it, is elaborately wrought. Bassi relievi cover it—many of them representing sins and their punishments. The stone of which it is composed is soft when first quarried, and hence is easily worked, but it hardens by exposure to the air. The next morning I started for Brussels. There is an airiness and cheerfulness about this city that pleased me exceedingly, and I should think a residence in it, for a part of the year, would be delightful. The impression I got of it, however, may be owing to the position of the hotel at which I stopped. Situated on an eminence near the park, the traveller may be in a few moments strolling through beautiful grounds, thronged with promenaders as gay as those of the Champs Elysée and the Tuileries. WATERLOO. 13) XXV. BATTLE-FIELD OF WATERLOO. THE sky was darkly overcast, and not a breath of air disturbed the ominous hush of the atmosphere, which always precedes a rain, as we started for the greatest battle-field of Europe. My companions were an American, and an English cavalry captain, just returned from the Indies. We had previously been shown the house in which the ball was held the night before the battle. I could imagine the sudden check to the "sound of revelry," when over the exciting notes of the viol, came the dull booming of cannon, striking on the youthful heart "like a rising knell." "Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs We followed the route taken by Wellington and his suite from Brussels, and trotting through the forest of Soignies, which Byron, by poetical license, has called the forest of Ardennes; came upon the little hamlet of Waterloo, situated a short distance from the field of battle. Our guide was a man who lived in the village at the time of the battle, and had been familiar with all its localities for years. I have trod many battle-fields of ancient and modern glory, but never one with the strange feelings with which I wandered over this, for here the star of Bonaparte set forever. To understand the description, imagine two slightly elevated semicircular ridges, or, as they might more properly be termed, slopes, curving gently towards each other like a parenthesis, and you have the position of the two armies. On the summit of one of these slopes was arrayed the French army, and on the other the English. The night of the 17th of June was dark and stormy. The rain fell in torrents, and the two armies lay down in the tall rye drenched and cold to wait the morning that was to decide the fate of Europe and of Napoleon. From the ball-room at Brussels many an officer had been summoned in haste to the field, and shivering and wet, was compelled to pass the night in mud and rain in his elegant attire. The artillery had cut up the ground so that the mire was shoe deep, while the tall grain lay crushed and matted beneath the feet of the soldiers. The morning of the 18th opened with a drizzling rain, and the two armies, benumbed with cold and soaking wet, rose from their damp beds to the contest. Eighty thousand French soldiers were seen moving in magnificent array on the crest of the ridge, as they took their several positions for the day. Upward of seventy thousand of the allied forces occupied the ridge or eminences opposite them,-formed mostly into squares. In a moment the battle was all before me. I could almost see Bonaparte as, after having disposed his forces, and flushed with hope, he gaily exclaimed to his suite, "now to breakfast," and galloped away. The shout of "Vive l'Empereur" that followed shook the very field on which they stood, and seemed ominous of disaster to the allied army. Two hundred and sixty-two cannon lined the ridge like a wall of death before the French, while Wellington had but one hundred and eighty-six to oppose them. At eleven the firing commenced, and immediately Jerome Bonaparte led a column of six thousand men down on Hougoumont, an old chateau which defended Wellington's right, and was good as a fort. Advancing in the face of the most destructive fire, that gallant column pushed up to the very walls of the chateau, and thrust their bayonets through the door. But it was all in vain; and though the building was set on fire and consumed, and the roar. ing of the flames was mingled with the shrieks of the wounded that were perishing in it, the rage of the combatants only increas COMMENCEMENT OF THE BATTLE. 133 ed. The Coldstream Guards held the court-yard with invincible obstinacy, and Jerome Bonaparte was compelled to retire, after leaving 1,400 men in a little orchard beside the walls, where it does not seem so many men could be laid. In a short time the battle became general along the whole lines, and prodigies of valour were performed on every rod of the ensanguined field. The heavy French cavalry came thundering down on the steady English squares, that had already been wasted by the destructive artillery, and strove with almost superhuman energy to break them. Driven to desperation by their repeatedly foiled attempts, they at length stopped their horses and coolly walked them round and round the squares, and wherever a man fell dashed in, in vain valour. But when one of those rock-fast squares began to waver, Wellington threw himself into its centre, and it again became immoveable as a mountain. With their gallant chief in their keeping those brave British hearts could not yield. Whole columns went down like frost-work before the headlong charges of cavalry and infantry. In the centre the conflict at length became awful, for there the crisis of the battle was fixed. Wellington stood under a tree while the boughs were crashing with the cannon shot over head, and nearly his whole guard smitten down by his side, anxiously watching the progress of the fight. His brave squares, torn into fragments by bombs and ricochet shot, still refused to yield one foot of ground. Napoleon rode through his ranks, cheering on the exhausted columns of infantry and cavalry, that rent the heavens with the shout of " Vive l'Empereur," and dashed with unparalleled recklessness on the bayonets of the English. The hero of Wagram, and Borodino, and Austerlitz, and Marengo, and Jena, enraged at the stubborn obstinacy of the British, rages over the field, and is still sure of victory. Wellington, seeing that he cannot much longer sustain the desperate charges of the French battalions, wipes the sweat from his anxious forehead and exclaims, "Oh, that Blucher or night would come." Thus from eleven till four did the battle rage with sanguinary ferocity, and still around the centre it grew more awful every moment. The mangled cavalry staggered up to the exhausted British squares, which, though diminished and bleeding in every part, seemed rooted to the ground they stood upon. The heroic Picton had fallen at the head of his brigade, while his sword was flashing over his head. Ponsonby had gone down on the hard fought field, and terror and slaughter were on every side. The most enthusiastic courage had driven on the French troops, which the rock-fast resolution of British hearts alone could resist. The charge of the French cavalry on the centre was awful. Disregarding the close and murderous fire of the British batteries, they rode steadily forward till they came to the bayonet's point. Prodigies of valour were wrought, and heroes fell at every discharge. Bonaparte's star now blazed forth in its ancient splendour, and now trembled in the zenith. The shadows of fugitive kings flitted through the smoke of battle, and thrones tottered on the ensanguined field. At length a dark object was seen to emerge from the distant wood; and soon an army of 30,000 men deployed into the field, and began to march straight for the scene of conflict. Blucher and his Prussians came, but no Grouchy, who had been left to hold him in check, followed after. In a moment Napoleon saw that he could not sustain the charge of so many fresh troops, if once allowed to form a junction with the allied forces, and so he determined to stake his fate on one bold cast, and endeavour to pierce the allied centre with one grand charge of the Old Guard, and thus throw himself between the two armies, and fight them separately. For this purpose the Imperial Guard was called up, which had remained inactive during the whole day, and divided into two immense columns, which were to meet at the British centre. That under Reille no sooner entered the fire than it disappeared like frost-work. The other was placed under Ney, the "bravest of the brave," and the most irresistible of all Napoleon's Marshals. Napoleon accompanied them part way down the slope, and halting for a moment in a hollow, addressed them in his fiery, impetuous manner. He told them the battle rested with them. "Vive l'Empereur" answered him with a shout that was heard all over the field of battle. Ney then placed himself at their head, and began to move down the slope and over the field. No drum or trumpet or martial strain cheered them on. They needed nothing to fire their steady courage. The eyes of the world were on them, and |