Here, then, were two battles raging on the same day only a few miles apart. Ney was making a desperate onset at Quatre-Bras, which he could easily have taken on the 15th, or early on the 16th, but which was now held by ever increasing numbers of the enemy. And Napoleon was straining every nerve to defeat the Prussians, who had profited enormously by his delays.
It was at this crisis of his fortunes that he was tantalized by one of the most remarkable of military mishaps. A corps of twenty thousand men under D’Erlon, intended to act with Ney, was on its march to Quatre-Bras, when a staff-officer, Colonel de Forbin-Janson, delivered a pencilled order from Napoleon to D’Erlon, which was totally misconstrued, and which led D’Erlon to march to the French left, when he should have struck the Prussians cross-wise, while the Emperor pressed them in front. D’Erlon set out, came in sight of Ligny, and created consternation among the French, who thought it a Prussian reënforcement. Napoleon, not expecting troops on his left, was forced to suspend his movements until he could ascertain the facts, thus losing precious time. Strange to say, this French corps, now that it was on the field, was not used at Ligny, but was countermanded by Ney, whom Forbin-Janson should have informed of the Emperor’s order, and was marched back to Quatre-Bras, where it arrived too late to help Ney. Had it gone into action at either place, its aid must have been decisive. As it was, these twenty thousand troops were as completely lost to the French “as though the earth had swallowed them up.”
Night found the Prussians beaten; and a vigorous pursuit, such as Murat, or La Salle, or Bessières could have made, might have disorganized them for the campaign. But there was no pursuit. They rallied at their leisure, and the French did not even know next day what route their retreat had taken.
After the battle Napoleon was again exhausted, and nothing was done to improve the victory. The Emperor slept, and the army waited. Next morning at seven his generals stood around, idle, grumbling, discouraged. Vandamme was saying: “Gentlemen, the Napoleon of the Italian campaign no longer lives. Our victory of yesterday will lead to nothing. You will see.”
Mr. Houssaye contends that the Emperor was not in poor condition, physically or mentally; and he enumerates facts to prove what he says. It all depends upon what his standard of comparison is. Does he compare the French general with the English chief,—the one launching a host of men so swiftly and surely that they were upon the enemy before it was known that they had moved; and the other idling in a ballroom, issuing late and confused orders, naming the wrong place for concentration, and saved only by the initiative of Prince Bernard, the disobedience of his own officers, and the bad luck which dogged the movements of the French? If you compare Napoleon to Wellington, one must say that the former was not in poor condition. But if we compare the Bonaparte of 1815 with Blücher, the admission must be made that in sustained energy and unwavering tenacity of purpose, the German far exceeded his great antagonist. And if we contrast the Bonaparte of 1815 with the Bonaparte of 1796, we at once exclaim with Vandamme,—“The Napoleon we knew in Italy no longer lives.”
Mr. Houssaye himself states that late in the morning of June 17 the Emperor did not know what had taken place at Quatre-Bras the day before; did not know the true situation there; did not know that by swiftly moving to the aid of Ney he would envelop Wellington with overwhelming numbers and crush him! Even the Napoleon of 1814 would have missed no such chance as that. When the facts at length became known to him he realized what he had lost, dashed on with the vanguard to Quatre-Bras, and led the headlong pursuit of the English rear-guard—but it was too late. Wellington was well on his way to Mont St. Jean, and Lord Uxbridge was desperately hurrying the last of the British cavalry out of the danger, with his “Gallop! for God’s sake gallop, or you will be captured!”
Furthermore, Mr. Houssaye relates an incident which corroborates Carnot, Pasquier, and others who say that the Emperor was no longer able to endure prolonged labor:—
“It was now (June 14) a little past noon. The Emperor, amid the cheers of the inhabitants, passed through Charleroi, and halted at the foot of the crumbling glacis, near the little public-house called La Belle-Vue. He got off his horse, sent for a chair, and sat down by the side of the road. The troops defiled past him, cheering him lustily as they marched, their shouts deadening the roll of the drums and the shrill calls of the bugles. The enthusiasm of the troops bordered on frenzy; they broke ranks to embrace the horse of their Emperor.”
And what of Napoleon amid this splendid ovation—an ovation spontaneous and thrilling like that of the eve of Austerlitz?
He sat there dozing, the cheers of the troops, which deadened churns and bugles, being powerless to rouse him! It was only noon, he had only been in the saddle half a day—was this the man of Eckmühl, of Friedland, of Wagram? Was this the chief who used to ride and ride till horse after horse fell in its tracks?