of the French infantry, opposite Hougomont, and was engaged in the struggle for that post. Whatever his failings may have been, he is acknowledged to have fought gallantly.
At the very moment when the English had captured from the French the flag of the 105th of the line, the French had killed the English general, Picton, with a bullet through the head. The battle had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte; Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken.
The second, three thousand strong, advanced with the same courage over the slope near Hougomont, only to be repulsed and shattered in its turn. At the moment when these masses fell slowly and doggedly back down the fatal rise, the Prussians pushed forward on Napoleon's right, their guns swept the road to Charleroi, and Wellington seized the moment for a general advance.
Napoleon sent his brother Jerome against Hougomont; the divisions of Foy, Guilleminot, and Bachelu hurled themselves against it; nearly the entire corps of Reille was employed against it, and miscarried; Kellermann's balls were exhausted on this heroic section of wall.
A fierce attack upon Hougomont opened the battle at eleven; but it was not till midday that the corps of D'Erlon advanced upon the centre near La Haye Sainte, which from that time bore the main brunt of the struggle. Never has greater courage, whether of attack or endurance, been shown on any field than was shown by both combatants at Waterloo.
The intersection of the bar with the left leg is near the old stone chateau of Hougomont. The battle was fought on the line of the cross-bar and in the triangle between it and the clevis. The conflict began just before noon. The armies engaged were of equal strength, numbering about 80,000 men on each side.
"At last, then," he exclaimed, "at last, then, I have these English in my grasp." The tempest abated in the morning but the weather all day long was gusty, and the sky lowering. It was about noon that the French opened their cannonade, and Jerome Buonaparte, under cover of its fire, charged impetuously on Hougomont.
At Waterloo his division formed the extreme left of the French infantry, opposite Hougomont, and was engaged in the struggle for that post. Whatever his failings may have been, he is acknowledged to have fought gallantly.
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