In the second place, we fail to see that the plan which Rogniat blames Napoleon for not having adopted, and which Jomini and Charras believe he really entertained, but failed to carry into effect, that is, the plan of occupying both Sombreffe and Quatre Bras on the 15th, was an improvement in any way over Napoleon’s plan as described by himself, as stated above. These writers would have Napoleon begin the campaign by separating the two hostile armies by occupying two points on the road by which they communicated with each other. Napoleon says that if he had done this, while the two armies would certainly have been separated, his chances of dealing decisively with one of them, alone and unsupported by its ally, would most likely have vanished. And the probabilities are that Napoleon was right in this opinion. Blücher would naturally have retired, if he had found the Namur-Quatre-Bras road occupied at Sombreffe by the French in force; he would have tried to concert with Wellington some combined operation in the neighborhood of Wavre or Brussels; and thus the opportunity which Napoleon had at Ligny, where the Prussians were exposed to the attack of the main French army without the assistance of a single English soldier, would not have been offered by Blücher. It seems to us that Napoleon is right in his contention, and that the great chance which he had at the battle of Ligny of defeating one of his two adversaries alone and unsupported, was in exact accordance with his expectations, and, was, as much as such things ever are, the result of his well-calculated dispositions. We conclude, therefore, that there is no good reason to suppose that Napoleon intended on the evening of the 15th to push forward to Sombreffe and hold the Namur-Nivelles road at that point. He may very possibly have expected to fix his headquarters at Fleurus, but, although he did not succeed in doing this, his object had been substantially attained at the close of the first day of the campaign, so far as the operations of the right and centre were concerned. B. Let us now consider the other branch of the question,—Did Napoleon intend to occupy Quatre Bras on the 15th?