appearing, as it did reappear, at the critical moment,
two days later, upon the field of Waterloo.

THE ADVANCE

The rapidity of Napoleon's stroke was marred at its very outset by certain
misfortunes as well as certain miscalculations. His left, which was
composed of the First and Second Corps d'Armee, did indeed reach the river
Sambre in the morning, and had carried the bridge of Marchiennes by noon,
but the First Corps, under Erlon, were not across--that is, the whole left
had not negotiated the river--until nearly five o'clock in the afternoon.

Next, the general in command of the leading division of the right-hand
body--the Fourth Corps--gave the first example of that of which the whole
Napoleonic organisation was then in such terror, I mean the mistrust in
the fortunes of the Emperor, and the tendency to revert to the old social
conditions, which for a moment the Bourbons had brought back, and which so
soon they might bring back again--he deserted. The order was thereupon
given for the Fourth Corps or right wing to cross at Chatelet, but it came
late (as late as half-past three in the afternoon), and did but cause
delay. At this eastern end of Napoleon's front the last men were not over
the river until the next day.

As to the centre (the main body of the army), its cavalry reached
Charleroi before ten o'clock in the morning, but an unfortunate and
exasperating accident befallen a messenger left the infantry immediately
behind without instructions. The cavalry were impotent to force the bridge
crossing the river Sambre, which runs through the town, until the main
body should appear, and it was not until past noon that the main body
began crossing the Sambre by the Charleroi bridge. The Emperor had
probably intended to fight immediately after having crossed the river.
Gosselies, to the north, was strongly held; and had all his men been over
the Sambre in the early afternoon as he had intended, an action fought
suddenly, by surprise as it were, against the advance bodies of the First
Prussian Corps, would have given the first example of that destruction of
the enemy in detail which Napoleon intended. But the delays in the
advance, rapid as it had been, now forbade any such good fortune. The end
of the daylight was spent in pushing back the head of the First Prussian
Corps (with a loss of somewhat over 1000 men), and when night fell upon
that Thursday evening, the 15th of June, the French held Charleroi and all
t