About three miles from Brussels, situated upon an eminence above the road, we passed the magnificent palace of Lacken. I shuddered as I looked up to its lofty dome, and recollected that Napoleon had made the boast that this very night he would sleep beneath its roof. Uncertain, as we then were, how the day that had risen might terminate, believing as we did that the eventful battle was even now begun which was to decide the fate of Europe, my heart swelled with the proud confidence, that unprepared, unconcentrated, outnumbered as they were; leagued with foreigners who could not be depended upon, and with allies who had been defeated, yet that under every disadvantage British valour would still be triumphant, as it had ever been in every contest, and at every period. Great numbers of wounded stragglers from the field were slowly and painfully wandering along the road, pale and faint from loss of blood, and with their heads, arms, and legs bound up with bloody bandages. We spoke to several of them, but they were all either Belgic or Prussian, and did not understand a word of French. Two of the most severely wounded we took upon our carriage and carried into Malines, where they told the côcher their friends lived. From him we learnt that they had been wounded in the battle yesterday morning. I saw—I am sorry to say—one young English gentleman, who was travelling quite alone in his own carriage, sternly order down two of these unfortunate wounded men from his carriage.
The wounded, however, whom we saw, were able to move. In time they would reach a place of safety and shelter; but, if even their sufferings were so great that the very sight of them was painful, what must be the state of those who were left bleeding on the field of the lost battle, deserted by the retreating Prussians, passed by, unpitied and unaided, by the advancing French, and abandoned to perish in sufferings from the bare idea of which humanity recoils![14] The day was unusually sultry; but if we felt the rays of the sun beneath which we journeyed to be so oppressive, what must be the situation of the poor unsheltered wounded, exposed to its fervid blaze in the open field, without even a drop of water to cool their thirst? What must be the sufferings of our own unfortunate men, above all, of those who were not only wounded but prisoners, and at the mercy of the merciless French? Never—never till this moment, had I any conception of the horrors of war! and they have left an impression on my mind which no time can efface. Dreadful, indeed, is the sight of pain and misery we have no power to relieve, but far more dreadful are the horrors imagination pictures of the scene of carnage; the agonies of the wounded and the dying on the field of battle, where even the dead who had fallen by the sword, in the prime of youth and health, are to be envied!—the thought was agony, and yet I could not banish it from my mind.
At a little inn, half-way to Malines, we got out of the carriage while the horses were eating their rye-bread, and the poor people of the village crowded around us with faces of the greatest consternation and distress, to inquire what had happened. They had heard such varying and contradictory reports that they knew not what to believe, but terror was the predominant feeling; and their horror of the approach of the French, which they were convinced would happen sooner or later, surpassed everything I could have imagined. In spite of all we could say to inspire confidence, and to convince them that the English had been, and would still be, victorious, and that the French would never again be masters of Belgium, their apprehensions completely overpowered their hopes; and their alarm and consternation were truly pitiable. I asked them why they feared the French so much? With one accord they immediately burst out into exclamations, that they would plunder and destroy everything, and rob and murder them;—that they were monsters, who had no pity, and would show no mercy:—"Oh! what will become of us! what will become of us!" was the universal cry of these poor affrighted peasants. They were anxious about the Duke of Brunswick, and when they heard that he had really fallen (which we had learnt from Major Wylie), their lamentations were great, and the certainty of his fate seemed to increase their despondency. He must have been a good prince whose fate could at such a moment be deplored. He had a country seat in the neighbourhood of Lacken, and he was consequently well known and much beloved in this part of the country. An officer in a dark military great coat, whom I took for a German, hearing me talk to some poor affrighted women with babies in their arms, whom I was endeavouring to reassure, asked me in French if I had come from Brussels, and what was the issue of yesterday's battle? I told him all the particulars I knew, and after some minutes' conversation, he said at last, with the air of a person paying a compliment, that he understood some of my countrymen had behaved most gallantly: "comme braves hommes," was his expression. "Some of my countrymen!" I indignantly exclaimed, feeling myself turn as red as fire at this foreigner's degrading and partial praise of the British army—"they all behaved most gallantly, they fought like heroes; how else should the French have been repulsed: and when did the English behave otherwise?" "The English! but you are not English surely, madame?" said the officer. "Oui, monsieur," said I, proudly, "je suis Anglaise." "Et moi aussi," said he, half laughing; and during the short time our conversation lasted, we condescended to make use of our mother-tongue. He proved to be an English officer going from Antwerp to join the army, and I took him for a German, chiefly I think because he accosted me in French, and because he did not look much like an Englishman. Why he took me for a Belgian, heaven only knows: it was not likely that a Belgic lady should be speaking in French to the Belgic people, rather than in the common language of the country.
A party of Nassau troops, on their way to the army, were sitting drinking in some long Flemish waggons at the door of the inn. A Prussian hussar, whom we had passed on the road, arrived while we were there. The moment he dismounted from his horse he was assailed by the Nassau soldiers for news of the battle. While he was telling them his story, anxiety for intelligence made me draw as near as I durst. The loud voices of the soldiers, however, drowned the greater part of his recital, and their language was so barbarous that I could only make out that they were making a joke of Louis XVIII., and laughing at the idea of the fright he would be in, and saying, that he was so fat and unwieldy he would never be able to run away before Napoleon's long legs overtook him. The hussar, seeing me, I suppose, gazing at him very wistfully, respectfully took off his cap, which encouraged me to ask him if I had not misunderstood him, that I thought I had heard him say the French had beaten the Prussians. "No, madame," said he, with an air of great concern, "it is really so; the French have beaten the Prussians." "The French beat the Prussians!" I exclaimed: "Did you say, sir, that the French had beaten the Prussians? are you sure of it?" "Too sure, madame, for I was in the battle." I now perceived for the first time that he was slightly wounded; his long blue cloak, which nearly descended to his feet, had concealed it. He told us that, after a desperate engagement, the Prussians had been repulsed and compelled to retreat, and that the French were advancing in great force. We had repeatedly heard this at Brussels; but, unwilling to believe bad news, we had hoped it would prove false, and even yet we would gladly have taken refuge in incredulity.
