Waterloo Days: The narrative of an Englishwoman resident at Brussels in June 1815

CHARLOTTE A. EATON,
AUTHOR OF ROME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, AT HOME AND ABROAD, ETC.
NEW EDITION. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND APPENDIX By EDWARD BELL, M.A.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1888.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
The following little book which was first published within two years of the events which it describes, was republished in 1852, after some revision by the author, under the title of The Days of Battle. It has now been out of print for a considerable time, but its merits as a very graphic and interesting description of those few momentous days which have left their mark on English literature no less than on the history of Europe, are sufficient, it is believed, to justify its republication in a popular series.
Though it was first published anonymously as a Narrative of a few days' Residence in Belgium with some account of a visit to the field of Waterloo, by an Englishwoman, it has so much personal interest that the reader will, doubtless, be glad to know something of its author, more especially as she is favourably known by other works, and with other members of her family has claims upon the memory of a younger generation.
Miss Charlotte Anne Waldie, the lady in question, was born 28 September, 1788, and was the second of three daughters of George Waldie, Esq., of Hendersyde Park, near Kelso, Roxburghshire, and Forth House, Newcastle-on-Tyne. There were also two sons, one of whom is mentioned in the following pages, but they both died without issue. The eldest daughter, Maria Jane, married in 1812 Mr. Richard Griffith, the distinguished civil engineer, who was appointed by Government sole commissioner for the general valuation of Ireland, and was the author of the famous geological map of that country. After more than forty years of arduous public service, during a large part of which he was President of the Board of Works in Ireland, he was created a baronet; and his son, Sir George R. Waldie-Griffith, inherited Mr. Waldie's estates.