3 May I saw in the street three dogs, of the bull-dog race, dragging up a hill at a good pace what I am sure two men would not have strength to drag. I saw also a goat fastened to a child’s car. I went all over town for a calache – bought one for 75 louis. In the evening, having procured redingoes (which I did not use), we mounted a coach and drove to ______. Returned home, ate, and slept.
4 May Having risen, foolishly paid 40 naps. to the coachmaker. My Lord and servant stepped into the calèche. I and a servant got on horseback, and went to Waterloo. We soon entered Soignies, which on both sides formed a beautiful wood (not forest, for it was not wild on either side) for several miles. The avenue it formed varied in length: sometimes the end was formed by a turn of the road, sometimes by the mere perspective effect of narrowing. The trees are all young – none of above thirty years’ growth. We then reached Waterloo, where were the head-quarters of Napoleon. An officious host pressed us to order dinner. We ran from his pressing, and advancing came to St Jean, where the boys continued the offerings we first had at Waterloo of buttons, books, etc. This was the village which gave the French name to the battle, I believe, as it was the spot which Napoleon tried to gain. The view of the plain, as we advanced to the right, struck us as fields formed almost with the hopes that spirit and war would make their havoc here. Gentle risings, sufficient to give advantage to the attacked – few hedges – few trees. There was no sign of desolation to attract the passerby: if it were not for the importunity of boys, and the glitter of buttons in their hands, there would be no sign of war. The peasant whistled as blithely, the green of Nature was as deep, and the trees waved their branches as softly, as before the battle. The houses were repaired. Only a few spots with white plaster between the bricks pointed out the cannon’s ruin; and in ruins there was only Hougoumont, which was attacked so bravely and defended so easily – at least so I should imagine from the few killed in the garden and the appearance of the whole, while so many French lay dead in the field. In the garden were only 25 English killed, while in the field 1500; and on the other side 600 French, not counting the wounded, were slain. Indeed, the gallantry, the resolution and courage, which the French displayed in attacking this place, guarded from the heights by our cannon, and by our soldiers through the loop-holes, would alone ennoble the cause in which they fought. Before arriving at Hougoumont, the spots where Hill, Picton, and the Scotch Greys did their several deeds, were pointed out to us. The spot which bore the dreadful charge of cavalry is only marked by a hedge. The cuirassiers advancing, the Scots divided – showed a masked battery, which fired grape into the adverse party’s ranks – then it was the Scots attacked. I do not now so much wonder at their victory. The cuirasses which we saw were almost all marked with bullets, lance- and sabre-cuts. Buonaparte and the French, our guide said, much admired the good discipline and undaunted courage of the short-kilted Scots. Going forward, the spot at which the Prussians, the lucky gainers of the battle, emerged, was pointed out to us – and, a little farther on, we were shown the spot where Colonel Howard, my friend’s cousin, was buried before being carried to England. Three trees, of which one is cut down, mark the spot, now ploughed over. At Hougoumont we saw the untouched chapel where our wounded lay, and where the fire consumed the toes of a crucifix. We there inscribed our names amongst cits and lords. We found here a gardener who pointed out the garden – the gate where the French were all burnt – the gap in the hedge where the French attempted, after the loss of 1500 men, to storm the place – the field, quarter of an acre, in which were heaps of Gallic corpses. The gardener and the dog, which we saw, had been detained at Hougoumont by General Maitland in case of a retreat. The peasants declare that from 4 to 5 the affair was very, very doubtful, and that at the last charge of the Imperial Guards Napoleon was certain of being in Brussels in quatre heures. Wellingon, after the defeat of the Prussians etc., on the 17th went to Waterloo, and determined where he would place each corps. This was a great advantage: but, in spite of the excellence of his position, he would certainly have been defeated had it not been for the fortunate advance of the Prussians. From Hougoumont we went to the red-tiled house which is the rebuilding of the house where was Buonaparte’s last station and head-quarters. It was from this spot that he viewed the arrival of the Prussians, under the idea of their being the corps of Grouchy. It was here he felt first the certainty of defeat, just after he had led the old Imperial Guard, in the certainty of victory, to his last attack. La Belle Alliance next appreared along the road, here where Wellington and Blucher met. The name is derived from a marriage in the time of peace: it is now applicable to a war-meeting. Thence we returned to St Jean, after going again to Hougoumont. There we were shown cuirasses, helms, buttons, swords, eagles, and regiment-books. We bought the helms, cuirasses, swords, etc., of an officer and soldier of cuirasses, besides eagles, cockades, etc. Beggars, the result of English profusion. A dinner, measured by some hungry John Bull’s hungry stomach. We rode off the field, my companion singing a Turkish song – myself silent, full gallop cantering over the field, the finest one imaginable for a battle. The guide told us that the account Buonparte’s guide gave of him after the battle was that he only asked the road to Paris, not saying anything else.
