Was Wellington triumphing? Then the Legitimacy would re-enter Paris behind those red uniforms which had just renewed their die in the blood of the French! Then the royalty would have as state-carriages at its coronation the ambulance-waggons filled with our maimed grenadiers! What manner of restoration would it be, accomplished under such auspices?... That is but a very small portion of the ideas that tormented me. Each gun-shot gave me a shock and doubled the beating of my heart. At a few leagues from an immense catastrophe, I did not see it, I could not touch the huge funeral monument growing minute by minute at Waterloo, even as from the shore of Bulak, on the bank of the Nile, I had vainly stretched out my hands towards the Pyramids. No traveller appeared; a few women in the fields, peacefully weeding rows of vegetables, did not seem to hear the noise to which I was listening. But see, a courier came riding up: I left the foot of my tree and placed myself in the middle of the road; I stopped the courier and questioned him. He belonged to the Duc de Berry and came from Alost: "Bonaparte entered Brussels yesterday (17 June), after a sanguinary combat. The battle was to have recommenced to-day (18 June). They think the Allies have suffered a decisive defeat, and the order is given to retreat." The courier continued his road. I followed him, hastening my steps: I was passed by the carriage of a merchant who was fleeing post with his family; he confirmed the courier's story. [Sidenote: Confusion at Ghent.] All was in confusion when I returned to Ghent: they were closing the gates of the city; only the wickets remained half-open; ill-armed civilians and a few soldiers in depot were keeping sentry. I went to the King's. Monsieur had just arrived by a circuitous route: he had left Brussels upon the false news that Bonaparte was about to enter it and that a first lost battle left no hope of winning a second. They were saying that, as the Prussians had not formed their lines, the English had been crushed. At these bulletins, the stampede became general: the possessors of some resources left; I, who am accustomed never to have anything, was always ready and prepared. I wanted to let Madame de Chateaubriand move out before me; she was a great Bonapartist, but did not like cannon-shots: she refused to leave me.