rmany. The rain
came down as if from a watering pot, and we tramped on with our guns
under our arms with the cape of our cloaks over the locks, so wet that
if we had been through a river it could not have been worse; and such
mud! With all this we began to feel the want of food. Buche kept
saying:

"Well! a dozen big potatoes roasted in the ashes as we do at Harberg
would rejoice my eyes. We don't eat meat every day at home, but we
always have potatoes."

I thought of our warm little room at Pfalzbourg, the table with its
white cloth, Father Goulden with his plate before him, while Catherine
served the rich hot soup and the smoked cutlets on the gridiron. My
present sufferings and troubles overwhelmed me, and if wishing for
death only had been necessary to rid me of them, I should have long ago
been out of this world.

The night was dark, and if it had not been for the ruts, into which we
plunged to our knees at every step, we should have found it difficult
to keep the road; as it was, we had only to march in the mud to be sure
we were right.

Between seven and eight o'clock we heard in the distance something like
thunder. Some said: "It is a thunder-storm!" others, "It is cannon!"

Great numbers of disbanded soldiers were following us.

At eight o'clock we reached Quatre-Bras. There are two houses opposite
each other at the intersection of the road from Nivelles to Namur with
that from Brussels to Charleroi. They were both full of wounded men.
It was here that Marshal Ney had given battle to the English, to
prevent them from going to the support of the Prussians along the road
by which we had just come. He had but twenty thousand men against
forty thousand, and yet Nicholas Cloutier, the tanner, maintains to-day
even, that he ought to have sent half his troops to attack the Prussian
rear, as if it were not enough to stop the English.

To such people everything is easy, but if they were in command, it
would be easy to rout them with four men and a corporal.

Below us the barley and oat fields were full of dead men. It was then
that I saw the first red-coats stretched out in the road.

The captain ordered us to halt, and he went into the house at the
right. We waited for some time in the rain, when he came out with
Dauzelot, general of the division, who was laughing, because we had not
followed Grouchy toward Namur; the want of orders had compelled us to
turn off to Quatre-Bras. Notwithstanding, we