The scene of the great battle is wonderfully little changed since then. The level of the ground at the centre of the ridge occupied by the Allies has been lowered by the removal of earth to make the Mound of the Belgian Lion; the tree under which the Duke of Wellington and his staff stood at intervals during the day is gone long since; a tramway runs past the farm of La Haye Sainte towards Quatre Bras and Charleroi; and a number of houses have been built on the road between Waterloo and Mont St. Jean. But the general aspect of the fields on which the fight took place remains the same. Down to the right, looking from Mont St. Jean, the château of Hougoumont, half destroyed by shot and fire, still remains as it was left after the battle, with its orchard walls and tall, dark trees. The farmhouse of La Haye Sainte, that scene of carnage, is still where it was, at the side of the road which leads down the incline, and then up from the narrow valley to La Belle Alliance, near which is now the monument of the Wounded Eagle, a memorial to the last combatants of the army which fought and lost with such matchless valour. Every yard of the ground is sacred. There is, in all the world, no spot where a Briton and a Frenchman can meet with more profound emotions of mutual respect than on the slopes near Mont St. Jean. [Illustration: WATERLOO THE farm of La Belle Alliance and the mound surmounted by the Belgian lion.] FOOTNOTES. [Footnote 41: The street which leads from the Place de la Monnaie towards the Bourse.] [Footnote 42: This fine house is now No. 63, Rue des Champs, the residence of the Comte de Bouisies, who married the daughter of Madame Borluut, a direct descendant of the Comte d'Hane of 1815.] [Footnote 43: _Reminiscences of Lady de Ros_ (Lady Georgina Lennox).] CHAPTER XVII THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT--THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 One day, soon after the Battle of Waterloo, the Tsar Alexander was at La Belle Alliance with William, King of the Netherlands, and his son the Prince of Orange. He asked for a glass of wine, and drank to '_la belle alliance_, not only of nations, but of families.' The marriage of the Grand Duchess Anna Paulowna to the Prince of Orange had just been settled; and all the Courts of Europe believed that the troublesome question of the Low Countries was at last finally solved by the union of Holland and Belgium under the dynasty of Nassau, now to be allied by marriage with one of the Great Powers which had placed it on the throne of the new Kingdom.