“I go to measure myself with Wellington,” exclaimed Napoleon, when he flung himself into his carriage, only a few days before, to join his army on the Belgian frontier. The Duke spoke not of such matters, but he could not possibly forget that the muse of history was waiting all that day, to know which of the two great names was to take the highest place among the many able commanders of the nineteenth century. The one had defeated, in turn, nearly every general in Europe, except Wellington. The other had triumphed over almost all the Marshals of France, but had not yet confronted Napoleon.
Captain Moyle Sherer thus writes:—
“Upon the night of that memorable battle, the words and emotions of the conqueror will long be remembered by those who sat with him at supper, after the anxious and awful day had closed. The fountain of a great heart lies deep, and the self-government of a calm mind permits no tears. But, this night, Wellington repeatedly leaned back in his chair, and rubbing his hands convulsively, exclaimed, “Thank God! I have met him: Thank God! I have met him.”[42] And, ever as he spoke, the smile that lighted up his eye was dimmed by those few tears that gush warm from a grateful heart.
“His many and deep anxieties; his noble desire to defeat his country’s implacable enemy; his rational doubts of success against so great a general;—these and many other fears and hopes, undisclosed to any one, all were now resolved and dissipated by a result more sudden, full, and glorious than any expectation he could have formed, or any hope he could have admitted. England was placed on the very pinnacle of glory; her foe was prostrate, his legions fugitives, and her general might joyfully look around and say, ‘This work was mine!’”
But after necessary food, and the writing of despatches and letters, came such rest as the excited mind and body could take. The Duke threw himself, unwashed but exhausted, on his bed long after midnight. He had desired Dr. Hume to bring him the report of the surgeons at seven in the morning. The doctor was punctual, but the claims of nature were not satisfied, the Duke’s sleep was still sound. Knowing that, with him, duty was paramount to all other considerations, the doctor at once awakened him. The list was produced, and the doctor began to read; but as name after name came forth—this one as dying, that as dead—the voice failed, and Hume, looking up, perceived the tears rapidly chasing each other down the victor’s blackened cheeks;—he laid down the list and instantly left the apartment.
The British loss was indeed great. Of the Duke’s staff twelve were killed and forty-six wounded. The number of British officers killed and wounded in these three days exceeded 700, and of privates it was more than 10,000, so that about every third man in the British ranks had been struck down in this terrible battle. The loss of Dutch, Hanoverians, &c., had been 7,000; and that of the Prussians exceeded 6,000. As to the French, their loss in killed and wounded never could be ascertained; but it is certain that of 150,000 men who crossed the frontiers, not 50,000 were ever re-assembled under their colours.
The utter loss of his army sent Napoleon back to Paris. But the news of his total defeat arrived along with him. His fame, his “glory,” and his power perished together. The Chambers rose in rebellion against him; and his abdication was demanded. The English and Prussian armies, meanwhile, rapidly advanced; and on their arrival before Paris the city capitulated; the King returned to his palace; and Napoleon gave himself up to the Captain of an English ship of war. On the 15th of June one of the finest armies that he had ever led into the field entered Belgium to take advantage of the Duke of Wellington’s unprepared state;—on the 3rd of July, just fifteen days after, Paris itself capitulated! Such were the vast results of Waterloo.
Napoleon, indeed, had been in some peril, for the Prussian general showed a particular anxiety to get hold of him, in order that he might hang him! The Duke had no fondness for him,—always designating him in his despatches, merely as “Bonaparte;” but the old Prussian field-marshal, remembering the cruel treatment of his country by the French in 1807, felt, and constantly expressed, sentiments of positive hatred. The Duke, however, with that loftiness of aim and of feeling which had forbidden his officers to fire upon Napoleon during the action, firmly resisted Blucher’s desires on this point. General Muffling, the Prussian commissioner, tells us, that the Duke said to him, “I wish my friend and colleague to see this matter in the light I do: such an act would give our names to history stained with a crime; and posterity would say of us, “They were not worthy to be his conquerors; the more so, as such a deed would be useless, and can have no object.”
In the same tone the Duke wrote to Sir Charles Stuart, telling him, “I said, that as a private friend, I advised him to have nothing to do with so foul a transaction; that he and I had acted too distinguished parts in these transactions to become executioners; and that I was determined that if the Sovereign put him to death, they should appoint an executioner, which should not be me.”
In a similar spirit, the Duke succeeded in preventing the Prussians from executing other plans of vengeance, such us the blowing up the bridge of Jena, pulling down the column of Austerlitz, and the like. In fact, had the old marshal been alone in these transactions, he would gladly have indulged his troops with the plunder of Paris.