[(6)] "I entreated to remain in the room with him, promising not to speak. He wrote for several hours without any interruption but the entrance and departure of the various messengers who were to take the orders. Every now and then I gave him a cup of green tea, which was the only refreshment he would take, and he rewarded me by a silent look. My feelings during these hours I cannot attempt to describe, but I preserved perfect outward tranquillity."—Abridged Narrative.
[(7)] By 12 midnight, the after orders had been despatched. With regard to the orders of the 15th and 16th June, including the "Disposition of the British Army at 7 o'clock a.m., 16th June," attributed to Sir William De Lancey, see Gurwood, vol. xii., pp. 472-474; Supplementary Despatches, vol. x., p. 496; Ropes' Waterloo, pp. 77-89; and Colonel Maurice in U.S. Magazine, 1890, pp. 144 and 257-263.
[(8)] Doubtless, General Müffling, Prussian attaché at the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington. He accompanied the Duke to the ball, and next morning rode with him to Quatre Bras.
[(9)] I.e., without changing their ball dress. Some of the officers were killed at Quatre Bras in their shoes and silk stockings. "There was a ball at Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond's, that night (which I only mention because it was so much talked of), at which numbers of the officers were present, who quitted the ball to join their divisions, which had commenced their march before they arrived at their quarters, and some of them were killed the next day in the same dress they had worn at the ball." (Extract from a letter written by Colonel Felton Hervey shortly after the battle, and published in the XIXth Century for March 1903, page 431.) See also Colonel Maurice in U.S. Magazine, 1890, p. 144.
[(10)] "As the dawn broke, the soldiers were seen assembling from all parts of the town, in marching order, with their knapsacks on their backs, loaded with three days' provisions. Unconcerned in the midst of the din of war, many a soldier laid himself down on a truss of straw and soundly slept, with his hands still grasping his firelock; others were sitting contentedly on the pavement, waiting the arrival of their comrades. Numbers were taking leave of their wives and children, perhaps for the last time, and many a veteran's rough cheek was wet with the tears of sorrow. One poor fellow, immediately under our windows, turned back again and again to bid his wife farewell, and take his baby once more in his arms; and I saw him hastily brush away a tear with the sleeve of his coat, as he gave her back the child for the last time, wrung her hand, and ran off to join his company, which was drawn up on the other side of the Place Royale. Many of the soldiers' wives marched out with their husbands to the field, and I saw one young English lady mounted on horseback slowly riding out of town along with an officer, who, no doubt, was her husband. Soon afterwards the 42nd and 92nd Highland regiments marched through the Place Royale and the Parc, with their bagpipes playing before them, while the bright beams of the rising sun shone full on their polished muskets and on the dark waving plumes of their tartan bonnets. Alas! we little thought that even before the fall of night these brave men whom we now gazed at with so much interest and admiration would be laid low." (Mrs Eaton's Waterloo Days, p. 21.)
[(11)] "I stood with my husband at a window of the house, which overlooked a gate of the city, and saw the whole army go out. Regiment after regiment passed through and melted away in the mist of the morning."—Abridged Narrative.
[(12)] "Le Grand Laboureur."
[(13)] The Duke's corpse did not arrive at Antwerp till Saturday afternoon. See Mrs Eaton's Waterloo Days, p. 59.
[(14)] "I went to Antwerp, and found the hotel there so crowded, that I could only obtain one small room for my maid and myself, and it was at the top of the house. I remained entirely within, and desired my maid not to tell me what she might hear in the hotel respecting the army. On the 18th, however, I could not avoid the conviction that the battle was going on; the anxious faces in the street, the frequent messengers I saw passing by, were sufficient proof that important intelligence was expected, and as I sat at the open window I heard the firing of artillery, like the distant roaring of the sea, as I had so often heard it at Dunglass. How the contrast of my former tranquil life there was pressed upon me at that moment!"—Abridged Narrative.
Southey, the poet, says that the firing of the 16th was heard at Antwerp, but not that of the 18th. It is an extraordinary but indisputable fact that the firing at Waterloo was heard in England. The Kentish Gazette of Tuesday, 20th June 1815 (published therefore before any one in England, not even Nathan Rothschild himself, was aware that there had been a battle fought at Waterloo), contained the following piece of news from Ramsgate: "A heavy and incessant firing was heard from this coast on Sunday evening in the direction of Dunkirk." Dunkirk lies in nearly a straight line between Waterloo and the coast of Kent. What makes the matter still more extraordinary is the fact that Colville's Division, which, on the 18th, was posted in front of Hal, about ten miles to the west of the battlefield, never heard a sound of the firing, and did not know till midnight that any battle had taken place.