Our march to Paris was unaccompanied by anything to relate except that I had a gallop round Mons and a good look on Malplaquet, but could picture to myself no position, while I felt as a soldier standing on the classic ground of the gallant achievements of my country and our former army of heroes (for I regard Marlborough and Wellington as the greatest men England or the world ever produced). But the latter days of Wellington are as conspicuous for ability and energy as the days of his youth. Poor Marlborough dwindled into imbecility, and became a miser. To Wellington his country has ever been enthusiastically grateful, while Marlborough, by ill-treatment, was driven into voluntary banishment. Although I love Wellington with a fervour which cannot be exceeded, I pray my God he may never outlive his mental faculties, but leave this world and the country and cause he has so eminently served while that world and country are still in admiration and wonder. Alava, the Spanish General, so attached and devoted to the Duke (by-the-bye, he was a Captain of a Spanish battleship or frigate, I forget which), told me and Juana two years after the Battle of Waterloo that the night after that eventful day, the Duke got back to his quarters at Waterloo about nine or ten at night. The table was laid for the usual number, while none appeared of the many of his staff but Alava and Fremantle. The Duke said very little, ate hastily and heartily, but every time the door opened he gave a searching look, evidently in the hope of some of his valuable staff approaching. When he had finished eating, he held up both hands in an imploring attitude and said, “The hand of Almighty God has been upon me this day,” jumped up, went to his couch, and was asleep in a moment. At this period he was not aware of the extent of his wonderful victory.
When we approached the capital, we found the French army strongly posted in a position near St. Denis and the previously shamefully abandoned post of Mont Martre. From this position we expected to have to drive them, but a day or two’s suspense relieved us. In a day or two we went to see the entrée of Louis into Paris—a humble spectacle indeed compared to the magnitude of the struggle that brought it about.
Lieut.-General Sir Lowry Cole had now arrived to take the command of the 6th Division, previously under Lambert. The 5th, 6th, and Brunswickers composed the Reserve, about 17,000, Sir James Kempt, the senior General, commanding; whose Quartermaster-General, Sir William Gomm, gave all orders for marching, bivouac, etc. Now it became my province to do so, and I never felt more proud than in having the movement and arrangement of march of 17,000 soldiers.
Our army was in the environs of Paris, the 5th Division at Clichy, the 6th at Neuilly, the Brunswickers near Clichy. The house I and my wife occupied in the town of Neuilly we found was a sort of country residence belonging to a nice old lady in Paris. There was a beautiful and most productive garden, and an establishment of regular gardeners. When I sent for the head man and desired him to take to his mistress the vegetables he was accustomed to send her, and to obey her orders, whatever they were, he was thunderstruck. I said, “If the garden is not kept in real good order, then I will show you what an Englishman is.” The poor old lady, hearing this, came out to thank us, and we often dined with her in Paris. She lived in great style, and was of use to my wife in showing her milliners, etc., for a refit à la mode was necessary.
Our life was now one of continued pleasure and excitement—nothing but parties at night and races by day. At these I was steward. The crowd of foreign officers being very unruly in riding in after the race-horses, I put some proper fellows of soldiers at the distance-post (who, having resisted many a charge of French cavalry, cared little for an unarmed galloping man), with orders to run the rope across to stop this disorder. My orders were obeyed, as I expected, and that gallant hero, Marshal Blucher, not seeing the rope, rode his horse full speed against it and fell, and in the crash the noble old fellow broke his collar-bone, to my annoyance and distress.
While one day walking in my garden at Neuilly, my old friend Tom Fane, who had come to Paris as one of the sight-seers, came full gallop up to me and Juana, “Hurrah, Harry, the Gazette has arrived! You are Lieutenant-Colonel, and here is a case for you; it has some order in it, I think. I found it at the Military Secretary’s office, and, being to your address, brought it. Let me open it.” It was the Order of Companion of the Bath, which pleased poor Tom more than it did me. Thus again had I and Juana cause to be grateful to Almighty God, not only for perfect safety, but for worldly distinction and promotion. It was barely fourteen months since the Battle of Toulouse. I had crossed the Atlantic to and from America four times; fought a gallant action, and captured the metropolis of that world; brought home dispatches, and received £500; was in communication with ministers, and honoured by a long audience of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent; again went out; again was under fire for three weeks, and in the sanguinary disaster at New Orleans; was in the Battle of Waterloo, and had been promoted from Captain to Lieut.-Colonel and Companion of the Bath; without a wound; restored to my wife in health and contentment, and nothing to distress or annoy me beyond the loss and wounds of so many gallant and dear friends. Cold must that heart be which could not feel to its inmost core God Almighty’s providence.
While in our cantonments around Paris we had frequent reviews with Emperors, Kings, etc., as spectators, and nothing could exceed the style and bearing of our army. The conduct, too, was exemplary. The taking down of the horses from Venice, from the Place du Carrousel; the execution of poor Ney, that hero of reality, not romance; the desire of Blucher to destroy the bridge of Jena, which the Duke of Wellington prevented; the escape of La Vallette, etc., kept us all in a state of excitement, while the lions of Paris, then the entrepôt of every article of value in the arts, afforded daily occupation. Not a valuable picture in Europe but was in the Place du Carrousel. It was my delight to stand, often an hour at a time, looking at Paul Potter’s small painting of the bull and the peasant behind the tree, and I have been so fascinated I have expected the bull to charge.
LIEUT.-COLONEL HARRY SMITH.