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

by Charlotte A. Eaton

I was silent, for I durst not trust myself to speak. Yet this was a very well-meaning man. I make no doubt he subscribed handsomely to the Waterloo fund, and that he would have given money to those very wounded soldiers to whom he refused shelter—if he had thought they wanted it. But beyond giving money his ideas of charity did not extend. To his mercantile mind, money was the chief and only good; the sole source of pride and of happiness; the only object in life worth seeking after—the one thing needful. He was a very good kind of man in his way, but he was entirely occupied with his "snug box" at Clapham, his brother's grand potteries in Staffordshire, and his own cargoes of rice, and hogsheads of rum and sugar; he could not feel the vast debt of gratitude their country owed to "the men of Waterloo;" to those gallant soldiers who had fought and bled for her safety and glory. He did not mean to be unkind or ungenerous; he would have started at the reproach of wanting humanity, or being deficient in gratitude, but—but—but—in short, he was altogether an Antwerp merchant.

The day was extremely hot, and on the outside of the Cafés, beneath the shade of awnings, and seated beside little tables in the open street, the Belgic gentlemen were eating ices and fruit, and drinking coffee, and reading "L'Oracle de Bruxelles," and playing at domino and backgammon with the utmost composure, utterly regardless of the crowds of passengers, and apparently as much at their ease as if they were in their own houses,—or indeed more so; for the Belgians, like the French, are more at home at le Café, or in the public streets, or anywhere, than in their own home, which is the last place in which they think of looking for enjoyment. They have no notion of domestic comfort, domestic pleasure, or domestic happiness; and consequently they cannot have much knowledge of domestic virtues. I cannot, therefore, help considering the French as a gay, rather than a happy nation. French habits and manners, and, I am afraid, French morals, are universally prevalent throughout Belgium. Groups of ladies of the most respectable character may everywhere be seen, sitting on chairs or benches, in the public streets or promenades, working, talking, laughing, and amusing themselves with all the ease and gaiety and sangfroid in the world. Sometimes only a knot of ladies, but more frequently ladies coquetting with their obsequious beaux.

We visited the unfinished Quay, begun by Napoleon, which was to have extended above a mile along the broad and deep Scheldt, and would have been one of the finest quays in Europe. We saw the flying bridge ("Le Pont Volant"), a most ingenious contrivance, on which carriages, horses, and waggons pass with great rapidity and security from one side of the river to the other, without interrupting its navigation, even for vessels of the largest burden. Such a plan, I should think, might be adopted with great success upon the Thames between London and Gravesend, or in any river where the arches of a stone bridge would obstruct the passage of the ships, and where the breadth is too great for the single span of an iron bridge. The mechanism seemed to be very simple. The largest ships of war can come up close to the quay; but the navigation of the Scheldt is difficult, and even dangerous, from the number of sand banks which choke it up. Antwerp is upwards of fifty miles from the mouth of the river.

We saw the docks, the offspring of Napoleon's hatred against our country; one of them was made sufficiently large and deep to be capable of containing the greatest part of the British navy, and at one time he exulted in the expectation of seeing the "wooden walls" of Old England safely moored in his docks at Antwerp. Little did he anticipate the day when the little army of England, which he despised and ridiculed, should be the unmolested possessors of his capital of Paris!

The Arsenal (la Maison de Marine) is now emptied of its stores, and deserted by its workmen. We saw a long building erected by Napoleon for the manufacture of ropes for ships—now equally useless. Its length is precisely the same as that of the cable of a first-rate British ship of war. The manner in which they repair ships in these docks is unlike anything I ever saw before. Instead of lifting the ship entirely out of water, and placing it upon the stocks (in effecting which, or in relaunching it, a vessel is said often to sustain injury), a rope is attached to the masts, and the ship is hauled down until its keel is exposed; after repairing that side they haul it down on the other in the same manner, and the workmen stand upon a raft that is fastened to its side.

We went to see the Citadel, a noble and complete fortification overlooking the Scheldt. The walls are of such an immense height and thickness, that I should imagine them to be quite invulnerable. The fortress is capable of containing 10,000 men; by means of the river fresh reinforcements might be constantly thrown in; and with a strong garrison, and an adequate supply of provisions and ammunition, I should suppose, that like another Troy, it might stand a ten years' siege; only that modern patience would never hold out such a length of time.

The commandant was confined to his bed by indisposition; but every part of the fortification was explained to us by a very good-humoured, intelligent Irish officer, whose name I have forgotten, but who seemed to be excessively amused by the (I fear) almost childish delight which my sister and I betrayed in seeing all the wonders of this wonderful place. Everything to us was new and interesting. It was the first citadel we had ever seen: and to see with our own eyes a real, actual citadel—nay, more, to be in one, was so very delightful, that we both agreed, if we had seen nothing else, we should have thought ourselves amply repaid for our journey to Antwerp.

This good-natured officer contentedly toiled along with us, under the burning rays of a most sultry sun, round the whole fortifications, and pointed out to us where and how attacks might be made with success, and in what manner they could be resisted. The sight of the moat, the draw-bridges, the ramparts, the bastions, and the dungeons; the sally-ports and gates, which communicate with the citadel from the moat by long subterranean passages, so forcibly recalled to my recollection all that I had heard and read of battles and sieges in history and in tales of chivalry, that I could have fancied myself transported back into ages long since past—into the iron times of arms; and all that had before existed only in imagination was at once realised.

After visiting all the lions of Antwerp, docks and fortresses; and ships and statues; and pictures and prisons; and quays and cathedrals; and battle-beaten walls and flying bridges; and decayed monasteries, and modern arsenals; which, as they have all been often so much better described than I can describe them, I shall forbear to describe at all—we returned to the hotel, excessively heated and tired, and very glad to sit down to rest. To-day, for the first time since our arrival, we began to have serious thoughts of getting some dinner. We might have eaten something during those days of alarm and agitation, and I suppose we did; but, excepting the breakfast we had got upon the stairs at Brussels on Saturday, I have not the most distant recollection of ever having eaten at all.

Upon the necessity and expediency of now dining, however, we were all unanimously agreed: the difficulty was how to achieve it. Mr. and Mrs. H. had a pigeon-hole for their only habitation, in which it would have been perfectly impossible to have introduced a table; a single chair was all it was capable of containing. In our rooms we had some difficulty in turning round when more than one person at a time was in them; but by dint of sitting out of the window, and against the door, and upon all the boxes, we had, I was assured—for I actually did not remember it—ingeniously succeeded in getting some breakfast—but to dine was perfectly impracticable. There happened, however, to be in this very hotel, a Captain F., an idle, not a fighting, captain; one who made his campaigns, not at Waterloo, but in Bond-street; and this Captain F., who had been in Antwerp long before the commencement of hostilities, had, luckily for us, got possession of a room in which it was possible to move. He was a Newmarket friend of Mr. H.'s, who introduced him to us, with the recommendation that he was a young man of fashion and fortune, well known about town; and in Captain F.'s room and company, Mr. and Mrs. H., my sister, my brother, and I accordingly dined; we were also favoured with the company of a particular friend of his, a Mr. C. Many foolish young men it has been my lot to see, but never did I meet with any whose folly was at all comparable to that of Captain F.