They had a gay time in Brussels during that winter of 1814-15, as everyone knows. But on March 1 the Great Man landed in France; and a fortnight later the Orange flag was hoisted in Brussels, and the new King announced that he had not intended to assume the royal authority till the work of the Congress at Vienna was finished, and all their decisions could be executed together, but that the recent event in France had made him resolve to wait no longer.
On April 5 the Duke of Wellington came post-haste from Vienna, and went to live in a house next door to the Hôtel de France, at the corner of the Rue de la Montagne du Pare and the Rue Royale.
And now during these wonderful Hundred Days, about which so much has been written, the eyes of all Europe were fixed on Paris and Brussels. But there were some good folk living at Ghent, who considered themselves as the most important people in the world, as well they might, considering what pains were being taken, and what oceans of blood were to be shed, in order to make it safe for them to depart from East Flanders and go back again to France, whence they had lately fled in a great hurry.
Louis XVIII. was lying on a sofa at the Tuileries, suffering excruciating agonies from the gout, when a despatch was brought to him with the news that Napoleon had been in France for the last five days, and was at that moment on the road to Paris. Instantly preparations were made for flight, with as much secrecy as they had been made for that terrible trip in the Berline on which another Bourbon had set out so many years before. Everything was kept quiet, and no one whom it was possible to hoodwink was trusted. On the night fixed for the departure one of the Ministers was at the palace. The King gave him no hint; but as he was leaving the captain of the guard whispered: 'We're off in an hour; the relays are ordered; meet us at Lille.' They started, and had a most uncomfortable journey. It was pouring rain. The roads were deep in mud. The royal portmanteau was stolen with all the royal wardrobe. The royal gout was most painful; and at Lille the garrison was sullen. There were tricolor badges on all sides. Eagles were pulled out of knapsacks, and the fleur-de-lis was nowhere to be seen. This was evidently no place to stay at long; and so the King crossed the frontier and made for Ghent, where he had been offered a home in the splendid mansion of the Comte d'Hane-Steenhuyse.[42] He remained there comfortably until after the Battle of Waterloo.
People who came to Brussels in the first week of June were surprised to find how peaceful the town was, and how gay. Everyone has read the narratives of what went on, and the story has been told over and over again, and nowhere better than in Vanity Fair, which is history in disguise in the chapters where Amelia invades the Low Countries. On June 14 Napoleon, having crossed the frontier, was at Charleroi, on the road to Brussels, and all Brussels was talking about the dance which the Duke and Duchess of Richmond were giving next day at their house in the Rue de la Blanchisserie, in the ballroom with the paper of 'a trellis pattern with roses.'[43]
It was a strange night in Brussels, that night of June 15, 1815. By eight o'clock the Duke has given orders for the troops to march at daybreak, for he knows that Napoleon has crossed the frontier. Then he goes to the ball to wait for another despatch. At eleven o'clock, when the dancing is in full swing, the message reaches him. He hastens the march by two hours, and the bugles begin to sound all over the town. 'One could hear,' says General Brialmont, 'in the ballroom the rolling of cannon and the steady tramp of the regiments marching towards the forest of Soignies.' The Duke is in bed and asleep by two o'clock; but many of his officers dance on till it is time to rush off to their regiments
It would be useless to repeat the story of the next three days. It has been told a hundred times. The clear, refreshing dawn; the soldiers gathering from their billets; the partings; the regiments marching off, the Black Watch and the 92nd Highlanders with the bagpipes playing before them, through the park and the Place Royale, and passing away up the Rue de Namur and along the road beyond, to where the soft light of early morning is beginning to shine among the glades of Soignies; the sound of heavy firing on the 16th; the silence on the 17th, with the news that Blucher has lost the day at Ligny, and that Wellington is falling back from Quatre Bras; the carts and material of the army moving slowly up the Rue de Namur all day long; the awful suspense of the 18th, when no one can rest.
'We walked about nearly all the morning,' says Lady de Ros, 'being unable to sit still, hearing the firing, and not knowing what was happening.' About three o'clock the observant Mr. Creevy went for a stroll beyond the ramparts. 'I walked about two miles out of the town,' he writes, 'towards the army, and a most curious, busy scene it was, with every kind of thing upon the road, the Sunday population of Brussels being all out in the suburbs of the Porte Namur, sitting about tables drinking beer and making merry, as if races or other sports were going on, instead of the great pitched battle which was then fighting.' It was an hour or so after this that the Cumberland Hussars came galloping through the Porte de Namur, down the street and across the Place Royale, shouting that the French were coming, and raised such a panic. It was not till late at night that the truth was known.
And at Ghent? They had got on there very well on the whole. The gout was troublesome, but Louis XVIII. had the enormous appetite of the Bourbons, and ate a great deal. The Comte d'Hane gave a big dinner one day, at which the King managed to consume a hundred oysters for dessert. Some of the courtiers used to go to a tavern in the suburbs and eat a small white fish, a dainty much esteemed at Ghent, which was caught in the river there. Chateaubriand, who was one of this Court in exile, was at a dinner where they sat at table from one o'clock till eight. 'They began,' he says, 'with sweets and finished with cutlets. The French alone know how to dine with method. They played whist, and went to the theatre. Catalani sang for them at concerts, and also in private to please the King. When the royal gout allowed it, the King went to Mass at the Church of St. Bavon. But during the last three days His Majesty was very nervous, and kept his carriage secretly ready for another flight.