Waterloo Days: The narrative of an Englishwoman resident at Brussels in June 1815Eaton, Charlotte A. (Charlotte Anne)
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Waterloo Days: The narrative of an Englishwoman resident at Brussels in June 1815
Eaton, Charlotte A. (Charlotte Anne)
Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, 1815
If such were the horrors of the scene here, what must they be on the
field of battle, covered with thousands of the dead, the wounded, and
the dying! The idea was almost too dreadful for human endurance; and
yet there were those of my own country, and even of my own sex, whom I
heard express a longing wish to visit this very morning the fatal field
of Waterloo! If, by visiting that dreadful scene of glory and of death,
I could have saved the life, or assuaged the pangs, of one individual
who had fallen for his country, gladly would I have braved its horrors;
but for the gratification of an idle, a barbarous curiosity, to gaze
upon the mangled corpses of thousands; to hear the deep groans of
agony, and witness the last struggles of the departing spirit--No!
worlds should not have bribed me to have encountered the sight: the
consolation of being useful, alone could have armed one with courage to
have witnessed it. Nothing could exceed the humanity and kindness of
the Belgic people to those poor sufferers who now crowded the streets.
Unsolicited they took them into their own houses; sent bedding to the
hospitals; resigned their own rooms to their use; provided them with
every comfort, and administered to their wants as if they had been
their own sons. One old lady alone, who was the sole inhabitant of a
large house, refused to take in two wounded officers; the Commandant,
on hearing of this, immediately billetted six private soldiers upon
her. But, notwithstanding the praiseworthy activity and exertion which
were used to accommodate them, it was long, long indeed, before they
could all be taken care of. We grieved that we had no house to shelter
them, and no power to give them any essential relief. Money was to them
as useless as the lump of gold to Robinson Crusoe in his desert island:
we could not act by them the part of the good Samaritan, nor could we,
like the heroines of the days of chivalry, bind up and dress their
wounds, for in our ignorance we should only have injured them, and the
most stupid hospital mate could perform that office a thousand times
better than the finest lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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