ildren--Marie Louises, as we called
them; for the Empress had busied herself in raising levies while the
Emperor took the field. But it was very different in 1815. The prisoners
had all come back--the men from the snows of Russia, the men from the
dungeons of Spain, the men from the hulks in England.

These were the dangerous men, veterans of twenty battles, longing for
their old trade, and with hearts filled with hatred and revenge. The
ranks were full of soldiers who wore two and three chevrons, every
chevron meaning five years' service. And the spirit of these men was
terrible. They were raging, furious, fanatical, adoring the Emperor as
a Mameluke does his prophet, ready to fall upon their own bayonets if
their blood could serve him. If you had seen these fierce old veterans
going into battle, with their flushed faces, their savage eyes, their
furious yells, you would wonder that anything could stand against them.
So high was the spirit of France at that time that every other spirit
would have quailed before it; but these people, these English, had
neither spirit nor soul, but only solid, immovable beef, against which
we broke ourselves in vain. That was it, my friends! On the one side,
poetry, gallantry, self-sacrifice--all that is beautiful and heroic.
On the other side, beef. Our hopes, our ideals, our dreams--all were
shattered on that terrible beef of Old England.

You have read how the Emperor gathered his forces, and then how he and
I, with a hundred and thirty thousand veterans, hurried to the northern
frontier and fell upon the Prussians and the English. On the 16th of
June, Ney held the English in play at Quatre-Bras while we beat the
Prussians at Ligny. It is not for me to say how far I contributed to
that victory, but it is well known that the Hussars of Conflans covered
themselves with glory. They fought well, these Prussians, and eight
thousand of them were left upon the field. The Emperor thought that he
had done with them, as he sent Marshal Grouchy with thirty-two thousand
men to follow them up and to prevent their interfering with his plans.
Then with nearly eighty thousand men, he turned upon these "Goddam"
Englishmen. How much we had to avenge upon them, we Frenchmen--the
guineas of Pitt, the hulks of Portsmouth, the invasion of Wellington,
the perfidious victories of Nelson! At last the day of punishment seemed
to have arisen.

Wellington had with him sixty-seven thousand men, but many of them