Toward five o'clock we reached a village where the battalions and squadrons filed over a bridge built of brick. This village had been taken by our vanguard, and in going through it, we saw some of the Prussians stretched out in the little streets on the right and left, and I said to Jean Buche: "Those are Prussians, I saw them at Lutzen and Leipzig, and you are going to see them too, Jean."
"So much the better," he replied, "that is what I want."
This village was called Chatelet. It is on the river Sambre, the water is very deep, yellow, and clayey, and those who are so unfortunate as to fall into it, find it very difficult to get out of, for the banks are perpendicular, as we found out afterward. On the other side of the bridge we bivouacked along the river; we were not in the advance, as the hussars had passed over before us, but we were the first infantry of the corps of Gérard. All the rest of that day the Fourth corps were filing over the bridge, and we learned at night, that the whole army had passed the Sambre, and that there had been fighting near Charleroi, at Marchiennes, and Jumet.
XVII
On reaching the other bank of the river, we stacked our arms in an orchard, and lighted our pipes and took breath as we watched the hussars, the chasseurs, the artillery, and the infantry, file over the bridge hour after hour, and take their positions on the plain. In our front was a beech forest, about three leagues in length, which extended toward Fleurus. We could see great yellow spots, here and there in this wood; these were stubble, and great patches of grain, instead of being covered with bramble or heath and furze as in our country. About twenty old decrepit houses were on that side the bridge. Chatelet is a very large village, larger than the city of Saverne.
Between the battalions and squadrons, which were constantly moving onward, the men, women, and children would come out with jugs of sour beer, bread, and strong white brandy which they sold to the soldiers for a few sous. Buche and I broke a crust as we looked on and laughed with the girls, who are blonde and very pretty in that country.
Very near us was the little village Catelineau, and in the distance on our left, between the wood and the river, lay the village of Gilly. The sound of musketry, cannon, and platoon firing, was heard constantly in that direction. The news soon came that the Emperor had driven the Prussians out of Charleroi, and that they had re-formed in squares at the corner of the wood.
We expected every moment to be ordered to cut off their retreat, but between seven and eight o'clock, the sound of musketry ceased, the Prussians retired to Fleurus, after having lost one of their squares; and the others escaped into the wood. We saw two regiments of dragoons arrive and take up their position at our right, along the bank of the Sambre. There was a rumor a few minutes afterward that General Le Tort had been killed by a ball in the abdomen, very near the place where in his youth he had watched and tended the cattle of a farmer. What strange things happen in life! The general had fought all over Europe, since he was twenty years old, but death waited for him here!
It was about eight o'clock in the evening, and we were expecting to remain at Chatelet until our three divisions had crossed. An old bald peasant, in a blue blouse and a cotton cap and as lean as a goat, came into camp and told Captain Grégoire that on the side of the beech wood in a hollow, lay the village of Fleurus, and to the right of this, the little village of Lambusart; that the Prussians had been stationed in these towns more than three weeks, and that more of them had arrived the night before, and the night before that. He told us also that there was a broad road, bordered with trees, running two good leagues along our left; that the Belgians and Hanoverians had posts at Gosselies and at Quatre-Bras; that it was the high-road to Brussels, where the English and Hanoverians and Belgians had all their forces; while the Prussians, four or five leagues at our right, occupied the route to Namur, and that between them and the English, there was a good road running from the plateau of Quatre-Bras to the plateau of Ligny in the rear of Fleurus, over which their couriers went and came from morning till night, so that the Prussians and English were in perfect communication, and could support each other with men, guns, and supplies when necessary.