Lombuc. His next business was to discover the enemy, whom he had been ordered to drive back. Piré, therefore, with his cavalry division, was sent to feel for the enemy along the road to Brussels, and Bachelu's infantry were put in motion to follow and support the horsemen. The leading squadrons of Piré soon touched the outposts of the extreme left of Wellington's army. The Dutch-Belgian generals stationed between Braine le Comte and Mons were on the alert, and engaged in concentrating their brigades. Aroused by the increasing cannonade about Charleroi, warned of the French advance by flying peasants and wounded Prussian soldiers, Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar had united his brigade at Quatre Bras, except a battalion of Nassauers under Major Norman, and Byleveld's Dutch battery of horse artillery, which held the advanced post of Frasne. Piré, moving along the high road, drove in the outlying picket of infantry, and testing the strength of the supports by a more rapid advance, he was himself compelled to fall back before the shower of grape poured into his squadrons from the guns of the Dutchmen. Ney, who had followed along the road with the light cavalry of the Guard, now came up, and hastening the march of Bachelu's infantry, attacked Frasne with the first battalions that arrived. Major Norman then withdrew the Nassauers, under cover of the grape from the Dutch guns, and Ney followed; but seeing the infantry of the enemy retire into the Wood of Bossu, observing the heads of columns in the direction of Quatre Bras, hearing the warm cannonade in his right rear towards Fleurus, and having only a part of Bachelu's division in hand, he advanced no farther. The sun had set. He knew not what progress Napoleon had made; he knew not the strength of the enemy in front; he had received no order to occupy Quatre Bras; he therefore retired upon Frasne; and, leaving there Bachelu's division, supported

by Piré and the light cavalry of the Guard, he rode back to Gosselies, and thence to Charleroi.

§ 5. Marches and final Positions of the French Army. Thus far the French army. Whatever may have been Napoleon's intentions, we have only to deal now with what he accomplished. What, then, was effected on the 15th? Napoleon had carried the greater part of his army to the left bank of the Sambre. He had diminished by 1,200 men, in killed, wounded and prisoners, the corps of General Ziethen; but the skill and energy of that able officer had prevented Napoleon from cutting him up in detail. Ziethen -and it was a brilliant exploit-had concentrated his scattered corps in defiance of the whole French army, had twice, at Charleroi and Gilly, delayed its progress, and had stopped it definitively for the day at Fleurus. Ney had also been arrested by the display of force at Quatre Bras.

At this stage it is essential to obtain an accurate conception of the position occupied by the French. The army was still in three columns. First, take note of the posts occupied by the heads of those columns. On the left we have seen that Ney had pushed forward as far as Frasne. In the centre Pajol was at Lambusart, and between the centre and left stood Girard, near Heppignies and Wagnée. On the right Gérard was in front of Chatelet. But the left column extended backwards to the right bank of the Sambre, from Frasne, that is, to Marchienne, a distance of fourteen miles; the centre covered the road from Lambusart to the right bank of the Sambre, behind Charleroi, a distance of nine miles; the right was united on the left bank of the Sambre, just in front of Chatelet. The leading battalions and squadrons of the centre had been on foot for eighteen hours, and had marched five-and-twenty miles. The leading battalions

and squadrons on the left had been on foot for the same time, and had marched the same distance. The Guard had been halted between Gilly and Charleroi, after a march of eighteen miles; D'Erlon had bivouacked at Marchienne, that is, when his troops had traversed about the same distance; and Gérard had been compelled to halt when he had debouched from Chatelet, upwards of twenty miles from his

starting point, Philippeville. The French army had thus been drawn together in an irregular square, the angles of which were Lambusart, Gosselies, Marchienne, and Chatelet, while a spur shot forward from the angle in the left front as far as Frasne; and Lobau, with the 6th corps and most of the heavy cavalry, stood backwards from the centre, in rear of Charleroi. Nevertheless, in three hours the right

and centre might have been massed in front of Fleurus, and the whole of the left, with the exception of Girard's division and the troops at Frasne, might have been concentrated at Gosselies; and thus, had he so chosen, Napoleon might, at five or six in the morning of the 16th, have occupied Fleurus with the bulk of his army, and have launched 40,000 men at the same moment along the road to Brussels. He did not so decide; he had taken no decision whatever. He was satisfied the result of the day's work had been all he could wish. He counted on the future without taking into his estimate the activity of his foes.

§ 6. Prussian Movements.

Blucher had been active all day. He had, by half-past four or five o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th, transferred his head-quarters from Namur to Sombref. The orders issued to Pirch I. and Thielemann had been obeyed. The former had collected the 2nd corps at Namur, one brigade excepted, which joined him the next morning, and by three o'clock in the afternoon, that is, as soon as Vandamme had entirely crossed the Sambre, Pirch I. was in position between Onoz and Mazy, on the Namur and Nivelles road, five miles from Sombref. Thielemann had collected his corps at Ciney; marching thence at half-past seven, half an hour after Vandamme quitted Beaumont, he reached Namur in the evening, and bivouacked in position in and near that town for the night. Thus Blucher had on the evening of the 15th two corps, that is, upwards of 60,000 men, in or near to the chosen position of Ligny; and one corps at Namur, fifteen miles from that position. The 4th corps, commanded by Bulow, however, was still at Liége, fifty miles from the point of concentration ! As early as the 13th Bulow had been ordered to collect his brigades. On

the 14th he was directed to concentrate on Hannut. There was some misunderstanding, and the order was not executed; but Bulow sent word that he would be at Hannut on the 16th. Blucher assuming, as he had a right to do, that his orders had been obeyed, sent two despatches on the 15th to Hannut, directing Bulow to march thence upon Sombref. But as the earlier orders had not been obeyed, Bulow only arrived at Hannut to find that his absence had cost the loss. of a battle to the Prussians.

§ 7. Wellington's Information and Proceedings. Wellington's inaction on the 14th and 15th has exposed him to much censure. The reader will see from a simple statement of the facts whether it was just or unjust. We ought to place ourselves in his position, regard the situation from his point of view, and by the light of the correct information he had received. Head-quarters were at Brussels. Thither came all reports, and thence issued all orders. Long before the 14th the points of concentration for all the divisions had been designated, the troops had been ordered to assemble daily, by battalions, and practically the whole army was on the alert. Wellington knew from Sir Hussey Vivian that some movement of concentration was in progress, Napoleon, as he himself states, having arranged his outposts on the line of the Scheldt and Lys, to create expressly an impression that he was concentrating to his left. Wellington's own opinion, retained to the day of his death, was that Napoleon ought not to have attacked by the Sambre and Meuse, and he expected the Emperor, undoubtedly, upon the Scheldt, or between the Scheldt and Lys, or from Maubeuge upon Mons. Yet he was prepared for an attack by the Sambre and Meuse, and able to meet it, as the result showed. Wellington also knew that Napo