At Hougoumont various spots were pointed out: amongst the rest the one where Maitland stood watching a telegraph on the neighbouring rise, which told him what was going on on both sides.
We rode together through Soignies forest – black. The twilight made the whole length of the road more pleasing. On reaching home, we found the coach was jogged; so much so that it would not allow us to put confidence in it, etc. At last we gave it into Mr Gordon’s hands. My friend has written twenty-six stanzas (?) today – some on Waterloo.
I made up my accounts, and was not a little startled by a deficit of 10 napoleons, which I at last found was a mere miscalculation. Rode about thirty miles in all.
Forgot to say I saw Sir Nath Wraxall at Dover, who, having introduced himself to Lord Byron as a friend de famille, began talking, knocking his feet in rattattat, still all the while oppressed by feeling very awkward.
At Brussels, the people were in a great stew, the night of the battle of Waterloo – their servants and others waking them every minute to tell them the French were at the gates. Some Germans went there with mighty great courage, in flight. Lord W sent to a colonel to enquire whether he was going to fly from or to the battle, giving him his choice to act in either way. On hearing this, the said colonel boldly faced about, and trotted to Brussels with his troop. A supernumerary aide-de-camp, the brother of N., with two others, was riding between the ranks while the French were firing; when, ours crying out ‘They aim at you’, all three were struck in the jaw, much in the same place, dead. After the battle, a friend asking what was become of N., the serjeant pointed to his feet, saying ‘There’, which was fact. Dacosta, the guide, says that Buonaparte was cool and collected till the Prussians arrived; that then he said to Bertrand, ‘That appears to be the Prussian eagle’; and, upon Betrand’s assenting, his face became momentarily pale. He says that, when he led up the Imperial Guard, on arriving at the red-tiled house, he went behind a hillock, so as not to be seen, and so gave them the slip. Wellington acted the soldier when he should have acted the general, and the light-limbed dancer when he should have been the soldier. I cannot, after viewing the ground, and bearing in mind the men’s superior courage, give Wellington the palm of generalship that has been snatched for him by so many of his admirers. Napoleon only took one glass of wine from the beginning of the battle to the end of his flight.
5 May Got up at ten from fatigue. Whilst at breakfast, there came a Mr Pryse Gordon for L[ord] B. I entertained him. He has been to Italy, and travelled a great deal – a good-natured gentleman. Took him to see the carriage: he introduced me to his son by means of a trumpet. After his departure we set off for the Chateau du Lac, where we found the hind front much finer than the other for want of the startling (?) dome and low windows. It has a
ll its master-apartments on the ground-floor: they are extremely well laid out both with regard to comfort and magnificence – they were furnished by Nap. We saw the bed where Josephine, Marie Louise, and the Queen of Holland, must have been treading fast on one another’s heels. The hall for concerts divides the Emperor’s from the Empress’ rooms – it has a rich appearance, and is Corinthian. The flooring of the Emperor’s is all wood of different colours – checked – having to my eye a more pleasing appearance than the carpeted ones of the Empress. I sat down on two chairs on which had sat he who ruled the world at one time. Some of his eagles were yet remaining on the chairs. The servant seemed a little astonished at our bowing before them.
