CHAPTER XI--A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BULOW

  The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for,Blücher arriving. Death instead of life.

  Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was SaintHelena that was seen.

  If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bülow, Blücher'slieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest aboveFrischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenthcentury might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won thebattle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit,the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable forartillery, and Bülow would not have arrived.

  Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's delay, andBlücher would not have found Wellington on his feet. "The battle waslost."

  It was time that Bülow should arrive, as will be seen. He had, moreover,been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont, and had setout at daybreak; but the roads were impassable, and his divisions stuckfast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover,he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre;the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, sothe caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between two rows ofburning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the conflagration wasextinguished. It was mid-day before Bülow's vanguard had been able toreach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert.

  Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been overat four o'clock, and Blücher would have fallen on the battle won byNapoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite whichwe cannot comprehend.

  The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to descry with hisfield-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted hisattention. He had said, "I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to betroops." Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, "Soult, what do you see inthe direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?" The marshal, levelling hisglass, answered, "Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy."But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staffhad studied "the cloud" pointed out by the Emperor. Some said: "It istrees." The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detachedDomon's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter.

  Bülow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and couldaccomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the armycorps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces beforeentering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril,Blücher ordered Bülow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words: "Wemust give air to the English army."

  A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Rysseldeployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussiadebouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and thePrussian cannon-balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard inreserve behind Napoleon.