artillerists stalled in the mud, "I promised. You would not have me
break my word, would you?"

Grouchy meanwhile had at last determined that the Prussians had gone
the other way. He had learned that they were at Wavre and he had swung
about and was coming north. Of course, he should have marched toward
the sound of the cannon--generally the safest guide for a
soldier!--but, at any rate, he was trying to get into touch with the
enemy. No one can question his personal courage or his loyalty to his
cause.

Napoleon, when he should have been on the alert, was very drowsy and
dull that day at Waterloo. He had shown himself a miracle of physical
strength and endurance in that wonderful four days of campaigning and
fighting, but the soldiers passing by the farmhouse of La Belle
Alliance--singular name which referred so prophetically to the
enemy--sometimes saw him sitting on a chair by a table outside the
house, his feet resting on a bundle of straw to keep them from the wet
ground, nodding, asleep! And no wonder. It is doubtful if he had
enjoyed as much as eight hours of sleep since he crossed the Sambre,
and those not consecutive! Still, if ever he should have kept awake,
that eighteenth of June was the day of days!

So far as one can discern his intention, his battle plan had been to
feint at Hougomont on the right center, cause the Duke of Wellington to
weaken his line to support the chateau, and then to break through the
left center and crush him by one of those massed attacks under
artillery fire for which he had become famous. The line once broken,
the end, of course, would be more or less certain.

The difference in the temperaments of the two great Captains was well
illustrated before the battle was joined. The Duke mainly concealed
his men behind the ridge. All that the French saw when they came on
the field were guns, officers and a few men. The English-Belgian army
was making no parade. What the British and Flemish saw was very
different. The Emperor displayed his full hand. The French, who
appeared not to have been disorganized at all by the hard fighting at
Ligny and Quatre Bras, came into view in most splendid style; bands
playing, drums rolling, swords waving, bayonets shining even in the
dull air of the wretched morning. They came on the field in solid
columns, deployed and took their positions, out of cannon-shot range,
of course, in the most deliberate manner. The uniforms of the army