ined entirely within, and desired my maid
not to tell me what she might hear in the hotel respecting the army.
On the 18th, however, I could not avoid the conviction that the battle
was going on; the anxious faces in the street, the frequent messengers
I saw passing by, were sufficient proof that important intelligence
was expected, and as I sat at the open window I heard the firing of
artillery, like the distant roaring of the sea, as I had so often
heard it at Dunglass. How the contrast of my former tranquil life
there was pressed upon me at that moment!"--_Abridged Narrative._

Southey, the poet, says that the firing of the 16th was heard at
Antwerp, but not that of the 18th. It is an extraordinary but
indisputable fact that the firing at Waterloo was heard in England.
The _Kentish Gazette_ of Tuesday, 20th June 1815 (published therefore
before any one in England, not even Nathan Rothschild himself, was
aware that there had been a battle fought at Waterloo), contained the
following piece of news from Ramsgate: "A heavy and incessant firing
was heard from this coast on Sunday evening in the direction of
Dunkirk." Dunkirk lies in nearly a straight line between Waterloo and
the coast of Kent. What makes the matter still more extraordinary is
the fact that Colville's Division, which, on the 18th, was posted in
front of Hal, about ten miles to the west of the battlefield, never
heard a sound of the firing, and did not know till midnight that any
battle had taken place.

(15) Wellington's headquarters on the night of the 16th June were at
Genappe, two or three miles to the rear of the battlefield of Quatre
Bras. He slept at the Roi d'Espagne. Bluecher occupied the same inn on
the night of the 18th.

(16) The battle began about 11.35, though Wellington in his despatch
states that it began about 10. Napoleon's bulletin fixes noon as the
time. Marshal Ney said that it began at 1 o'clock. It is clear they
did not all look at their watches.

(17) De Lancey is supposed to have been struck about the time when the
French batteries opened a fierce cannonade on the English centre,
preparatory to the first of their tremendous cavalry attacks. This
would make the hour nearer 4 o'clock than 3.

He fell not far from the Wellington Tree, and close to the famous
_chemin creux_ of Victor Hugo, in the immediate rear of which
Ompteda's brigade of the King's German Legion was posted. The
appearance of the spot is now entirely altered. T