[96] “An error was committed by suffering it [the 1st Corps] to remain, during the night of the 15th, echeloned between Marchienne and Jumet.” Gourg. p. 66.
[97] Ante, pp. 12, 13.
[98] Jomini, p. 125. Jomini says (p. 123) that “Napoleon gave Grouchy a verbal order to push as far as Sombreffe that very evening, if possible”; but no evidence of such an order is cited. See Jomini’s letter to the Duc d’Elchingen, pp. 225, 226. Cf. La Tour d’Auvergne, p. 69. That Napoleon nowhere blames Grouchy for not having pushed on to Sombreffe on the 15th,—taken in connection with his censure of Ney for not having seized Quatre Bras that evening,—is pretty good evidence that he neither ordered nor expected Grouchy to reach Sombreffe.
[99] Charras, vol. 1, p. 116: cf. vol. 2, p. 225, Note K.
[100] Corresp., vol. 31, p. 249.
[101] Evidently a misprint for “three”; the word “seven” having obviously been carelessly repeated.
[102] Rogniat: Consid., p. 339: cited in Corresp., vol. 31, p. 471.
[103] Corresp., vol. 31, p. 471.
[104] Rogniat claims that there is a serious inconsistency between this statement, as to the occupation of Fleurus by the advance guard, and that in the Memoirs, where it is said that the Emperor intended to place his headquarters there. This seems rather hypercritical. Charras (vol. 2, p. 221) says “It stands to reason that if he had had his headquarters in that city [Fleurus], he would have occupied Sombreffe.” But this is surely going too far. Headquarters might well have been in Fleurus, while the Prussians held the heights of Brye and Sombreffe, and even the villages of Ligny and St. Amand; and this actually was the case the next day,—the 16th. Fleurus, half way between Charleroi and Sombreffe, was a very natural place for the Emperor to aim at as his resting place for the night of the 15th.
[105] Clausewitz, ch. 30, p. 60. But see Rogniat, Réponse, p. 262.