June, 1815, have made you world-famous through all ages. For England you are a synonym of glory, triumph and "king-making victory," and they call you—Waterloo. For France you are a synonym of ruin, rout, annihilation, and chaos universal, and they call you—Mont St. Jean.

"And while, in fashion picturesque,

The poet rhymes of blood and blows,
The grave historian at his desk

Describes the same in classic prose."

And so of you great men have writ and poets sung. And through the pages of Sibourne, Charras, Chesney, Jomini, Alison, Ropes, Thiers, and Dorsey Gardner— through the mighty Hugo's "Les Miserables," and the "Childe Harold" of that great "Napoleon of the realms of Rhyme," George Gordon, world-thrilling as Lord Byron—the earthquaking shouts of your contending hosts resound. Read them, good reader, if you would see Napoleon on the heights at Ligny, or Ney at Quatre-Bras, or Jerome's battalions battling at Hougomont, or the Scotch Grays charging, or the brave Picton Brigade under fire, or the “Iron Duke" holding his wavering lines, or the wildly-dashing onsets of the Imperial cuirassiers, or the Old Guard, with their, "Ave! Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutamus," making their "vainly-glorious charge."

Waterloo! Who thinks of it as a victory? It has become a synonym for defeat, because the vanquished was greater than the victor.

CHAPTER XXXV

Face To Face!

La fortune est toujours pour les gros bataillons.

-Sevigne.

WHAT has become of Jean Deteau whom we last saw in the carriage of M. de Vaudrecourt, procureurdu-roi? He had transformed himself into a Bonapartist again by the time he reached the Hotel de Ville, and through the influence of two friends in Paris-MM. de Vilette and de Romontte-he got himself appointed to the staff of General de Bourmont, an ancient royalist, who had been vouched for by the Marshal Ney. The Marshal found himself mistaken in his protege, however, for at the opening of the campaign, de Bourmont deserted to the enemy, carrying all his staff with him.

"Eh bien! Monsieur le Marechal, what have you to say for your General de Bourmont?" said the Emperor when he heard the news.

"I would have vouched for him as for myself, sire."

"Blue is always blue and white is always white," replied His Majesty.

Nor did de Bourmont and his staff receive a cordial greeting from the Prussians, for the blunt von Blucher, when an aide-de-camp called his attention to de Bourmont and his white cockade, exclaimed, "Einerlei,

was das Volk fur einen Zettel ansteckt, Hundsfott bleibt Hundsfott!" ("All the same, whatever ticket one stitches on him, a scoundrel stays a scoundrel!") And this remark of the plain-spoken Blucher applies not only to de Bourmont, but to Jean Deteau as well. After the battle of Ligny on the 16th of June the Marshal Grouchy was sent with 30,000 men to follow up the Prussians, while the Emperor Napoleon with the balance of his army pursued the English on the 17th to the heights of Mont St. Jean, where they halted to give him battle on the morrow, Sunday, the 18th day of June. At half-past one the battle began when the Emperor from his position at La Belle Alliance ordered forward the corps of D'Erlon. Then the action became general, and erelong Hougomont was torn and riddled by balls, La Haye Sainte and Papelotte the scenes of bloody conflicts, and Mont St. Jean a hill of fire. But at three o'clock, instead of Grouchy whom the French Emperor expected, came the Prussians whom he did not, and the corps of Bulow attacked Planchenoit on the right and rear to cut the French line of retreat. The Prussians drove back and forced out of Planchenoit the 6th corps of Lobau and the Young Guard with its three batteries. Then His Majesty sent three battalions of the Old and Middle Guard with two batteries to retake the town. He could send no more, for the rest of the Guard was forming for the great attack on the English lines— those lines which had not been broken despite the furious charges of the now foaming, bloody, breathless, hors de combat Imperial cuirassiers. The three battalions advanced on Planchenoit and it was a quarter to seven in the evening. Pierre was at the head of

his company, sword in hand, and at the head of the second company marched Francois Legrand with his sword in his hand likewise. And so they charged on, their batteries advancing before them and answering the Prussian fire with a storm of shot and shell. They drove the Prussians out of Planchenoit and supported the Young Guard, but the Prussians, reinforced by the corps of Pirch I, advanced again. The farmhouses of Planchenoit were burning now, the cannonade shook their foundations, and the Prussians came in force, shouting madly through the smoke and flame.

And if you had been in Planchenoit that night you would have seen blazing timbers, smoking roofs, loading, firing, bayoneting, slashing, stabbing, charging; you would have heard noises, air-filling, skyrending, clangorous, thundering, deafening, piercing, trumpet-tongued, multisonous; you would have witnessed sights terrible, terrific, tremendous; you would have beheld deeds shocking, revolting, appalling, gallant, courageous, intrepid, valorous, high-spirited, chivalrous, magnificent, homage-compelling, worldinspiring!

And as they fought thus, those grenadiers of France, they heard a shout which swelled ever louder and louder from the plain of Waterloo until it was distinguishable amid the thunder of the cannon and the shock of charging hosts—" The Guard recoils! the Guard recoils!" And then another even more terrific, "Sauve qui peut! Sauve qui peut!"

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Did they know what it meant for them, those grenadiers in Planchenoit? Yes, they knew. If they would prevent the Prussians from rushing in upon the rear of the French army as it fell back from Waterloo,

there they must stand, there they must fight, there and there only must they die!

"Mille tonnerres!" roared Francois Legrand, his cap gone, his hair singed with fire, his eyes bloodshot, "En avant! en avant!"

"Forward! Forward!" cried Pierre, his uniform torn and rent, his scabbard gone, his forehead bleeding, his eyes flashing wildly, "Charge them, I say! Charge them! Sacre! but they shall rest in hell before we go!"

So they dashed on, but at every step the Prussian fire cut their ranks and strewed them like leaves— bloody leaves indeed!—upon the ground. They foamed and fought, but the fire raked them and raked them clean. They were only a handful now, but they stood shoulder to shoulder, and through the drifting smoke the Prussians saw their eyes gleaming and heard, weaker in volume but with the same ring and awe-compelling power of days long passed by, their defiance—“ Vive 1'Empereur!"

Mark them, good reader, as they stand there, that little band—Pierre Pasquin, Francois Legrand, Andre Marceau, Gustave Lebon, Gerard Etienne and forty more—coarse, rough men the most of them, it is true, but in their eyes is courage, in their mouths truth, in their hearts loyalty! Of how many, more refined than they, can you say that?

Then a cannon-ball came, tearing away Francois Legrand's right arm so that it hung only by bleeding, quivering shreds. But as the Prussian cavalry charged he wrenched that mangled limb loose from his bloody shoulder and hurled it at the Prussians and cried, "Vive 1'Empereur!" They came with a dash, that