“All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman’s mouth; and you and I who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving the cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternation of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the devil’s code of honour.” No one who lives now but must most fervently hope that the remembrance of that evil heritage may be buried so deep as never to rise again! CHAPTER XII THE ARMY IN THE NETHERLANDS--WATERLOO, 1815 The Peninsular campaigns had, by the process of constantly “pegging away,” to use Abraham Lincoln’s expression during the American Civil War, resulted in sapping the strength of France, and led to the emperor’s deposition. Perhaps it was not the main cause of his fall after all; but it was the one open wound that bled the French to death, when all other districts of Europe were in awe-full peace. The kingdoms and empires of Europe had either successively fallen, or been cowed by the mighty genius of Napoleon. Spain and Portugal, almost the least of these European peoples, had been the only nations who continuously and persistently stood out against his usurpation. It is more than probable that, without England’s aid, even their patriotic stubbornness might have broken down. They wanted active help, practical sympathy, and money. All these England provided, taking the fact that she was not then very rich and populous, without stint. How her efforts to aid in the great aim of crushing the dominance of France, doubtless through motives that were based on natural and national selfishness, were responded to, the whole of the history of the Peninsular War clearly shows. There were only barren honours to the chiefs, utter and cruel ingratitude throughout to the men who, ill fed and scornfully treated, fought the battles of Spanish generals and soldiers, who were hardly worth fighting with or for. Omit England’s part in the great Peninsular struggle, and there is scarcely a single case in which the Spanish or the Portuguese either fought a good fight or played a straight game. In both countries France had friends, and in both countries, therefore, were traitors to their own cause, and still more to that of their British allies.