for a paper on weather in war; but the truth is, that that
campaign was conducted politically by the Allies. There was never a
time, after the first of February, when, if they had conducted the war
solely on military principles, they could not have been in Paris in a
fortnight.

Napoleon's last campaign owed its lamentable decision to the peculiar
character of the weather on its last two days, though one would not look
for such a thing as severe weather in June, in Flanders. But so it was,
and Waterloo would have been a French victory, and Wellington where
_Henry_ was when he ran against _Eclipse_,--nowhere,--if the rain that
fell so heavily on the 17th of June had been postponed only twenty-four
hours. Up to the afternoon of the 17th, the weather, though very warm,
was dry, and the French were engaged in following their enemies. The
Anglo-Dutch infantry had retreated from Quatre-Bras, and the cavalry was
following, and was itself followed by the French cavalry, who pressed it
with great audacity. "The weather," says Captain Siborne, "during the
morning, had become oppressively hot; it was now a dead calm; not a leaf
was stirring; and the atmosphere was close to an intolerable degree;
while a dark, heavy, dense cloud impended over the combatants. The 18th
[English] Hussars were fully prepared, and awaited but the command to
charge, when the brigade guns on the right commenced firing, for the
purpose of previously disturbing and breaking the order of the enemy's
advance. The concussion seemed instantly to rebound through the still
atmosphere, and communicate, as an electric spark, with the heavily
charged mass above. A most awfully loud thunder-clap burst forth,
immediately succeeded by a rain which has never, probably, been exceeded
in violence even within the tropics. In a very few minutes the ground
became perfectly saturated,--so much so, that it was quite impracticable
for any rapid movement of the cavalry." This storm prevented the French
from pressing with due force upon their retiring foes; but that would
have been but a small evil, if the storm had not settled into a steady
and heavy rain, which converted the fat Flemish soil into a mud that
would have done discredit even to the "sacred soil" of Virginia, and the
latter has the discredit of being the nastiest earth in America. All
through the night the windows of heaven were open, as if weeping over
the spectacle of two hundred thousand men preparing to butcher