The plan in the Emperor's mind was perfectly simple. There was to be no turning of the right nor of the left flank of the enemy, which would only have the effect of throwing back that enemy east or west. His line was to be pierced, the village of Mont St Jean which lay on the ridge of Wellington's position and which overlooks the plateau on every side was to be carried, and this done Napoleon would be free to decide upon his next action, according to the nature and extent of the disorder into which he had thrown the enemy's broken line. As a fact, Napoleon made a movement before that hour of half-past one which he had set down in his order for the beginning of the assault. That movement was a movement against the advanced and fortified position of Hougomont. He sent orders to his left, to the body on the east of the high road, the Second Army Corps, under Reille, to send troops to occupy the outer gardens, wood, and orchards of the country-house, and at twenty-five minutes to twelve the first gun fired in support of that movement was also the first cannonshot of Waterloo. After a brief artillery duel and exchange of cannonshots between the height on the French left, which overlooks Hougomont, and the corresponding height upon the English right, the French infantry began to march down the slope to occupy the little wood which stands to the south of the chateau. These four regiments were commanded by the Emperor's brother Jerome, who was--as we have seen at Quatre Bras--under the orders of Reille. The clearing of the wood was no very desperate affair, but it was a difficult one, and it took an hour. The Germans of Nassau and Hanover, who were charged with the defence of Hougomont and its approaches, stubbornly contested the standing trees and the cut-clearing which lay between them and the garden wall of the chateau. It must be clearly seized, at this early and even premature point in the action, that Napoleon's object in making this attack upon Hougomont was only to weaken Wellington's centre. Hougomont lay upon Wellington's right. Wellington had always been nervous of his right, and feared the turning of his line there, because, should he have to retreat, his communications would ultimately lie in that direction. It was for this reason that he had set right off at Braine l'Alleud, nearly a mile to the west of his line, the Dutch-Belgian Division of Chassé and sixteen guns, which force he connected with a reserve body at Hal, much further to the west. Napoleon judged that an attack on Hougomont before the action proper was begun, coming thus upon Wellington's right, would make him attempt to reinforce the place and degarnish his centre, where the Emperor intended the brunt of the attack to fall.