n to leave behind him the night which bears his form.

CHAPTER V--THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES

Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a beginning
which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both armies, but
still more so for the English than for the French.

It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the
water had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as if
in casks; at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buried
up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid
mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports
on the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath the
wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction of
Papelotte would have been impossible.

The affair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in
the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol,
aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it had
been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop
freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come
out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It was
no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired,
the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it
was thirty-five minutes past eleven.

The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than the
Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting on
Hougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling
Quiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right
wing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested on
Papelotte.

The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to draw
Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left. This plan would
have succeeded if the four companies of the English guards and the brave
Belgians of Perponcher's division had not held the position solidly, and
Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himself
to despatching thither, as reinforcements, only four more companies of
guards and one battalion from Brunswick.

The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was calculated,
in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to Brussels,
to bar the passage against possible Prussians,