proaching movement of the Guard. He was a hater of the flag and of
the Revolution, and of its soldier: he was for the old Kings.

There was no need for this dramatic aid. The lull in the action,
Napoleon's necessity for a last stroke, possibly through the mist and
smoke the actual movement of the Guard, were apparent. The infantry whom
Wellington had retired behind the ridge during the worst of the artillery
preparation was now set forward again. It was the strongest and the most
trusted of his troops whom Wellington posted to receive the shock--Adams'
brigade and the brigade of Guards. Three batteries of the reserve were
brought forward, with orders not to reply to the French cannon, but to
fire at the advancing columns of the charge.

As the Guard went upward, the whole French front to the right moved
forward and supported the attack. But upon the left, the Second Army
Corps, Reille's recently broken 6000, could not yet move. They came far
behind and to the west of the Brussels road; the Guard went up the slope
alone.

At two hundred yards from the English line the grape began to mow through
them. They closed up after each discharge. Their advance continued
unchecked.

Of the four columns,[26] that nearest to the Brussels road reached,
touched, and broke the line of the defenders. Its strength was one
battalion, yet it took the two English batteries, and, in charging
Halkett's brigade, threw the 30th and the 73rd into confusion. It might
have been imagined for one moment that the line had here been pierced, but
this first and greatest chance of success was defeated, and with it all
chances, for it is the head of a charge that tells.

The reader will have seen upon the map, far off to the west or left, at
Braine l'Alleud, a body of reserve, Belgian, which Wellington had put so
far off in the mistaken notion that the French would try to turn him in
that direction. This force of 3000 men with sixteen guns Wellington had
recalled in the last phases of the battle. It was their action, and
especially that of their artillery, that broke this first success of the
Guard. The Netherlanders charged with the bayonet to drive home the effect
of their cannon, and the westernmost column of the French attack was
ruined.

As the four columns were not all abreast, but the head of the first a
little more forward than that of the second, the head of the second than
that of the third, and so forth, the shock of the French guard upon