Napoleon after the event attempted to make Grouchy entirely responsible for the loss of the battle of Waterloo, and Napoleon's partisans have followed his example. A few writers have exempted Grouchy from all blame: the majority of reasonably impartial critics blame him more or less severely, though without holding Napoleon faultless. In any case the absence of Grouchy at Waterloo, without his thereby preventing Blucher from participating, was a decisive fact, however it was brought about. Hence it is necessary to understand clearly what his intentions were, and what was the discretionary power left to him. In personal conversation Napoleon told Grouchy that he was himself going to fight the English "if they will stand on this side of the forest of Soignies," and ordered him to pursue the Prussians and complete their defeat by attacking them as soon as he came up with them: and it is clear that he then still supposed the Prussians to have retreated on Namur, and therefore that the pursuit of them was not a matter of primary importance. Afterwards he heard news which implied the probability that part at least of the Prussian army might have gone further north: and he sent Grouchy written orders to take his forces to Gembloux (N.E. from Ligny), explore in the direction of Namur and of Maestricht (still further to N.E.), and find out what the Prussians were doing, whether they were or were not intending to unite with the English, to cover Brussels or Liège,[77] and try another battle. These orders still treat as most probable the separation of the Prussians from Wellington, but they contemplate the other possibility—they do not however tell Grouchy what to do in that event. Unfortunately for Napoleon, Grouchy was without experience in independent command, of rather limited range of ideas, and sharing the abject dread of disobeying Napoleon which cramped the energy and clouded the judgment, at times if not always, of most of his generals. He was capable enough, as he showed when left altogether to himself after the rout of Waterloo; but so long as he was under Napoleon's orders, he dared not think for himself. Grouchy accordingly marched to Gembloux: and having ascertained beyond further doubt that the Prussians had not gone to Namur, but that part of them had gone north to Wavre, and the main body as he believed north-eastward towards Maestricht, he reported this late at night to Napoleon, adding his intention to follow the enemy, if it turned out after all that they were moving on Wavre, "in order to prevent their gaining Brussels and to separate them from Wellington." As a matter of fact, the whole Prussian army had gained Wavre, in accordance with the agreement between Blucher and Wellington, in order to be able to support Wellington on the next day. That there existed between the two allied generals a substantial and hearty accord is certain enough, though Gneisenau, who was Blucher's chief of staff,