We returned, it raining all the while. After dinner Mr G came for us to go to coffee. We went, and were graciously received; Lord B as himself, I as a tassel to the purse of merit. I there saw a painting of Rembrandt’s wife or mother by himself, which was full of life, and some verses by Walter Scott written in the hostess’ album, where he says Waterloo will last longer than Cressy and Agincourt. How different! They only agree in one thing – that they were both in the cause of injustice. The novels of Casti were presented to me by Mr Gordon, which I was rather surprised at. We came over. Scott writes in M. G book –
‘For one brief hour of deathless fame’
‘Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame’
6 May Mr G and son came whilst at breakfast; gave us letters, etc. Saw the little child again; B gave it a doll.
The carrossier came. Set off at two, passing through a country increasing in inequalities. We arrived first at Louvain, where we saw the outside of a beautiful Town-hall, which is one of the prettiest pieces of external fretwork I have seen. Thence we went to Tirlemont, where was a Jubilee. Saints and sinners under the red canopy (the sky dirty Indian-ink one) were alike in the streets. Every street had stuck in it, at a few paces from the house-walls, fir-branches 16 or 17 feet high, distant from one another 5 or 6 feet. Thence to St Trond, where we ate – and slept, I suppose. The country is highly cultivated, and the trees older. The avenues have a more majestic appearance from the long swells of ground and the straight roads, but there is more squalid misery than I have seen anywhere. The houses are many of them mud, and the only clean part about them is the white-wash on the external walls. Dunghills before some must be trodden on before entering the houses. The towns also fall off greatly in neat and comfortable looks. The walls round them look ruined and desolate, and give a great idea of insecurity. We put the servants on board-wages.
7 May Set off from St Trond at 11. The country is highly cultivated; continual hill and dale; lower orders miserable in perfection; houses built of mud, the upper storeys of which are only built of beams, the mud having fallen off. Bridges thrown over the dirt they were too idle to remove. Dunghills at their doors, and ditches with black fetid water before their first step. Liège has a pretty neighbourhood, but the town itself is filthy and disagreeable. They visited our passports here at three different places. The hill above the town is enormously steep; and from some way beyond it has a beautiful view of Liège with its towers and domes – of the country with its many cots and villas – and of the Meuse. The road now lies through a scene where cottages are spread like trees, and hedges like furrows of corn, the fields are so minutely divided. A little farther still we had a most splendid view through many miles. From a valley we could see everything clearly, crowded in a blue tint, and in a river through it we could see the shadows of the trees. The cottages are improving, and the roads becoming the worst ever seen; paved still, but so horridly hilled and vallied that the rolling of the carriage is like the rolling of a ship.
We came at last to Battice; but before entering we passed by a village where beggar little cherubs came to the carriage-side, and running cried out, ‘Donnez-nous quelque chose, Monsieur le chef de bataillon’; another, ‘Monsieur le general.’ And a third little urchin, who gesticulated as well as cried, perceiving the others had exhausted the army, cried, ‘Un sou, Messieurs les rois des Hanoveriens!’ We arrived at Battice, where beggars, beggars. There we found horses just come in.
After debate (wherein I was for Aix-la-Chapelle, LB for stopping) we set off; and such a jolting, rolling, knocking, and half-a-dozen etc., as our carriage went through, I never saw, which put LB to accusing me of bad advice; clearing however as the road mended. The rain fell into a pond, to be illuminated by sunshine before we reached Aix-la-Chapelle at half-past twelve.
8 May Got up late. Went to see the Cathedral: full of people, lower ranks, hearing mass. Miserable painting, architecture, etc. Saw also a church wherein was no particular picture or anything. At Liège the revoluntionists had destroyed the fine Cathedral.
A German boy who led me about Aix-la-Chapelle, on my asking him in broken German about the baths, led me to a very different place. I was astonished to find myself in certain company. The baths are hot sulphuretted-hydrogen-impregnated water. The sulphur-beds are only shown to dukes and kings: so a kingdom is good for something. I saw the baths themselves: like others, not very clean-looking.