The garçon of this inn, a fine youth, with a most engaging countenance, was in great anxiety and alarm at the approach of the French, and he implored us to tell him the whole truth; for if they should come, it would cost him his life, and he would fly to the end of the world to avoid them. We assured him that the French had been repulsed yesterday by the British, when our force was not half collected, and that, now that the cavalry and all the troops had joined the army, there could be no doubt that the English would be victorious. "Ah! je l'espère!" said the garçon; "mais ils sont terribles, ces François." We assured him that terrible as they were, they would never conquer the British and Belgic army, nor regain possession of Belgium. The garçon fervently prayed they never might:—"Mais, je ne sais quoi faire, moi," said this poor youth in his Belgic French, with a face of extreme perplexity, as we drove off.
Of the town of Malines I do not retain the smallest remembrance; but the consternation of the people with whom it was crowded, and their faces of terror and distress, I shall never forget. They were struck with universal dismay, and so thoroughly convinced that Napoleon would be victorious, that we might as well have talked to the winds as have told them that he would be defeated. They only shook their heads, and despondingly said: "Ah! he has so many soldiers, and he is so desperate—and he cares not how many thousands he sacrifices; he cares for nothing but his ambition:—Oh! he will be here, that is too certain." The garçon of this inn had been a conscript, and served two years in the French army. At the expiration of that period he had procured a substitute for one thousand florins, which money, I suspect, he had amassed by plunder. He was, however, a most intelligent man, and his hatred of the French, and of Napoleon in particular, was so strong, that he could not refrain from pouring out a most eloquent torrent of invective against him: "And throughout the whole of Belgium he is equally dreaded and detested in every place—except at Antwerp," added he, correcting himself; "there he has some adherents, for many people grew rich by the public works, and by making the docks, and building the ships, and supplying the arsenal; and many grew rich upon the distresses of the people—and therefore they wish for him back again." My brother observed that he had certainly done a great deal for Antwerp, and made great improvements, and he particularly mentioned the docks and the quays.
"Yes! he did a great many fine things, to be sure, at Antwerp, and he took care to make us pay for them. Au reste," continued he, "the people of Antwerp, that is, the merchants and the manufacturers, and all the decent, industrious people, hate him with their whole hearts." "And why do the Belgians hate him so much?" I asked. "Why! because he stopped our trade; he ruined our manufactures and commerce; he took our men to fight his battles, and our money to fill his pockets; and he took from us the means to get money: here, in this very town, the lace manufacturers were starved; the work-women had no employment; our streets were filled with beggars; our priests were insulted: he destroyed, he consumed everything." "Il a mangé tout," was the phrase he frequently repeated, with an expression of hatred in his voice and gesture so strong that I can give no idea of it. "But he cannot live without war, nor can the French; it is their trade; they live by it; they make their fortunes by it; they place all their hopes in it; they are wolves that prey upon other nations; they live by blood and plunder: they are true banditti (vrais brigands), and they are so cruel, so wicked—ils sont si méchans." It is impossible to give the force of this expression in a literal translation. When we asked him if the Belgians did not dislike the Dutch, and if the government of the House of Orange was not unpopular, he said, "Je vous dirai, monsieur: Les Hollandais et les Belges never liked each other, and one great reason is the difference of our religion. They think us Papists and bigots, and we think them Puritans and Calvinists; besides, we were always rivals, and always jealous of each other, and we think (c'est à dire les Belges) that their king becoming our king, is, as if we had fallen under their dominion. If we may not be an independent nation, we would, perhaps, rather belong to the English, or to the Austrians; but we would rather belong to anything—to the devil himself—than to Napoleon Buonaparte."
The poor lace-makers whom we saw were in nervous trepidation at the expected approach of the dreaded French, whom they reviled with all the bitterness and volubility of female eloquence. The same sentiments were written upon every countenance, and uttered by every tongue. In every village and every hamlet through which we passed, the utmost consternation seemed to reign. We met officers on horseback, and detachments of troops marching to join the army. It was with difficulty I refrained from beseeching them to hasten forwards: it seemed to me that every man was of importance. At another time I might have been interested with seeing the country; but now—I could not look at it—I could not think of it; and as my eye rested with a vacant gaze upon the waving fields of luxuriant corn through which we passed, I could only feel the heart-sickening dread, that the harvests of Belgium, though they had been sown in peace, would be reaped in blood. We had every reason to think that the mortal struggle had been renewed; Lord Wellington himself, the whole army expected it. How then was it possible, believing, as we did, that, within a few leagues of us, the battle was at that time raging that was to decide the fate of Europe, and give or take from our gallant countrymen the palm of victory and of glory—that we could for a single instant feel the smallest interest about anything else?
At a distance, we saw the lofty spire of the cathedral of Antwerp, without then admiring its beauty, or even being conscious that it was beautiful. We looked, we felt, indeed, like moving automatons. Our persons were there, but our minds were absent. Every step we took only seemed to increase our solicitude for all we left behind. Our thoughts still to the battle
"turned with ceaseless pain,
And dragged at each remove a lengthening chain."