[126] In his letter to the Duke of Otranto (Jones, 386), Ney says: “The Emperor [on the 15th] ordered me immediately to put myself at the head of the 1st and 2d Corps, &c., &c. With these troops * * * I pursued the enemy, and forced him to evacuate Gosselies, Frasnes, Millet, Heppignies. There they took up a position for the night. * * * “On the 16th I received orders to attack the English in their position at Quatre Bras.” It will be observed that Ney omits to state what directions, if any, the Emperor gave him on the 15th. He confines himself to enumerating the troops placed under his orders and to stating what he accomplished with them. The remark that he was ordered on the 16th to attack Quatre Bras throws no light on the question we are examining, viz.:—what orders were given to him on the 15th. [127] Thiers, vol. xx, p. 31, n. [128] Letter from the Duke of Elchingen to General Jomini, 16 October, 1841, published in the “Spectateur Militaire,” Dec. 15, 1841, as cited in Charras, vol. 1, p. 119, n. _Cf._ Heymès’ Statement, Doc. Inéd., p. 4. [129] Doc. Inéd., p. 30. [130] See _post_, p. 69, n. 38. [131] Doc. Inéd., p. 4. [132] We cannot find any allusion to the evidence furnished by this bulletin in any of the authorities, except in the “Waterloo” of La Tour d’Auvergne (p. 75), in Mr. William O’Connor Morris’s “Campaign of 1815” (Great Commanders of Modern Times, p. 327, note), and in the work entitled “Napoléon à Waterloo,” p. 24, n., where the proper weight is given to the matter. Hence the elaborate discussions of Charras and Chesney, failing as they do, to meet this important piece of evidence, do not greatly assist in arriving at a decision. The bulletin is not alluded to in the Duke of Elchingen’s notes to the despatches collected in his “_Documents Inédits_.” The probability is that the existence of this Bulletin escaped Chesney’s attention. Charras, however, cites the Bulletin (vol. 1, pp. 113, 114, notes). The fact that “Napoléon à Waterloo” was a reply to the work of Charras, and that the “Waterloo” of La Tour d’Auvergne was a reply to Chesney, accounts for our not finding the subject discussed by Chesney and Charras. It is, however, difficult to understand why Charras in his elaborate work should have overlooked the inference to be drawn from the statement in the bulletin. [133] _Cf._ Charras, vol. 1, p. 120. CHAPTER V. THE FIFTEENTH OF JUNE: BLÜCHER AND WELLINGTON. Marshal Blücher had long since fixed upon Sombreffe as the point of concentration for his army, in the event of the French crossing the Sambre at or near Charleroi, and he had even chosen the line of the brook of Ligny, which borders the villages of St. Amand, Ligny, and Balâtre, as a possible battlefield.[134]