fathom even at the crisis of the battle. Full of
overweening contempt of Wellington, he began the fight heedlessly and
wastefully. When the Prussians came on, he underrated their strength
and believed to the very end that Grouchy would come up and take them
between two fires. But, in the absence of prompt, clear, and detailed
instructions, that Marshal was left a prey to his fatal notion that
Wavre was the one point to be aimed at and attacked. Despite the heavy
cannonade on the west he persisted in this strange course; while
Napoleon staked everything on a supreme effort against Wellington.
This last was an act of appalling hardihood; but he explained to
Cockburn on the voyage to St. Helena that, still confiding in
Grouchy's approach, he felt no uneasiness at the Prussian movements,
"which were, in fact, already checked, and that he considered the
battle to have been, on the whole, rather in his favour than
otherwise." The explanation has every appearance of sincerity. But
would any other great commander have staked his last reserve and laid
bare his rear solely in reliance on the ability of an almost untried
leader who had sent not a single word that justified the hopes now
placed in him?

We here touch the weak points in Napoleon's intellectual armour.
Gifted with almost superhuman insight and energy himself, he too often
credited his paladins with possessing the same divine afflatus.
Furthermore, he had a supreme contempt for his enemies. Victorious in
a hundred fights over second-rate opponents in his youth, he could not
now school his hardened faculties to the caution needed in a contest
with Wellington, Gneisenau, and Bluecher. Only after he had ruined
himself and France did he realize his own errors and the worth of the
allied leaders. During the voyage to England he confessed to Bertrand:
"The Duke of Wellington is fully equal to myself in the management of
an army, _with the advantage of possessing more prudence_."[526]

NOTE ADDED TO THE FOURTH EDITION.--I have discussed several of the
vexed questions of the Waterloo Campaign in an Essay, "The
Prussian Co-operation at Waterloo," in my volume entitled
"Napoleonic Studies" (George Bell and Sons, 1904). In that Essay I
have pointed out the inaccuracy or exaggeration of the claims put
forward by some German writers to the effect that (1) Wellington
played Bluecher false at Ligny, (2) that he did not expect Prussian
help unti