Had Napoleon’s pristine favor been accorded him--the magic favor of fate that had made possible Areola, Rivoli, Jena, Ulmn, Wagram, Austerlitz--he would have defeated Wellington at Waterloo, advanced upon the advancing Prussians and completely routed them; and then he would have hastened to crush separately and before a junction could be effected the various contingencies of the Coalition even then converging upon him by way of the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. But fate forsook her favorite at Waterloo. Olympian Zeus, jealous of Promethean man, has decreed that if once, then certainly not _twice_, shall a mortal transcend the lot of mortals. It rained all night long that memorable seventeenth of June, the night before the battle. Of those forces that thus drearily bivouacked upon the opposing hills, some fifty thousand men thus passed their last night upon earth. Nature wept for them. The skies dissolved in tears at the mad folly of mortals. Rain, inconsolable rain, fell from the early afternoon of the seventeenth, thro’ all the night, and sobbingly drizzled late on the morning of the eighteenth as the armies went out to battle. That dreary last night of life for fifty thousand men--what did it mean to them! Did any flint-glitterings, struck out of sullen gloom, zigzag thro’ the darkness of their minds? Why should they fight? Why should they kill and be killed on the morrow? Wellington, Napoleon--what were they to the common soldier; he would be free, he would go to his home, he would live his life as God gave it to him to live. Desert on the eve of battle! Ah, no! Yet, why not? “So free we seem, so fettered fast we are.” Honor bound tonight and death bound tomorrow night! Who of those sleeping in yonder tents, under the rain, shall fall tomorrow? Whom shall he kill? Who may kill--him? “Some one has blundered.” * * * * * “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.” Again, why? Half a million men must die because Napoleon blundered--Why! And the tears of the rain made answer.