I hope this battle will, at any rate, lead to a speedy peace.
June 28.
We have no other news from the Allied Army, except that they are moving forward with all possible celerity in the direction of Paris. You may form a guess of the slaughter and of the misery that the wounded must have suffered, and the many that must have perished from hunger and thirst, when I tell you that all the carriages in Bruxelles, even elegant private equipages, landaulets, barouches and berlines, have been put in requisition to remove the wounded men from the field of battle to the hospitals, and that they are yet far from being all brought in. The medical practitioners of the city have been put in requisition, and are ordered to make domiciliary visits at every house (for each habitation has three or four soldiers in it) in order to dress the wounds of the patients. The Bruxellois, the women in particular, have testified the utmost humanity towards the poor sufferers. It was suggested by some humane person that they who went to see the field of battle from motives of curiosity would do well to take with them bread, wine and other refreshments to distribute among the wounded, and most people did so. For my part I shall not go a second time. Napoleon, it is said, narrowly escaped being taken. His carriage fell into the hands of the Allies, and was escorted in triumph into Bruxelles by a detachment of dragoons. So confident was Napoleon of success that printed proclamations were found in the carriage dated from "Our Imperial Palace at Laecken," announcing his victory and the liberation of Belgium from the insatiable coalition, and wherein he calls on the Belgians to re-unite with their old companions in arms in order to reap the fruits of their victory. This was certainly rather premature, and reminds me of an anecdote of a Spanish officer at the siege of Gibraltar, related by Drinkwater in his narrative of that siege.[17] When the British garrison made a sortie, they carried the advanced Spanish lines and destroyed all their preparations; the Spanish officer on guard at the outermost post was killed, but on the table of his guard room was found his guard report filled up and signed, stating that "nothing extraordinary had happened since guard-mounting."
Mr L. of Northumberland, having proposed to me to make a tour with him to Aix-la-Chapelle and the banks of the Rhine, I shall start with him in a day or two.
[1] Sir Wiltshire Wilson (1762-1842), Commander of the Royal Artillery in Ceylon, 1810-1815.—Ed.
[2] Pulci, Morgante, canto XVIII, ottava 114-115. The Giant Morgante meets the villain Margutte and asks him if he be a Christian or a Saracen. Margutte answers that he cares not, but only believes in boiled or in roasted capon:
Rispose allor Margutte: A dirtel tosto
Io non credo pio al nero ch'all' azzurro.
Ma nel cappone, o lesso, o vuogll arrosto….
[3] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, iv, 63, f.—ED.
[4] A work of H, Verbruggen of Antwerp (1677).—ED.
[5] Lord Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, caused this fountain to be erected in 1751, as a token of gratitude to the town of Bruxelles where he had lived in exile.—E.D.