ry was not "at hand
to hold the ground which the cavaliers seemed to have won." Let me
cite the exact words of General Foy, written in his Journal a few days
after the battle (M. Girod de L'Ain's "Vie militaire du General Foy,"
p. 278): "Alors que la cavalerie francaise faisait cette longue et
terrible charge, le feu de notre artillerie etait deja moins nourri,
et notre infanterie ne fit aucun mouvement. Quand la cavalerie fut
rentree, et que l'artillerie anglaise, qui avait cesse de tirer
pendant une demi-heure, eut recommence son feu, on donna ordre aux
divisions Foy et Bachelu d'avancer droit aux carres qui s'y etaient
avances pendant la charge de cavalerie et qui ne s'etaient pas
replies. L'attaque fut formee en colonnes par echelons de regiment,
Bachelu formant les echelons les plus avances. Je tenis par ma gauche
a la haie [de Hougoumont]: j'avais sur mon front un bataillon en
tirailleurs. Pres de joindre les Anglais, nous avons recu un feu tres
vif de mitraille et de mousqueterie. C'etait une grele de mort. Les
carres ennemis avaient le premier rang genoux en terre et presentaient
une haie de baionettes. Les colonnes de la 1're division ont pris la
fuite les premieres: leur mouvement a entraine celui de mes colonnes.
En ce moment j'ai ete blesse...."

This shows that the advance of the French infantry was far too late to
be of the slightest use to the cavalry. The British lines had been
completely re-formed.

FOOTNOTES TO VOLUME I:

[Footnote 1: From a French work, "Moeurs et Coutumes des Corses"
(Paris, 1802), I take the following incident. A priest, charged with
the duty of avenging a relative for some fourteen years, met his enemy
at the gate of Ajaccio and forthwith shot him, under the eyes of an
official--who did nothing. A relative of the murdered man, happening
to be near, shot the priest. Both victims were quickly buried, the
priest being interred under the altar of the church, "because of his
sacred character." See too Miot de Melito, "Memoires," vol. i., ch.
xiii., as to the utter collapse of the jury system in 1800-1, because
no Corsican would "deny his party or desert his blood."]

[Footnote 2: As to the tenacity of Corsican devotion, I may cite a
curious proof from the unpublished portion of the "Memoirs of Sir
Hudson Lowe." He was colonel in command of the Royal Corsican Rangers,
enrolled during the British occupation of Corsica, and gained the
affections of his men during several