It is time that we returned to the headquarters of the French army. Marshal Ney, as we have seen in the last chapter, reported in person to the Emperor at Charleroi at midnight of the 15th. “He rendered account” to him, says Colonel Heymès,[290] “of the dispositions he had made.” Napoleon was thus informed that Ney had halted at Frasnes and had not occupied Quatre Bras, the evening before. Ney must have stopped at Charleroi about an hour and a half, as he reached Gosselies on his return about two in the morning. He must have told the Emperor where some, at any rate, of his troops were,—that Bachelu’s infantry division and Piré’s cavalry division of the 2d Corps were at Frasnes; that the divisions of Jerome and Foy were at Gosselies; that Durutte’s division of the 1st Corps was between Jumet and Gosselies. So much as this Ney knew. But his arrival at the army had been so recent, and his occupations since his arrival had been so engrossing, that he could not probably have had much more information to give the Emperor as to the whereabouts of the 1st Corps. His almost total deficiency of staff officers was a grievous drawback, and prevented him from getting that hold on his entire command which otherwise he no doubt would have secured even by this time. Very possibly he had already sent word to d’Erlon to hurry up to the front. But he must have reported to the Emperor that a large part of the 1st Corps, perhaps half of it, was still far to the rear. Napoleon does not mention this interview in his Memoirs, or in the Gourgaud Narrative, nor does he anywhere say that he, on the morning of the 16th, gave to Marshal Ney any other orders than the written ones of which we have in the last chapter given the substance.