General Hamley,[504] in his account of the campaign, says of Grouchy: “His orders were to follow them [the Prussians], complete their rout, and never lose sight of them.” Hamley does not seem even to have heard of the Bertrand order. Hence his elaborate criticism on Grouchy’s conduct,[505]—leaving out, as it does, the two most important _data_, viz.:—Napoleon’s explicit warning to Grouchy of the possibility of the Prussians uniting with the English to fight a battle for the defence of Brussels, and his equally explicit statement to Grouchy (as reported by the latter), that he was going that very afternoon to attack the English “if they will stand on this side of the Forest of Soignes,”—is entirely beside the mark, and cannot be considered as possessing any practical value whatever. He has addressed himself to a case which never really existed.[506] Hooper, also, omits entirely the information which the Emperor gave of his own intention, and of his conjecture that the English might fight “on this side of the forest of Soignes,”—where they actually did fight,—and dismisses the explicit injunction for Grouchy to ascertain the facts in these words:—[507] “Yet some doubts of the correctness of his views had entered the mind of the Emperor before he quitted Ligny, and he remarked (_sic_) to Grouchy that it was important to learn whether the Prussians were separating themselves from the English, etc.” These instances suffice to show how seriously the concealment of the Bertrand letter by Marshal Grouchy has affected the historians of the campaign. The prominence assigned to the verbal orders to Grouchy, so common in most of the narratives, is not only utterly useless,—but most misleading. 5. But was the Bertrand letter sufficiently explicit? Charras,[508] who, unlike the English historians cited above, fully admits that the letter shows that Napoleon saw “the possibility of the union of the allied armies to cover Brussels,” observes that this involved the necessity of reconnoitring in the directions of Mont St. Guibert and Wavre. “Nevertheless,” he goes on to say, “Napoleon did not make this the subject of a special recommendation to Grouchy; * * * and the latter, given over to his own inspirations, did not repair the inconceivable fault of the commander-in-chief. He had an order to proceed to Gembloux; he did not trouble his head about anything else.”