Napoleon mounted his horse at eleven, and rode along the Brussels highroad to the farmhouse of La Belle Alliance; then he returned to the height of Rossomme. Between the crest upon which he sat his white Arabian mare, “Désirée,” and that upon which Wellington awaited his attack, stretched the slopes of the ridges and the grain-covered valley between, about a mile in width. The Emperor was as calm and as confident as he had ever been in his life. Sitting his horse on the heights where all his army could see him, see the old gray overcoat and little cocked hat, see the square, pale face and the squat, sturdy figure, he swept every part of the field and of the horizon with his glass, and then gave the word. It was near noon on this fateful Sabbath day when the signal guns were heard; and the Prussians of Bülow’s corps were already approaching St. Lambert. The battle commenced with an attack on the château of Hougomont, a stone building on the British right, protected by walls and moat and hedge. The French corps of Reillé, in the three divisions of Foy, Bachelu, and Jerome Bonaparte, threw itself furiously against this fortress; and desperate fighting, attack, and defence made the place literally run with blood—but the English, though driven from the woods, held the château.
The attack on Hougomont was a feint which the rash Jerome carried too far. The real attack was to be on the English centre, and to prepare for this the Emperor formed a battery of eighty guns. It was about one o’clock when Ney, who was to lead the charge, sent word that all was ready.
Before giving the signal, Napoleon swept the horizon with his glass, long and carefully. Away to the northeast he saw something which fixed his attention: it might be a clump of trees; it might be a column of soldiers. Staff officers followed the Emperor’s gaze, levelled their glasses, gave various opinions. “Trees,” said some; “Troops,” said others. If troops, what troops—Blücher’s or Grouchy’s? Such an awful doubt demanded instant action. Napoleon called for General Domon and ordered him to take a division of light cavalry and ride to St. Lambert; if the troops were Prussians, he must stop them.
Dumas describes the movement of the light cavalry: “Three thousand horsemen moved to the right, four abreast, unrolled themselves like an immense ribbon, winding a moment in the lines of the army, then breaking loose through our extreme right, rode rapidly and re-formed like a parade nearly three thousand toises from its extremity.”
Soon the Emperor’s fearful doubt became a terrible certainty. Not trees, but troops, stood over there in the distance; and the troops were Prussians!
Where was Grouchy?
A Prussian prisoner taken in the territory where no Prussians should have been, was brought to the Emperor, and at his replies to the questions asked him, the imperial staff was panic-stricken; and Napoleon himself filled with a storm of impotent rage. No French troops had been seen where Grouchy should have been, and the Prussian host was crowding toward the field of battle!
From this time onward the doomed Emperor was fighting two battles: Wellington at Mont St. Jean, and the Prussians at Plancenoit. About seven thousand of the best troops were sent to hold the Prussians off, while the attack on Wellington was being renewed. This was toward three o’clock in the afternoon.
With two battles on his hands, Napoleon in his despair sent another messenger to Grouchy. Bitterly remarking upon the conduct of his lieutenant, who had been “amusing himself at Gembloux,” the Emperor exclaimed that if Grouchy but repaired his “horrible fault,” and marched promptly, all would yet be well; for, be it remembered, Grouchy was only ten or twelve miles to the right.
Suffering from local ailment which made the saddle painful to him, the Emperor dismounted and seated himself at a small table upon which his maps were spread. Sometimes he got up and paced back and forth with his hands crossed behind him. Sometimes he folded his arms on the table and there rested his head,—in pain or slumber. The management of the actual fighting which was going on all this while, was left almost entirely to Ney and D’Erlon, but especially to Ney, whose rashness at Waterloo was as ruinous to the French as his caution had been at Quatre-Bras.