Grouchy must be referring here to the scene at the Emperor’s headquarters on the night of the 15th and 16th (see post, p. 116).
In the edition published in Philadelphia in 1819, and in the reproduction of the pamphlet from this edition in Paris in the same year, Grouchy omits the statement that he heard the emperor blame Ney, and rests his argument on the censure on Ney’s conduct contained in the Gourgaud Narrative. One may not unreasonably conjecture that, after publishing the edition of 1818, he was informed that Ney’s family denied that Ney had received on the 15th any order to go to Quatre Bras, and that Grouchy was unwilling to give evidence in this controversy against this contention of the friends of the Marshal.
Captain Pringle, R. E., in an Appendix to Scott’s Napoleon (Paris edition, 1828, p. 833, n.), is the only author who cites the above-quoted statements of Marshal Grouchy.
[123] Gourgaud, p. 48, n.
[124] Corresp., vol. 31, p. 200.
[125] Cf. Jomini, p. 214, to whom the hesitation of Ney to occupy Quatre Bras seems justifiable, “unless the order to rush headlong on Quatre Bras had been expressed in a formal manner.”
[126] In his letter to the Duke of Otranto (Jones, 386), Ney says: “The Emperor [on the 15th] ordered me immediately to put myself at the head of the 1st and 2d Corps, &c., &c. With these troops * * * I pursued the enemy, and forced him to evacuate Gosselies, Frasnes, Millet, Heppignies. There they took up a position for the night. * * *
“On the 16th I received orders to attack the English in their position at Quatre Bras.”
It will be observed that Ney omits to state what directions, if any, the Emperor gave him on the 15th. He confines himself to enumerating the troops placed under his orders and to stating what he accomplished with them. The remark that he was ordered on the 16th to attack Quatre Bras throws no light on the question we are examining, viz.:—what orders were given to him on the 15th.
[127] Thiers, vol. xx, p. 31, n.