[142] "My intentions were, to attack and to destroy the English. This, I knew, would produce an immediate change of ministry. The indignation against them would have excited such a popular commotion, that they would have been turned out; and peace would have been the result."--NAPOLEON, _Voice_, &c., vol. i., p. 176. [143] "All his arrangements having been effected early in the evening of the 17th, the Duke of Wellington rode across the country to Blucher, to inform him personally that he had thus far effected the plan agreed on at Bry, and express his hope to be supported on the morrow by two Prussian divisions. The veteran replied, that he would leave a single corps to hold Grouchy at bay as well as they could, and march himself with the rest of his army upon Waterloo; and Wellington immediately returned to his post. The fact of the duke and Blucher having met between the battles of Ligny and Waterloo, is well known to many of the superior officers then in the Netherlands; but the writer of this compendium has never happened to see it mentioned in print. The horse that carried the Duke of Wellington through this long night's journey, so important to the decisive battle of the 18th, remained till lately--if does not still remain--a free pensioner in the best paddock of Strathfield-saye."--_Hist. of Nap. Buonaparte_, Family Library, vol. ii., p. 313. [144] Baron Muffling, speaking of this peculiarity, says--"The English artillery have a rule not to remove their guns, when attacked by cavalry in a defensive position. The field pieces are worked till the last moment, and the men then throw themselves into the nearest square, bearing off the implements they use for serving the guns. If the attack is repulsed, the artillerymen hurry back to their pieces, to fire on the retreating enemy. This is an extremely laudable practice, if the infantry be properly arranged to correspond with it."--S. [145] "By a movement of impatience, which has often been so fatal to us, the cavalry of reserve having perceived a retrograde movement made by the English to shelter themselves from our batteries, crowned the heights of Mount St. Jean, and charged the infantry. This movement, which, made in time, and supported by the reserves, must have decided the day, made in an isolated manner, and before affairs on the right were terminated, became fatal."--_Bulletin, Moniteur_, June 21. [146] "I had my horse killed and fell under it. The brave men who will return from this terrible battle, will, I hope, do me the justice to say, that they saw me on foot with sword in hand during the whole of the evening; and that I only quitted the scene of carnage among the last, and at the moment when retreat could no longer be prevented."--_Ney's Letter to the Duke of Otranto._