It was a little after nine in the morning that the Last Army of Napoleon moved out from its bivouacs of the night before to take up its station for the battle. This is how a British hussar, who was looking on, describes the opening of the wonderful show: “Marching in eleven columns they came up to the front and deployed with rapidity, precision, and fine scenic effect. The drums beat, the bands played, the trumpets sounded. The light troops in front pressed forward, and the rattle of musketry was followed by the retreat of our horsemen and foot soldiers. Light wreaths of smoke curled upwards into the misty air, and through this thin veil the dense dark columns of the French infantry and the gay and gleaming squadrons of French horse were seen moving into their positions. Before them was the open valley, yet green with the heavy crops; behind them dark fringes of wood, and a thick curtain of dreary cloud.
“The French bands struck up so that we could distinctly hear them. Not long after, the enemy’s skirmishers, backed by their supports, were thrown out; extending as they advanced, they spread over the whole space before them. Now and then they saluted our ears with well-known music, the whistling of musket-balls. Their columns, preceded by mounted officers to take up the alignments, soon began to appear; the bayonets flashing over dark masses at different points, accompanied by the rattling of drums and the clang of trumpets.
“They took post, their infantry in front, in two lines, 60 yards apart, flanked by lancers with their fluttering flags. In rear of the centre of the infantry wings were the cuirassiers, also in two lines. In rear of the cuirassiers, on the right, the lancers and chasseurs of the Imperial Guard, in their splendid but gaudy uniforms: the former clad in scarlet; the latter, like hussars, in rifle-green, fur-trimmed pelisse, gold lace, bearskin cap. In rear of the cuirassiers, on the left, were the horse-grenadiers and dragoons of the Imperial Guard, with their dazzling arms. Immediately in rear of the centre was the reserve, composed of the 6th Corps, in columns; on the left, and on the right of the Genappe road, were two divisions of light cavalry. In rear of the whole was the infantry of the Imperial Guard in columns, a dense dark mass, which, with the 6th Corps and cavalry, were flanked by their numerous artillery. Nearly 72,000 men, and 246 guns, ranged with matches lighted, gave an awful presage of the approaching conflict.”
AS THEY MARCHED ON TO THE FIELD
Napoleon rode out to watch them as they deployed into position. He took his stand at the point where the columns reached the field and wheeled off to right and left to form up in readiness for the signal that should launch their massed ranks forward across the intervening valley against the British position in front. Marshal Soult, Chief of the General Staff, rode close behind Napoleon on one side; Marshal Ney, in charge of the main attack that day, was on the other. In rear followed in glittering array the cavalcade of staff officers, with, dragged along after them, tied by a rope to a dragoon orderly, Napoleon’s Waterloo guide, the innkeeper De Coster.
Hardly had Napoleon himself ever witnessed before the like of the tremendous display of enthusiasm that greeted his presence on the field on the morning of that final day. “The drums beat; the trumpets sounded; the bands struck up ‘Veillons au salut de l’Empire.’ As they passed Napoleon the standard-bearers drooped the Eagles; the cavalrymen waved their sabres; the infantrymen held on high their shakos on their bayonets. The roar of cheers dominated and drowned the beat of the drums and the blare of the trumpets. The ‘Vive l’Empereurs!’ followed with such vehemence and such rapidity that no commands could be heard. And what rendered the scene all the more solemn, all the more moving, was the fact that before us, a thousand paces away perhaps, we could see distinctly the dull red line [“la ligne rouge sombre”] of the English army.”
So one French officer (Captain Martin of the 45th of the Line) describes. The shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” says another, a veteran of Count d’Erlon’s First Army Corps, “rose more vehemently, louder and longer than I ever heard before, for our men were determined that they should be heard among the brick-red lines which fringed the crest of Mont Saint-Jean.”
It was for the Eagles the counterpart of the Day of the Field of Mars, the culminating act of homage to Napoleon from the soldiers of the Grand Army.
HIS IN LIFE AND DEATH
“The sight of him,” if we may use the words of Lamartine, “was for some a recompense for their death, for others an incitement to victory! One heart beat between these men and the Emperor. In such a moment they shared the same soul and the same cause! When all is risked for one man, it is in him his followers live and die. The army was Napoleon! Never before was it so entirely Napoleon as now. He was repudiated by Europe, and his army had adopted him with idolatry; it voluntarily made itself the great martyr of his glory. At such a moment he must have felt himself more than man, more than a sovereign. His subjects only bowed to his power, Europe to his genius; but his army bent in homage to the past, the present, and the future, and welcomed victory or defeat, the throne or death with its chief. It was determined on everything, even on the sacrifice of itself, to restore him his Empire, or to render his last fall illustrious. Accomplices at Grenoble, Pretorians at Paris, victims at Waterloo: such a sentiment in the generals and officers of Napoleon had in it nothing that was not in conformity with the habits and even the vices of humanity. His cause was their cause, his crime their crime, his power their power, his glory their glory. But the devotion of those 80,000 soldiers was more virtuous, for it was more disinterested. Who would know their names? Who would pay them for the shedding of their blood? The plain before them would not even preserve their bones! To have inspired such a devotion was the greatness of Napoleon; to evince it even to madness was the greatness of his Army!”