The artillery was more or less massed, especially on the right, and came into action, on several occasions, as at La Haye Sainte, within two hundred and fifty yards of the infantry. There is no doubt that until the battle was well advanced, Napoleon believed he was going to win. Reaching the field on the evening of the 17th, and finding the enemy in position, he is reported to have said, “I wish I had the power of Joshua to arrest the sun, that I might attack the enemy to-day.” Even the next morning he, though imagining the Allied force in front of him was superior in numbers, considered, “We have at least ninety chances to a hundred in our favour.” Nor was Wellington less sanguine. Blucher had promised that “I shall not come with two corps only, but with my whole army,” and Blucher was likely to prove a man of his word; but the weather and the roads rendered it improbable that he should join hands with him, seriously, till the afternoon was well advanced. As he rode along the line between 9 and 10 a.m. on the 18th, he was cheered. He was wearing a blue frock-coat and white buckskin pantaloons, with Hessian boots and tassels, a white cravat, a low cocked hat without a plume, but ornamented with a black cockade for Britain, and three smaller for Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. In his right hand he carried a long field telescope drawn out and ready for use. General Alava, who joined him from Brussels, found him under a tree observing the movements of the advancing French. “How are you, Alava?” said he, laughing. “Bonaparte shall see to-day how a general of Sepoys can defend a position!” The general conduct of the battle can best be briefly described by a series of attacks or phases, though, naturally, the fire both of guns and skirmishers along the entire front of battle throughout the day never ceased. The first attack was made at 11.30 by Reille, against the right at Hougomont, the artillery of that corps being reinforced by Kellermann. This resulted in the British being driven from the wood and garden of the house, but not from the buildings themselves. Still, it had been a very close affair. The Guards, in falling back to the house, had not time to close the door of the yard before the French were on them, and severe hand-to-hand fighting ensued; but finally Colonel Macdonnell and a few men managed to close it, killing all the French who had penetrated. It was the narrowest escape of capture Hougomont had. As it was, some of the outbuildings were in flames, and the fire, curiously enough, only ceased at the feet of a wooden image of our Saviour.