We left Aix-la-Chapelle at twelve, going through a fine country, with no hedges but fine woods in the distance. We arrived at St Juliers, strongly fortified, where they took our names at entering and at exiting. It is a neat town, and was besieged last year. We were at the post taken by a man for Frenchmen, and he told us we had been driven from Russia by a band of the Emperor. He seemed to be very fond of them, and gave as a reason that he had been employed by them for many years. And, I forgetfully saying, ‘What! were they here?’ – ‘Yes, and farther.’ I answered, ‘Jusqu’a Moscou.’
‘Oui, et presque plus loin.’ That ‘presque’ means much. The French were not generally liked, I believe. The lower orders perhaps liked them, but the middle, I doubt. But I cannot say; I may perhaps be influenced by the opinion of a beautiful face of this town, who, on my asking her whether the dames n’aimaient pas beaucoup les Francais, answered, ‘Oui, les dames publiques.’
We find it a great inconvenience that the Poste is a separate concern, and generally pretty distant from the inn. The women are many of them very beautiful, and many of them, as well as the men, have fine dark eyes and hair. The men wear ear-rings, and curl their hair; which, if I remember rightly, was the custom in the time of Tacitus. Many of the women wear their hair combed quite back, and upon it a little square piece of linen. The French were particularly polite during the siege.
We entered the dominions of the King of Prussia a little beyond Battice. It causes a strange sensation to an Englishman to pass into one state from another without crossing any visible line. Indeed, we should not have perceived that we had, if we had not been stopped by a Belgian guard who asked us if we had anything to declare. The difference is, however, very striking. The men, the women, everything, improve – except the cottages. The people look cleaner, though everything else is dirty; contrary to the Belgians, they seem to collect their cleanliness upon themselves, instead of throwing it upon their cots, tins, trees, and shrubs.
We arrived at Cologne after much bad, sandy, heavy road, at 11. The pavement begins to be interrupted after Aix, but ends almost entirely after St Juliers. Cologne is upon a flat on the Rhine. We are groaning at having no sight of far-famed Cologne, when we came suddenly under its battlements and towers. We passed through its fortifications without question. After having found the gates shut, and feed the porter, we found inns full, and at last got into the Hotel de Prague.
9 May Got up very bad. Sat down to breakfast. Just done, we heard some singing. Enquiry told us, buyable. Got them up. A harp played by a dark-haired German, pretty, and two fiddlers. She played and sang The Troubadour, which brought back a chain of Scotch recollections, and a German song; then a beautiful march, in which the music died away and then suddenly revived. After a waltz we dismissed them. We both mounted a voiture, and drove through the town to the Cathedral. Great part pulled down by the revolutionists, and the roof of the nave obli
ged to be restored with plain board – a staring monument over Gallic ruin. There is fine stained glass, and the effect of its being very high and variegated in the choir is beautiful. We saw a fine painting here by Kalf: vide Taschbuch. The tomb of the three kings said to be worth three millions of francs, and an immensely rich treasury wherein was a sacrament worth one million of francs. In falling down a step I broke a glass, for which they at first would not take anything – which at last cost me three francs. Kept countenance amazingly well.
Went to see St Ursula’s Church, where we were shown virgins’ skulls of ninety years old, male and female, all jumbled into a mass of 11,000 virgins’ bones arranged all in order – some gilt, etc. A whole room bedecked with them. All round, indeed, whatever we saw were relics, skulls; some in the head of silver-faced busts, some arranged in little cells with velvet cases, wherein was worked the name of each. Paintings of St Ursula, etc. Asked for a piece out of the masses: only got a smile, and a point of a finger to an interdiction in Latin, which I did not read.
We went to see a picture of Rubens, The Nailing of St Peter to a Cross; the best design, though not very good, I yet have seen of his. A German artist copying it spoke English to us.
Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wallraf: got admission. Found a venerable old man who has spent his life in making a collection of paintings and other objects of vertu belonging to his country, Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native town.
Vampyre' and Other Writings Page 23