3. It may be worth while to correct a curious error into which Siborne has fallen in his anxiety to show that Ney was not ordered to seize Quatre Bras early in the morning. He[434] calls attention to the fact that the 2 P.M. order to Ney was addressed on the back of the letter to the Marshal at Gosselies. “This circumstance,” he says, “proves that Napoleon was under the impression that Ney had not at that time (two o’clock) commenced his attack, but was still at Gosselies.” But this argument, if it is good for anything, shows that Napoleon supposed that Ney and, of course, the bulk of his command also, would be at Gosselies when the bearer of the letter arrived there, say at 3 o’clock, which is simply absurd. The fact is that, Ney having the previous night had his headquarters at Gosselies, all orders to him were naturally and properly sent there first. 4. Jomini,[435] in a letter to the Duke of Elchingen, suggests that Napoleon might well have left Reille’s corps and Lefebvre-Desnouettes’ cavalry at Frasnes to watch the enemy at Quatre Bras, and thrown d’Erlon’s Corps and Kellermann’s cavalry on the rear of the Prussians at Brye, a manœuvre which, he says, “could be executed from Frasnes as well as from Quatre Bras.” Into the merits of this suggestion we do not propose to enter; there is certainly much to recommend it. But in a postscript General Jomini takes special pains to express his opinion that General Reille is not “deserving of the least censure” for having deferred putting his corps in motion from Gosselies for Frasnes, on the morning of the 16th, until he had communicated Girard’s information to Marshal Ney. “We must not forget that General Reille had just sent—nine o’clock—positive information of the presence of the entire Prussian army towards Ligny: he must have concluded from this that the left would be called upon to take part in the attack of this army, and that it would be unfortunate if, after such information, he took the Genappe [Quatre Bras] route when it would be necessary to turn to the right towards Brye. This reasoning was more than logical, it was based on the laws of _la grande tactique_.”[436] In this passage Jomini seems to overlook what he has just before said about Frasnes. Even if the left should be called upon to take part in the attack of the Prussians instead of being concentrated for the attack of Quatre Bras, it would still be necessary for a large force to establish itself at Frasnes, in order to observe the enemy at Quatre Bras; to proceed then to Frasnes, with the two divisions of Foy and Jerome, from Gosselies, where he was when the Emperor’s order reached him, was the right thing for Reille to do in any event. Jomini in fact suggests this very thing as in his judgment the correct course, viz.: to leave the 2d Corps at Frasnes and to throw the 1st Corps on Brye. This attempt, therefore, to justify Reille’s delay in marching to Frasnes, fails.