Chapter 7 - Page 2

men from the hulks in England.

These were the dangerous men, veterans of twenty battles, longing
for their old trade, and with hearts filled with hatred and
revenge. The ranks were full of soldiers who wore two and three
chevrons, every chevron meaning five years' service. And the
spirit of these men was terrible. They were raging, furious,
fanatical, adoring the Emperor as a Mameluke does his prophet,
ready to fall upon their own bayonets if their blood could serve
him. If you had seen these fierce old veterans going into
battle, with their flushed faces, their savage eyes, their
furious yells, you would wonder that anything could stand against
them. So high was the spirit of France at that time that every
other spirit would have quailed before it; but these people,
these English, had neither spirit nor soul, but only solid,
immovable beef, against which we broke ourselves in vain. That
was it, my friends! On the one side, poetry, gallantry, self-
sacrifice--all that is beautiful and heroic. On the other side,
beef. Our hopes, our ideals, our dreams--all were shattered on
that terrible beef of Old England.

You have read how the Emperor gathered his forces, and then how
he and I, with a hundred and thirty thousand veterans, hurried to
the northern frontier and fell upon the Prussians and the
English. On the 16th of June, Ney held the English in play at
Quatre-Bras while we beat the Prussians at Ligny. It is not for
me to say how far I contributed to that victory, but it is well
known that the Hussars of Conflans covered themselves with glory.
They fought well, these Prussians, and eight thousand of them
were left upon the field. The Emperor thought that he had done
with them, as he sent Marshal Grouchy with thirty-two thousand
men to follow them up and to prevent their interfering with his
plans. Then with nearly eighty thousand men, he turned upon
these "Goddam" Englishmen. How much we had to avenge upon them,
we Frenchmen--the guineas of Pitt, the hulks of Portsmouth, the
invasion of Wellington, the perfidious victories of Nelson! At
last the day of punishment seemed to have arisen.

Wellington had with him sixty-seven thousand men, but many of
them were known to be Dutch and Belgian, who had no great desire
to fight against us. Of good troops he had not fifty thousand.
Finding himself in the presence of the Emperor in person with
eighty thousand men, this Englishman was so paralysed with fear
that he could neither move himself nor his army. You have seen
the rabbit when the snake approaches. So stood the English upon
the ridge of Waterloo. The night before, the Emperor, who had
lost an aide-de- camp at Ligny, ordered me to join his staff, and
I had left my