12. Plan of the Field of Waterloo, towards sun-set, on June 18th _at the end._ [Illustration: OUTLINE MAP OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN. _Drawn for Cotton’s Voice from Waterloo._] A VOICE FROM WATERLOO. [Illustration: (decorative separator)] CHAPTER I. Napoleon leaves Elba; lands in France.—Louis XVIII quits Paris.—Napoleon, joined by the army, arrives in Paris.—Hostile declaration of the great powers of Europe against Napoleon, which he treats with contempt, and prepares for war.—France soon appears one vast camp.—Allied armies assemble in Belgium.—The duke of Wellington arrives and takes the command; adopts precautionary measures.—In consequence of rumours, his Grace issues a secret memorandum, and draws the army together.—Strength, composition and distribution of the allied, Prussian, and French armies.—Continued rumours; and certain intelligence of the enemy’s advance.—Importance of holding Brussels.—Napoleon’s attempt to surprise us frustrated.—Blücher concentrates his forces.—Napoleon joins his army, and issues his order of the day; attacks the Prussian outposts, and takes Charleroi.—Intelligence reaches the Duke.—Distribution of the enemy.—The Duke orders the army to prepare, and afterwards to march on Quatre-Bras.—The duchess of Richmond’s ball.—The troops in motion at early dawn.—His Grace proceeds by Waterloo to Quatre-Bras, and from thence to Ligny, where he meets Blücher, whom he promises to support, and returns to Quatre-Bras.—Picton’s division and the Brunswickers arrive at Quatre-Bras, and are attacked by the French left column under Ney; more of our troops arrive.—Outline of the battles of Quatre-Bras and Ligny.—Observations. On the 26th of February 1815, Napoleon, accompanied by about a thousand of his guards, and all his civil and military officers, secretly left the isle of Elba, and landed the 1st of March, near Cannes, on the coast of Provence. The Emperor immediately marched towards the French capital; and arrived in Paris on the evening of the 20th; the same day that Louis XVIII set out for Ghent. Joined by all the troops which had been sent to oppose him, Napoleon was enabled to re-establish his authority in France. Amongst those who rejoined him, was marshal Ney, “_le Brave des Braves_;” he who had so warmly expressed himself in favour of the restoration of the Bourbons, and who, when appointed to the command of a body of troops to oppose his former master, declared, whilst kissing the king’s hand, that “he would bring back Napoleon _in an iron cage_.” Ney and the iron cage was the chief topic of conversation in Paris, when the news of his having joined Napoleon with his _corps d’armée_ reached that capital[1].