All things considered, the attempt of the Emperor to break the center of an English army, so well posted as this, can be fairly compared to Lee’s efforts to storm the heights of Gettysburg. And in each case the attack was made in ignorance of vitally important facts. Well might Napoleon afterward reproach himself for not having reconnoitered the English position. * * * * * At thirty-five minutes past eleven the first gun was fired. Reillé had been ordered to occupy the approaches to Hougoumont, and had entrusted the movement to Jerome Bonaparte. At the head of the 1st Light Infantry he charged the wood held by Nassau and Hanoverian carbineers. An hour of furious fighting in the dense thickets--in which General Bauduin was killed--resulted in clearing the woods of the enemy; but on getting clear of the thicket the French found themselves coming upon the strong walls and the large buildings of the château. Jerome had no orders to lead infantry against a fortress like this, but he did it, nevertheless. Wellington had thrown a garrison into Hougoumont; the walls were loopholed for musketry; and the French were led to slaughter. It was impossible for infantry to break these thick walls of solid masonry, yet Jerome, in spite of the advice of his chief of staff and the orders of his immediate superior, Reillé, persisted until Hougoumont had cost the lives of 1,600 Frenchmen and had called away from the main battle nearly 11,000 men. Why it was that the walls were not breached with cannon before the infantry was led against them can only be explained upon the hypothesis that the Emperor never once thought his brother capable of so mad an undertaking. It was nearly one o’clock when Napoleon formed a battery of eighty guns and was ready to make a great attack on the English center. Before giving word to Ney, who was to lead it, the Emperor carefully scanned the entire battlefield through his glass. _What is that black cloud which has come upon the distant horizon, there on the northeast?_ Every staff officer turns his glasses to the heights of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. “Trees,” say some. But Napoleon knows better. Those are troops. But whose? Are they his? Is it Grouchy? Suppose it is the advance guard of Blücher!