For the
antiquary, Hougomont is Hugomons. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire
of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of
Villiers.

The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an ancient calash under the
porch, and entered the courtyard.

The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the
sixteenth century, which here simulates an arcade, everything else
having fallen prostrate around it. A monumental aspect often has its
birth in ruin. In a wall near the arcade opens another arched door, of
the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard;
beside this door, a manure-hole, some pickaxes, some shovels, some
carts, an old well, with its flagstone and its iron reel, a chicken
jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a small
bell-tower, a blossoming pear-tree trained in espalier against the
wall of the chapel--behold the court, the conquest of which was one of
Napoleon's dreams. This corner of earth, could he but have seized
it, would, perhaps, have given him the world likewise. Chickens are
scattering its dust abroad with their beaks. A growl is audible; it is a
huge dog, who shows his teeth and replaces the English.

The English behaved admirably there. Cooke's four companies of guards
there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army.

Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising buildings
and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of
which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern
door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun's length away.
Hougomont has two doors,--the southern door, that of the chateau; and
the northern door, belonging to the farm. Napoleon sent his brother
Jerome against Hougomont; the divisions of Foy, Guilleminot, and Bachelu
hurled themselves against it; nearly the entire corps of Reille was
employed against it, and miscarried; Kellermann's balls were exhausted
on this heroic section of wall. Bauduin's brigade was not strong enough
to force Hougomont on the north, and the brigade of Soye could not do
more than effect the beginning of a breach on the south, but without
taking it.

The farm buildings border the courtyard on the south. A bit of the north
door, broken by the French, hangs suspended to the wall. It consists of
four planks nailed to two cross-beams, on which the scars of the attack
are visible.

The northern door,