Wellington may have been a brave and skilful general, but he did not know how to be generous to an unfortunate enemy who was himself always kind and considerate in the hour of victory. Wellington's expressions about Lowe are more than significant, though his conduct towards the poor cat's-paw is characteristic of a mean, flinty soul. But his behaviour towards Napoleon would have put any French Jacobin to the blush, and has belittled him for all time in the eyes of everybody who has a spark of human feeling in him. Meneval[22] says that Waterloo was won by the French in the middle of the day of that fateful battle, but a caprice of fortune--the arrival of Bulow's corps and Blucher's army, and the absence of Grouchy's corps--snatched from Napoleon's hands the triumph which was within his grasp. Wellington had even said to General Hill, who came to take his orders at the most critical moment of the battle: "I have no orders to give you. There is nothing left for us but to die here. Our retreat is even cut off behind us." Wellington's despairing words have been handed down in various forms. Notably he is reported to have said, "Oh! for night or Bluecher." When he heard the firing, "That is old Bluecher at last!" &c. That he was in a tight place there is little doubt, and many authorities have stated that had Grouchy come up according to orders, the allied forces would have been cut to pieces. Whether it was "caprice of fortune" or not, Wellington claimed to have won the battle. "Caprice of fortune" had nothing to do with it. It was a hard-fought battle. Treachery and desertion at an important juncture undoubtedly weakened the chances of French success. Meneval adds that "in no encounter of such importance did the French army display more heroism and more resolution than at the Battle of Waterloo." Napoleon at St. Helena attributed his defeat to a variety of circumstances: to treachery, and to his orders not being carried out as they should have been by some of his generals, and often concludes: "It must have been Fate, for I ought to have succeeded." He was accustomed to say that "One must never ask of Fortune more than she can grant," and possibly he erred in this.