[Footnote 24: Further references for this and the following
chapter: Batty: Historical Sketch; Baudus: Etudes sur
Napoleon; Bullock: Diary; Cotton: Voice from Waterloo;
Damitz: Campagne de 1815; A. S. Fraser: Letters; W. Fraser:
Words, etc.; Gomm: Letters and Journals; Kennedy: Notes on
Waterloo; Vaulabelle: Campagne de Waterloo; Gurwood:
Wellington's Despatches; likewise the lives and memoirs of
Davout, Drouot, Gneisenau, Wellington, Hill, Grouchy (par
Pascallet), and Vandamme; Waterloo Letters, edited by
Siborne; Waterloo Roll-call, compiled by Dalton.]
Hougomont -- La Haye Sainte -- d'Erlon Repulsed -- Ney's Cavalry
Attack -- Napoleon's One Chance Lost -- Plancenoit -- Union of
Wellington and Bluecher -- Napoleon's Convulsive Effort -- Charge
of the Guard -- The Rout -- Napoleon's Flight.
Napoleon's salute to Wellington was a cannonade from a hundred and
twenty guns. The fire was directed toward the enemy's center and left,
but it was ineffectual, except as the smoke partially masked the first
French movement, which was the attack on Hougomont by their left, the
corps of Reille. This was in three divisions, commanded respectively
by Bachelu, Foy, and the Emperor's brother Jerome, whose director was
Guillemenot. Preceded by skirmishers, the column of Jerome gained
partial shelter in a wood to the southwest of their goal, but the
resistance to their advance was vigorous; on the skirts of the grove
were Nassauers, Hanoverians, and a detachment of the English guards,
all picked men, and behind, on higher ground, was an English battery.
The two other divisions pressed on behind, and for a time their gains
were apparently substantial. But, checked in front by artillery fire,
and by a murderous fusillade from loopholes cut in the walls of
Hougomont, the besiegers hesitated. Their fiery energy was not
scientifically directed; but such was their zeal, and so great were
their numbers, that one brigade doubled on the rear of the fortalice,
drove back the English guards from before the entrance to the
courtyard on the north, and charged for the opening. Some of the
French actually forced a passage, and the success of Napoleon's first
move was in sight when five gallant Englishmen, by sheer physical
strength, shut the stout gate in the face of the assailants. A
fearless French grenadier scaled the wall, but he and his comrades
within were killed. A second assault on the same spot failed; so, too,
a third from the west, and still another from the east, all of which
were repelled by the English guards, who moved down from above, and
drove the French into the wood, where they held their own. These close
and bloody encounters were contrary to Reille's orders, but in the
thick of combat his various detachments could not be restrained.
[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane