Or, if they be French or Americans,—
"There is where the great Napoleon directed the battle. The Imperial Guard beat all before them to this point," &c.
The field is an open, undulating plain, intersected by two or three broad roads; monuments rise here and there, and conspicuous on the field, marking the thickest of the fight rises the huge pyramidal earth-mound with the Belgian Lion upon its summit.
We stroll from point to point noted in the terrible struggle. Here is one that every one pauses at longest; it is a long, low ridge, where the guards lay that rose at Wellington's command, and poured their terrible tempest of lead into the bosoms of the Old Guard. We walk over the track of that devoted band of brave men, who marched over it with their whole front ranks melting before the terrific fire of the English artillery like frost-work before the sun, grimly closing up and marching sternly on, receiving the fire of a battery in their bosoms, and then marching right on over gunners, guns, and all, like a prairie fire sweeping all before it—Ney, the bravest of the brave, four horses shot under him, his coat pierced with balls, on foot at their head, waving his sword on high, and encouraging them on, till they reach this spot, where the last terrible tempest beats them back, annihilated. Here, where so many went down in death,—
"Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent,"—
now waved the tall yellow grain, and the red poppies that bloomed among it reminded us of the crimson tide that must have reddened the turf when it shook beneath the thunder of that terrible charge.
Let us pause at another noted spot; it is where the English squares stood with such firmness that French artillery, lancers, and even the cuirassiers, who threw themselves forward like an iron avalanche, failed to break them.
We come to the chateau of Hougoumont, which sustained such a succession of desperate attacks. The battle began with the struggle for its possession, which only ended on the utter defeat of the French. The grounds of Hougoumont are partially surrounded by brick walls, which were loopholed for musketry. This place, at the time of the battle, was a gentleman's country-seat, with farm, out-buildings, walled garden, private chapel, &c., and the shattered ruins, which to this day remain, are the most interesting relics of the battle; the wall still presents its loopholes; it is battered as with a tempest of musket balls.
The French charged up to the very muzzles of the guns, and endeavored to wrest them from the hands of those who pushed them forth.
Four companies of English held this place for seven hours against an assaulting army, and bullets were exhausted in vain against its wall-front, before which fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour.