the spot under
circumstances of peculiar interest:

"Perhaps I may be pardoned for relating that I had
the honour to receive a Waterloo medal on the field
of Azincour, or rather, that I had the fortune to
belong to one of the British regiments that
signalized themselves in the campaign of 1815, and
which afterwards was invested with the
above-mentioned mark of their sovereign's
approbation on the very spot which, nearly four
hundred years before, was the scene of the scarcely
less glorious triumph of Harry the Fifth of
England. In 1816 a portion of the British army was
cantoned in the immediate neighbourhood of this
celebrated field, and the corps in which I then
served made use of it during several months as
their ordinary drill-ground.... We amused ourselves
with reconnoitring excursions, comparing the actual
state of the localities with authentic accounts of
the transactions of 1415. The changes that have
taken place have been singularly few, and an
attentive explorer would be able to trace with
considerable accuracy the greater part of the route
pursued by the English army in their retreat out of
Normandy towards Calais. The field of Azincour
remains sufficiently in statu quo to render every
account of the battle perfectly intelligible; nor
are those wanting near the spot, whose traditionary
information enables them to heighten the interest
with oral description, accompanied by a sort of
ocular demonstration.

"Those who travel to Paris by way of St. Omer and
Abbeville, pass over the field of the battle, which
skirts the high road to the left, about sixteen
miles beyond St. Omer; two on the Paris side of a
considerable village or bourg named Fruges; about
eight north of the fortified town of Hesdin; and
thirty from Abbeville