Bab Bab 82 · A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BÜLOW

The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for,

Blücher arriving. Death instead of life.

Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was

Saint Helena that was seen.

If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bülow, Blücher’s

lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above

Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenth

century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won

the battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit,

the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for

artillery, and Bülow would not have arrived.

Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour’s delay, and

Blücher would not have found Wellington on his feet. “The battle was

lost.”

It was time that Bülow should arrive, as will be seen. He had,

moreover, been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont,

and had set out at daybreak; but the roads were impassable, and his

divisions stuck fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the

cannons. Moreover, he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow

bridge of Wavre; the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the

French, so the caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between

two rows of burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the

conflagration was extinguished. It was midday before Bülow’s vanguard

had been able to reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert.

Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over at

four o’clock, and Blücher would have fallen on the battle won by

Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite

which we cannot comprehend.

The Emperor had been the first, as early as midday, to descry with his

field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his

attention. He had said, “I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be

troops.” Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, “Soult, what do you see in

the direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?” The marshal, levelling his

glass, answered, “Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy.”

But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staff

had studied “the cloud” pointed out by the Emperor. Some said: “It is

trees.” The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached

Domon’s division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter.

Bülow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could

accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army

corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before

entering into line; but at five o’clock, perceiving Wellington’s peril,

Blücher ordered Bülow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words:

“We must give air to the English army.”

A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel

deployed before Lobau’s corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia

debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the

Prussian cannon-balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in

reserve behind Napoleon.