THE DAYS OF WATERLOO

Evening Star, Issue 12884, 6 August 1906, Page 7

THE DAYS OF WATERLOO

Mr John Masefield, in the 'Daily New?,' reviews ' A Week at Waterloo—June, 1815,' by Lady De Lanccy, as follows: Those who have read the 'Fragment? of Z°l aß n J Trave]s >' by Captain Basil Hall, R.N., and particularly that part of them called 'The Lieutenant and Commander,' will remember a wonderful chapter which describes the embarkation of the retreating British Army at OomnDa, early in 1809. The chapter telle of the author's strange meeting with Sir William De Lancey, an officer attached to Sir John Moore's Army, and of the friendship which sprang up between the two during the passage to England. Six years later Sir William De Lanoey married Captain Hall's sister, either just before or juet after Napoleon's escape from Elba. They had been married about two months, when Sir William accompanied the Duke of Wellington to Brussels as quaitermaster-general of the English forces. Lady De Lancey went with her husband to the Continent, arid remained with him till the battle. The present volume consists of a narrative written by her some time afterwards, at her brother's request. It describes her terrible experiences between the 16th of June—the day of Quatre Bras—and the 4th of July, on which day she sailed for England. It is one of the most pathetic stories we have ever read. It fully deserves the high praise given to it bv Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, and Thomas, Moore in the letters quoted by the editor, Major B. R. Ward, R.E., in his introduction and final notes. Tho excerpts he adds from private memoirs and reminiscences of the battle are just sufficient to give the tale of agony its fit setting of ttTOtdt and disorder. The book, for some reason, has never before been printed; probably in deference to the feeDngs of living members of the familv; but now that it is printed it will doubtless take its place among the very best of books of intimate confession and reveation, 6uch as the diary of James Melville and the 'Agony of Thirty-eight Hours.' It should convince any critic, however esthetic, that one has but to feel deeply to write well, and that " the arts and sciences and a thousand appliances " are but poor and trivial things compared with deep human passion and touching grief. —The Duchess of Richmond's Ball The book begins with a short account of the happy life of the De Lanceys in Brussels during the week after their arrival. On the seventh day came the news of Napoleon's advance, and Sir William was hurried from dinner at the Spanish Ambassador's to concentrate the troops, and to put the \vhole army in motion. It was the night of "the Duchess of Richmond's ball," and "the ball took place notwithstanding the reveille played through the streets the whole night. Many of tho officers danced, and then marched in the morning." In! deed, many of the officers wero killed in their "shoes and silk stockings" just as they had left the ballroom. It was about three in the morning when the troops passed out of Brussels. "The troops were all assembled in the park, and Sir William and I leant over the window, seeing them march off—so few to return. It was a clear, refreshing morning, and the scene was very solemn and DifcJancholy. The fifes played alone, and th« regiments one after another marchfd past, and I saw ihim melt away through the great gate at the end of the square." A tew hours later Sir WiUiam had to ride off with his v?hief, after sending his wife to the comparative tafety of Antwerp, whore she passed two wretched days with Emma, her English maid. She heard the cannonading at Quatre Bras, though she "kept tho windows shut, and fried not to hear." It came to her as " a rolling like the eea at a distance." Early on the morning of the 19th (the day jrftsr the battle of Waterloo) she was told that the battle was over, and that her husband was safe. Thie report was due to Ins name having been omitted from the list* of killed and wounded, through the mistaken kindness of Lady Hamilton, ■vlo wrote the lists for publication. Thl good news was not contradicted unt3 two hours later: and during those two hours the poor lady " found how much I had really feared by the wild spirits I got into. I walked up and down, for I could not rest, end was abtost in a fever with happiness."' j —Th« Road to Waterloo j Her husband had been grisvously stricken ' r by a spent cannon ball, which crushed several of his ribs from their sockets and forced some tphntera of bone into the lung

without tearing his tunic. The members of the staff assisted him to a cottage, where h:s wound was dressed, the surgeons expressing some hope that he would recover. The first adverso reports which reached his wife were to the effect that he had been badly wounded; then that he bad been killed; and,_. lastly, that he still lived, and might perhaps re cover* On receiving the third report she started offl to join her husband in a closed carriage, which could make but 616w progress through "the rabble and confusion of the roads." War, like all other disorderly matters, ia a squalid business, and the neighborhood of a great battle a day or two after the fighting is no pleasant scene. The road was littered with broken cart 9 and a moving tumult of baggage waggons. By the roadsides were hundreds of deserters and stragxlers and wounded soldiers. Mingled with them were thieves and vagabonds and country persons; and the whole journey was noisy with the cursing, damning, and jostling of the disorderly and brutal company. A Prussian officer in charge of some waggons hacked at her driver with his sword. The air stank of gunpowder and of corruption, which made the horses scream. When one oonsideis these ghastly accompaniments to the journey (which, though but nine miles, occupied three and a-half hours), one may form rome faint mental picture of the misery a man's ambition may force upon the innocent people of half a continent. —The Sick Room.— She fouud her husband lying in a cottage at Mont St. Jean, in a Little room seven feet wide, upon a bed which was a rough wooden frame nailed to the wall. His only pillow was a sort of bag full of chaff, so dusty that it m;ide him cough extremely. The windows of the room opened upon the road, and the road was the highway to Nivelles. It was thronged day and night for four entire diys by wounded men and stragglers and passing soldiers. Tumbrils and baggage waggons and regiments of artillery occasionally passed; and as the road wns paved, the noire they made was abominable. The windows hid to be kept open, so that the passers-by could look in, and speak, as they often did ; and it was in thi9 state, under these conditions, that the poor lady had to nurse her dying husband. The temper of the passing soldiers may be judged from the following passage : " Eveiy time we wanted anything warmed. or water boiled. Emma (the' mflic 1 ) had to cross a court and make a fire, and then watch it, or someone won'd have ran awav with what she was cooking." On the Wednesday night (June 21) she was quite worn out with anxiety and watching ; but her "only wish was* to keep up as long as he need?d me," and she did her best to keep awake. "The noise of the carts a£6 : sted me a little." she says, pathetically adding that she "counted the rushes of the chair, for want of occupation." The slender hopes of recover}- were now at an end. Sir William was slowly dying, and the next few pages chronicle the last changes and the minute and terrible details of the sick room. It is hardly possible to writo of such a heart-breaking story. One can only say of it what said : "The whole description of the cottage, and its condition; and their daily shifts and contrivances, and the lying down beside him in the bed, and both falling asKep; and his resolving not to serve any more, but to live quietly thenceforth ; and her sorrow when she saw him eating with an appetite so soon before his death • and his death itself—all these are matters of truth. . . . They are God's own, and should be sacred."