when he first heard of Napoleon's approach, to remain some miles off to
the west at Nivelles. Wellington laboured, right up to the battle of
Waterloo, under the fantastic impression that the French, or a
considerable body of them, were, for some extraordinary reason, going to
leave the Brussels road, go round westward and attack his _right_. He was,
as might be expected of a defensive genius, nervous for his
communications. Luckily for Wellington, Perponcher simply disobeyed these
orders, left Nivelles before dawn, was at Quatre Bras before sunrise, and
proceeded to act as we shall see above.

[9] Or at the most sixteen.

[10] This first division of the Guards consisted of the two brigades of
Maitland and of Byng.

[11] Let it be remembered, for instance, that Ziethen's corps, which
helped to turn the scale at Waterloo, two days later, only arrived, on the
field of battle _less than half an hour before sunset_.

[12] I have in this map numbered separate corps and units from one to ten,
without giving them names. The units include the English cavalry and
Dornberg's brigade, with the Cumberland Hussars, the First, Second, Third,
and Fifth Infantry Divisions, the corps of Brunswick, the Nassauers, and
the Second and Third Netherlands Divisions. All of these ultimately
reached Quatre Bras with the exception of the Second Infantry Division.

[13] In which 15,000, as accurate statistics are totally lacking, and the
whole thing is a matter of rough estimate, we may assign what proportion
we will to killed, to wounded, and to prisoners respectively.

[14] The reason he was thus ignorant of what had really happened to the
Prussians was, that the officer who had been sent by the chief of the
Prussian staff to the Duke after nightfall to inform him of the Prussian
defeat had never arrived. That officer had been severely wounded on the
way, and the message was not delivered.

[15] There has arisen a discussion as to the whole nature of this retreat
between the French authorities, who insist upon the close pursuit by their
troops and the precipitate flight of the English rearguard, and the
English authorities, who point out how slight were the losses of that
rearguard, and how just was Wellington's comment that the retreat, as a
whole, was unmolested.

This dispute is solved, as are many disputes, by the consideration that
each narrator is right from his point of view. The French pursuit was most
vigorous, the English reargu