I thought of our warm little room at Pfalzbourg, the table with its white cloth, Father Goulden with his plate before him, while Catherine served the rich hot soup and the smoked cutlets on the gridiron. My present sufferings and troubles overwhelmed me, and if wishing for death only had been necessary to rid me of them, I should have long ago been out of this world.
The night was dark, and if it had not been for the ruts, into which we plunged to our knees at every step, we should have found it difficult to keep the road; as it was, we had only to march in the mud to be sure we were right.
Between seven and eight o'clock we heard in the distance something like thunder. Some said: "It is a thunder-storm!" others, "It is cannon!"
Great numbers of disbanded soldiers were following us.
At eight o'clock we reached Quatre-Bras. There are two houses opposite each other at the intersection of the road from Nivelles to Namur with that from Brussels to Charleroi. They were both full of wounded men. It was here that Marshal Ney had given battle to the English, to prevent them from going to the support of the Prussians along the road by which we had just come. He had but twenty thousand men against forty thousand, and yet Nicholas Cloutier, the tanner, maintains to-day even, that he ought to have sent half his troops to attack the Prussian rear, as if it were not enough to stop the English.
To such people everything is easy, but if they were in command, it would be easy to rout them with four men and a corporal.
Below us the barley and oat fields were full of dead men. It was then that I saw the first red-coats stretched out in the road.
The captain ordered us to halt, and he went into the house at the right. We waited for some time in the rain, when he came out with Dauzelot, general of the division, who was laughing, because we had not followed Grouchy toward Namur; the want of orders had compelled us to turn off to Quatre-Bras. Notwithstanding, we received orders to continue our march without stopping.
I thought I should drop every moment from weakness, but it was worse still when we overtook the baggage, for then we were obliged to march on the sides of the road, and the farther from it we went the more deeply we sank in the soft soil.
About eleven o'clock we reached a large village called Genappe, which lies on both sides of the route.