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The Anglo-Dutch infantry had retreated from Quatre-Bras, and the cavalry was following, and was itself followed by the French cavalry, who pressed it with great audacity.
Ney was therefore to beat back the foes at Quatre-Bras, and then turn to envelop the Prussians. But if these were driven in first, the Emperor would move towards Ney to hasten his operations. Not until the battle was about to begin does the Emperor seem to have realized that he was in presence of superior forces.
Ney was therefore to beat back the foes at Quatre-Bras, and then turn to envelop the Prussians. But if these were driven in first, the Emperor would move towards Ney to hasten his operations. Not until the battle was about to begin does the Emperor seem to have realized that he was in presence of superior forces.
This most extraordinary and rapid concentration of force was effected; the various divisions of the army, previously cantoned over an extent of fifty miles, were collected at Quatre-Bras, within the short space of twenty-four hours.
But when we observed their line a little more closely it was from fifteen hundred to two thousand yards from us we could see the broad, well-paved road, which we had followed from Quatre-Bras and which led to Brussels, dividing their position nearly in the centre.
The last catastrophe at Bull Run and at Manassas has a slight resemblance with the catastrophe at Waterloo. The conduct of the mutinous generals here is similar to the conduct of some of the French generals during the battle of Ligny and Quatre-Bras. But here was mutiny, and there demoralization produced by general and deeply rooted and fatally unavoidable causes.
Let us inflict punishment, since we are history: old Blucher disgraced himself. This ferocity put the finishing touch to the disaster. The desperate route traversed Genappe, traversed Quatre-Bras, traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes, traversed Charleroi, traversed Thuin, and only halted at the frontier. Alas! and who, then, was fleeing in that manner? The Grand Army.
Our hopes, our ideals, our dreams all were shattered on that terrible beef of Old England. You have read how the Emperor gathered his forces, and then how he and I, with a hundred and thirty thousand veterans, hurried to the northern frontier and fell upon the Prussians and the English. On the 16th of June, Ney held the English in play at Quatre-Bras while we beat the Prussians at Ligny.
Saying which the Corporal sat up, squared his mighty shoulders, coughed, and began: "It was when they Cuirassiers broke our square at Quatre-bras, sir, fine fellows those Cuirassiers! They rode into us, through us, over us, the square was tottering, and it was 'the colors rally! Ah, sir! the colors means the life or death of a square at such times.
He would have been earl of Erroll had he lived, but if we follow him in his short life from classic Eton to the field of Quatre-Bras, we shall find him again, on a bright June day in 1815, lying as if asleep, as fair and noble-looking as before, but silent in death.
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