f the Bourbon family, it is probable
that the priesthood, the people, and even the nobility, would
have given it not merely a negative support. But the name of
Napoleon was a bugbear for every class; and the efforts of the
King and government, which met with most enthusiastic support
in the northern provinces, were seconded with zeal and courage
by the rest of the kingdom.

The national force was soon in the field, under the command of
the Prince of Orange, the king's eldest son, and heir-apparent
to the throne for which he now prepared to fight. His brother,
Prince Frederick, commanded a division under him. The English army,
under the duke of Wellington, occupied Brussels and the various
cantonments in its neighborhood; and the Prussians, commanded by
Prince Blucher, were in readiness to co-operate with their allies
on the first movement of the invaders.

Napoleon, hurrying from Paris to strike some rapid and decisive
blow, passed the Sambre on the 15th of June, at the head of the
French army, one hundred and fifty thousand strong, driving the
Prussians before him beyond Charleroi and back on the plain of
Fleurus with some loss. On the 16th was fought the bloody battle
of Ligny, in which the Prussians sustained a decided defeat; but
they retreated in good order on the little river Lys, followed
by Marshal Grouchy with thirty thousand men detached by Napoleon
in their pursuit. On the same day the British advanced position
at Quatre Bras, and the _corps_d'armee_ commanded by the Prince
of Orange, were fiercely attacked by Marshal Ney; a battalion of
Belgian infantry and a brigade of horse artillery having been
engaged in a skirmish the preceding evening at Frasnes with the
French advanced troops.

The affair of Quatre Bras was sustained with admirable firmness
by the allied English and Netherland forces, against an enemy
infinitely superior in number, and commanded by one of the best
generals in France. The Prince of Orange, with only nine thousand
men, maintained his position till three o'clock in the afternoon,
despite the continual attacks of Marshal Ney, who commanded the
left of the French army, consisting of forty-three thousand men.
But the interest of this combat, and the details of the loss
in killed and wounded, are so merged in the succeeding battle,
which took place on the 18th, that they form in most minds a
combination of exploits which the interval of a day can scarcely
be considered to have separate