noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it
was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form,
to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive.

The next day after Ligny, the Prussians still had ninety thousand men,
of whom thirty thousand were fresh troops, and two hundred and
seventy-five cannon. With such an army they could do what they
pleased; they could have even fought a second battle with the Emperor,
but they preferred falling on our flank, while we were engaged with the
English in front. That is so plain and clear, that I cannot imagine
how any one can think the movement of the Prussians surprising.

Bluecher had already played us the same trick at Leipzig--and he
repeated it now in drawing Grouchy on to pursue him so far. Grouchy
could not force him to return, and he could not prevent him from
leaving thirty or forty thousand men to stop his pursuers, while he
pushed on to the relief of Wellington.

Our only hope was that Grouchy had been ordered to return and join us,
and that he would come up in the rear of the Prussians; but the Emperor
sent no such order.

It was not we, the common soldiers, as you may well think, who had
these ideas; it was the officers and generals; we knew nothing of it;
we were like children, utterly unconscious that their hour is near.

But now having told you what I think, I will give you the history of
the rest of the battle just as I saw it myself, so that each one of you
will know as much about it as I do.

XXI

Almost immediately after the news of the arrival of the Prussians, the
assembly began to beat, the soldiers of the different battalions formed
their ranks, and ours, with another from Quiot's brigade, was left to
guard Haie-Sainte, and all the others went on to join General d'Erlon's
corps, which had advanced again into the valley, and was endeavoring to
flank the enemy on the left.

The two battalions went to work at once to barricade the doors and the
breaches in the walls with timbers and paving stones, and men were
stationed in ambush at all the holes which the enemy had made in the
wall on the side toward the orchard and on that next the highway.

Buche and I, with the remainder of our company, were posted over a
stable in a corner of the barn, about ten or twelve hundred paces from
Hougoumont. I can still see the row of holes which the Germans had
knocked in the wall, about as high as a