HOUGOMONT.
We passed the rather poor monuments along the roadside, and La Haye Sainte, with its broken farmyard walls and buildings, its muddy, dirty stable with its dung heaps, and on to the low, insignificant farmhouse of La Belle Alliance. On the way back we used to visit the battered walls and farm buildings of Hougomont, with its yard full of scratching chickens and scattering pigeons, and its bit of a chapel. Everywhere were mud and litter, a few broken bricks showing where the well had been. The only dignified thing about Hougomont was a bronze tablet placed on its ruined wall by the English Guards.
I was very much struck by the small area of the battlefield—all the positions were so near, and in plain sight of each other—quite different from the long battle line of to-day. It is hard to realize that a struggle of such tremendous importance was fought in such a limited space.
It seemed a pity that this most famous of the scenes of great events should not have been turned into a government park and preserved. When we were there the land was being sold off into lots, and every year the aspect of the battlefield was changing. But for all that we went again and again, for the fields were sweet with spring and flowers in the warm sunshine, and it was so quiet and peaceful. That is how we shall remember it, as we saw it a century after the battle.
[CHAPTER IV]
IN DAYS OF KNIGHT AND VILLAIN
MANY centuries ago, there was fierce fighting in the glorious Meuse valley, where history seems to have a fancy for repeating itself. Then, as today, Dinant was a center of events, and it is good to know that the Belgians are strong and full of courage, as in the days when Cæsar called them “the bravest of all the Gauls.”
When the victorious Roman legions reached this outpost of Gaul, they found themselves opposed by men of two different races—the fishermen of the coast and the hunters of the hills and valleys further inland. In the first shock of battle, it was only the personal bravery of Cæsar that saved the legionaries from defeat, and eight years of campaigning were required before the Roman general could report the province subdued. The warlike tribes of the south were well-nigh destroyed. Those, on the other hand, who lived on the sand dunes or in hovels raised on piles above the tides, were more fortunate. Cæsar himself with five legions finally reduced these men of the swamps to merely nominal submission.