French cavalry rode over old Marshal Vorwärts, lying under his horse. I saw the rush of the French, then the countercharge of the Prussian troopers when missed the General and drove the enemy back till they found him again; though what it all meant we never knew till it was over. Then, after mighty little rest, we marched fast and far, with cannon-thunder in our ears in a constant mutter, always growing louder, until in the afternoon we came at a quickstep through a piece of woods out upon the plain by Waterloo, where they had been fighting all day. Our feet sucked in the damp ground, the wet grain brushed our knees, as our compact column spread out into more open order and went into fire. What a smoke there was about La Haye Sainte and Hougomont, with now lines of red infantry, or a column in dark blue, or a mass of flashing cuirassiers hidden for a moment, then reappearing! It was take and give, hot and heavy, for an hour or so about Planchenoit. A ball grazed my elbow and another went through my cap; but at sunset the French were broken, and we swept after the rout as well as we could through the litter, along the southward roads. We were at a halt for a minute, I remember, when a rider in a chapeau with a plume, and a hooked nose underneath, trotted up, wrapped in a military cloak, and somebody said it was Wellington." Grandfather was sure to be at a white heat before he had finished, and so, too, his audience. The athletic student grandson, with a deep scar across his cheek from a _Schläger_ cut, rose and paced the room. The _Fräulien_, his sister, to whom the retired grenadier has told the story of the feather-beds at Weimar, showed in her eves she remembered it all. "Yes, friend American!" breaks in the father of the family, "and it all must be done over again. Sooner or later it must come, a great struggle with France; the Latin race or the Teutonic, which shall be supreme in Europe? We are ready now; arsenals filled, horses waiting, equipments for everybody. Son Fritz there has his uniform ready, and somewhere there is one for me. _Donnerwetter_! If they get into Prussia, they'll find a tough old _Landsturm_! Only let Vater Wilhelm turn his hand, and to-morrow close upon a million trained and well-armed troops could be stepping to the drum." It was an evening at the end of June. Napoleon was having the finishing touches put to the new Opera House at Paris, thinking, so far as the world could tell, of nothing more important than how many imperial eagles it would do to put along the cornice. King William was packing for Ems, designing to be back at the peaceful unveiling of his father's statue the first week in August. Bismarck was at his Pomeranian estate, in poor health, it was said, plotting nothing but to circumvent his bodily trouble. In less than a month full-armed Prussia was on the march. I could understand the readiness, when I thought of the spiked helmet I had seen in the Prussian home that quiet summer night.