“About half a mile of ascent brought us to the position of Bonaparte. This is the highest ground in the Pays Bas. I climbed up one of the pillars of the scaffolding, as I was wont to do after birds’ nests.... We got a ladder from the farm-court; it reached near the first platform. I mounted and climbed with some difficulty; none of the rest would venture.... The view was magnificent. I was only one-third up the machine, yet it was a giddy height. Here Bonaparte stood surveying the field.
“This position of Bonaparte is most excellent; the machine had been placed by the side of the road, but he ordered it to be shifted. The shifting of this scaffolding shows sufficiently the power of confidence and the resolution of the man. It is about sixty feet in height. I climbed upon it about four times the length of my body, by exact measurement, and this was only the first stage. I was filled with admiration for a man of his habit of life who could stand perched on a height of sixty-five feet above everything, and contemplate, see, and manage such a scene.”
Mention of the scaffold-platform is also made by Sir Walter Scott, who rode over the field in August 1815. Sir Walter gives this version, in a letter to the Duke of Buccleuch:
“The story of his (Napoleon’s) having an observatory erected for him is a mistake. There is such a thing, and he repaired to it during the action; but it was built or erected some months before, for the purpose of a trigonometrical survey of the country, by the King of the Netherlands.”
Thomas Kelly, an enterprising London publisher, went further. He had a picture of the erection drawn, and brought it out as a popular print in October 1815, under the title of “Bonaparte’s Observatory to view the Battle of Waterloo.” The print shows a three-tiered structure, apparently quite lately constructed, with three platforms, and ladders leading from one platform to the other. Napoleon himself is depicted on top, his spy-glass at his eye, and with two staff officers in attendance.
There certainly was a structure of the kind on the field. Such a thing, in a dilapidated condition, is to be seen in miniature on the Siborne model of the battlefield at the Royal United Service Institution. It is made to scale, and in its essential features bears out Dr. Bell’s description. It stands close to the “wood of Callois” by the Nivelle road, rather more than a mile to the south of Hougoumont. It has only one platform, whence it would overlook the trees and give a good view of the battle.
On the other hand, in addition to the silence of all Napoleon’s officers on the subject, we have this plain statement from Frances Lady Shelley, an intimate friend of the Duke of Wellington, who was in Paris during the occupation after the battle and was also taken over the battlefield by the Duke of Richmond some three months after Waterloo. It appears in her recently published Diary, at p. 173, and may be taken as settling the fate of the story of “this towering and massive perch,” “that wonderful scaffold,” “that huge scaffolding,” “part of Napoleon’s equipment at Waterloo,” as a modern historical writer calls it.
This is what Lady Shelley wrote at the time:
“Throughout the battle of Waterloo Napoleon remained on a mound, within cannon shot, but beyond the range of musketry fire. He certainly was not in the observatory after the battle began; nor could he have from that spot directed the movements of his troops. That observatory was built for topographical reasons by a former Governor of the Netherlands something like a century ago.”
[44] The “fanion” of the second battalion of the 45th shared the fate of the regimental Eagle. It fell to Private Wheeler of the 28th, the “Slashers,” the present 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. The 28th, on the left of Picton’s line, had, like the Highlanders, charged forward among the French, following close after the Greys. Wheeler, after a fierce fight with the bearer of the “fanion,” in which he was severely wounded, bayoneted the French sergeant and carried off the trophy. It disappeared in an unexplained manner some days later, during Wellington’s march on Paris, while being forwarded to the Duke’s head-quarters.