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Updated: June 16, 2025
A fortnight later, he gathered that the British force on the Aqueda had been greatly weakened, that there was no intention of laying siege to Ciudad, and it was believed that Wellington's main body had marched south to join Beresford. This was, indeed, the only operation left open to the British general.
To the end Cavour evoked more ready sympathy among men of the other provinces than among the Piedmontese, although these last came to repose the blind trust in him which the Duke of Wellington's soldiers reposed in their leader a trust born of the conviction that he would lead to victory. Latterly this was Victor Emmanuel's own way of feeling towards Cavour. Sympathy was always lacking.
Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to order, as is proved by the "Wellington's Victory," the "Coriolanus Overture," the music to "Prometheus," to the "Ruins of Athens," the "Glorreiche Augenblick," to say nothing of minor works, such as the First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc., Beethoven could and did despatch with extreme rapidity; but works of a different order, for which he could take his own time, and which were to be the expression of the grand feelings of his own great heart, the composition of these was no light holiday-task.
The little ones played about till they were tired; then John took out the newspaper, and read about Ciudad Rodrigo and Lord Wellington's entry into Madrid the battered eagles and the torn and bloody flags of Badajoz, which were on their way home to the Prince Regent. "I wish the fighting were over, and peace were come," said Muriel.
Terence gave a brief account of the attack that had been made on the French convoy, and the share that he and his fellow prisoners had taken in the affair; at which Lord Wellington's usually impassive face lighted up with a smile. "That was a somewhat irregular proceeding, Colonel O'Connor."
Wellington's only interference with the course of hostilities was the mission of Lord Eliot to Navarre, which induced the combatants to abandon for the time being those cruelties to prisoners which had been the disgrace of the Spanish civil wars.
Reille afterwards came in, and, finding how confident the Emperor was, mentioned the matter to D'Erlon, who advised his colleague to return and caution him. "What is the use," rejoined Reille; "he would not listen to us." In truth, Napoleon was in no mood to receive advice. He admitted on the voyage to St. Helena that "he had not exactly reconnoitred Wellington's position."
In short, and incontestably, that which triumphed at Waterloo; that which smiled in Wellington's rear; that which brought him all the marshals' staffs of Europe, including, it is said, the staff of a marshal of France; that which joyously trundled the barrows full of bones to erect the knoll of the lion; that which triumphantly inscribed on that pedestal the date "June 18, 1815"; that which encouraged Blucher, as he put the flying army to the sword; that which, from the heights of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, hovered over France as over its prey, was the counter-revolution.
I was not ignorant of the Duke of Wellington's influence upon the affairs of the second Restoration, but for a long time I refused to believe that his influence should have outweighed all the serious considerations opposed to such a perfect anomaly as appointing Fouche the Minister of a Bourbon. But I was deceived.
Nor is it likely that I had ever reached the Agueda in time for the fighting had we not been met at Coimbra by an order to leave our guns in the magazine there and hurry forward to Ciudad Rodrigo, where my comrades were required to work the 24-pounders which composed the bulk of Lord Wellington's siege-train.
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