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Page 18
Just at this juncture, however, an uproar was witnessed far to the
right. The woods seemed to open, and the banners of Bl�cher shot up in
the horizon. Grouchy was _not_ on his rear or flank! Napoleon saw at a
glance that it was then or never. His sun of Austerlitz hung low in
the west. The British centre must be broken, or the empire which he
had builded with his genius must pass away like a phantom. He called
out four battalions of the Middle and six of the Old Guard. In the
last fifteen years that Guard had been thrown a hundred times on the
enemies of France, and never yet repulsed. It deemed itself
invincible.
At seven o'clock, just as the June sun was sinking to the horizon, the
bugles sounded and the finest body of horsemen in Europe started to
its doom on the squares of Wellington. The grim horsemen rode to their
fate like heroes. The charge rolled on like an avalanche. It plunged
into the sunken road of O'Hain. It seemed to roll over. It rose from
the low grounds and broke on the British squares. They reeled under
the shock, then reformed and stood fast. Around and around those
immovable lines the soldiers of the Empire beat and beat in vain. It
was the war of races at its climax. It was the final death-grip of the
Gaul and the Teuton. The Old Guard recoiled. The wild cry of "_La
Garde recule_" was heard above the roar of battle. The crisis of the
Modern Era broke in blood and smoke, and the past was suddenly
victorious. The Guard was broken into flying squadrons. Ruin came with
the counter charge of the British. Ney, glorious in his despair,
sought to stay the tide. For an hour longer he was a spectacle to gods
and men. Five horses had been killed under him. He was on foot. He was
hatless. He clutched the hilt of a broken sword. He was covered with
dust and blood. But his grim face was set against the victorious
enemy in the hopeless and heroic struggle to rally his shattered
columns.
Meanwhile the Prussians rushed in from the right. Wellington's Guards
rose and charged. Havoc came down with the darkness. A single regiment
of the Old Guard was formed by Napoleon into a last square around
which to rally the fugitives. The Emperor stood in the midst and
declared his purpose to die with them. Marshal Soult forced him out of
the melee, and the famous square, commanded by Cambronne--flinging his
profane objurgation into the teeth of the English--perished with the
wild cry of "_Vive l'Empereur!_"
Hugo says that the panic of the French admits of an explanation; that
the disappearance of the great man was necessary for the advent of a
great age; that in the battle of Waterloo there was more than a storm,
that is, the bursting of a meteor. "At nightfall," he continues,
"Bernard and Bertrand seized by the skirt of his coat in a field near
Genappe a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who, carried so far by the
current of the rout, had just dismounted, passed the bridle over his
arm, and was now with wandering eye returning alone to Waterloo. It
was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of a shattered dream!"
On the spot where French patriotism afterward planted the bronze lion
to commemorate forever the extinction of the Old Guard of the French
Empire, and of Napoleon the Great, the traveler from strange lands
pauses, at the distance of eighty years from the horrible cataclysm,
and reflects with wonder how within the memory of living men human
nature could have been raised by the passion of battle to such sublime
heroism as that displayed in these wheatfields and orchards where the
Old Guard of France sank into oblivion, but rose to immortal fame.
SEBASTOPOL.
In the fall of 1852 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince President of the
French Republic, about to become the French Empire, was invited to a
banquet by the Chamber of Commerce in Bordeaux. He was on his
triumphal tour through the South of France. At the banquet he spoke,
saying: "I accept with eagerness the opportunity afforded me by the
Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce for thanking your great city for its
cordial reception.... At present the nation surrounds me with its
sympathies.... To promote the welfare of the country, it is not
necessary to apply new systems, but the chief point above all is to
produce confidence in the present and security for the future. For
these reasons it seems France desires a return to the Empire. There is
one objection to which I must reply. Certain minds seem to entertain a
dread of war; certain persons say the Empire is only war. But I say
_the Empire is peace_."
The last four words of this extract became the motto of the Second
Empire. Everywhere the Prince President's saying was blown to the
world. "The Empire is peace" was published in the newspapers, echoed
on the stage, and preached from the pulpits.
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