On the night of June seventeenth Wellington's army reached the heights at Mont St. Jean, on the northern edge of what was destined to be the most talked of battle-field in modern times. His retreat, masked by a strong body of cavalry, with some horse-artillery and a single infantry division, had been slow and regular, being retarded somewhat by the heavy rain. Ney had held his position at Frasnes, well aware that what was before him was far more than a rear-guard--in fact, owing to the arrival of strong reinforcements during the night, it was the larger portion of the Anglo-Belgian army. But the instant the French marshal was informed of his enemy's retrograde movements he threw forward a strong force of cavalry to cooeperate with Napoleon. When reunited, the French army numbered seventy-one thousand five hundred men, with two hundred and forty guns, excluding of course, the whole of Gerard's corps, which had been left at Ligny to cooeperate with Grouchy. That Wellington was far on his way to the defensive position chosen by himself was probably in accord with Napoleon's calculations; his only fear was lest his foe should have withdrawn behind the forest of Soignes, where free communication with Bluecher and the junction of the two allied armies would be assured, as would not be the case at Mont St. Jean. This anxiety was set at rest by a cavalry reconnaissance, and at dusk the French van bivouacked at Belle Alliance, separated by a broad, shallow vale from their foe. The rest of the army followed with great difficulty, some by the road; some through plowed or swampy fields, wading the swollen tributaries of the Dyle, and floundering through the meadows on their banks. The army of Wellington had seized, in passing, what provisions and forage they found, and they had camp-fires to comfort them in the steady rain. The French had scanty or no rations, and lay throughout the night in the grain-fields, without fire or shelter. All told, Wellington had sixty-eight thousand men; ten miles on his right, at Hal, lay eighteen thousand more; ten miles on his left, twelve from his headquarters at Waterloo, was Bluecher. Wellington, who had informed the Prussian commander that unless support reached him he would fall back to Brussels, at two o'clock in the morning had assurance of Bluecher's cooeperation. There is an unsupported statement of Napoleon's that he twice sent to Grouchy on the night of the seventeenth, by two separate officers, a definite order to detach seven thousand men from his camp at Wavre (where the Emperor affected to believe that Grouchy was), and make connection by St. Lambert with the right of the main army. This would entirely cut off Bluecher from Wellington. The motive of this statement is transparent--with the allies separated, they were outmanoeuvered; with the possibility of their union, and an understanding between them to that effect, he was himself outmanoeuvered.