Brussels

Fanny and her party arrived in Brussels on 26th March 1815. Fanny left Brussels on 19th July having been there for almost 4 months. The absence of her husband for much of the time and lack of money restricted her life, but she was able to keep up a modest social life thanks to a few close friends.

Fanny and her party, Princess d’Hénin and M. de Lally went first to the house of Madame de Maurville who was a cousin of Princess d’Hénin and also of Frédéric de la Tour du Pin. Fanny had also known her in England as she was one of the émigrées whom Fanny met.

320 rue de la Montagne (Madame de Maurville)

“At Brussels all was quiet and tame. The Belgians had lost their original antipathy to Bonaparte, without having yet had time to acquire any warmth of interest for the Bourbons…In the sick room to which I was immediately consigned, I met with every sort of kindness from Madame de Maurville, whom I had known intimately at Paris. Madame de Maurville was a woman that the Scotch would call long-headed ; she was sagacious, penetrating, and gifted with strong humour. She saw readily the vices and follies of mankind, and laughed at them heartily, without troubling herself to grieve at them.”

286 La Rue de Montagne

‘Madame de Maurville soon found us a house, of which we took all but the Ground floor: the rez de chaussée was mine, the first-floor was Madame d’Henin’s and that above it was for M. de Lally.’

Somewhere were squeezed in a man and a maidservant for the Princess and a valet for M. de Lally plus a helper they had hired in common. Fanny wrote to her husband that there would be a room for him. She also told him that she had no clothes and possessed only a small change of linen, and 2 mourning gowns.

‘It was near the Cathedral, and still in a prolongation of Madame de Maurville’s street, la Rue de la Montague.
Nothing was known at Brussels, nothing at all, of the fate of the Bodyguard, or of the final destination of Louis 18. How circumstances of such infinite moment, nay, notoriety, could be kept from public knowledge, I can form no idea;…Ten wretched days passed on in this torturing ignorance, from the 19th to the 29th of March, 1815, when Madame de Maurville flew into my apartment, with all the celerity of fifteen, and all the ardour of twenty years of age, to put into my hands a letter from General d’Arblay, addressed to herself, to enquire whether she had any tidings to give him of my existence, and whether I had been heard of at Brussels, or was known to have travelled to Bordeaux.’

On the 2nd April he walked into her room. M d’Arblay rode for 26 hours in driving rain and was so ill with a bilious fever that he collapsed and for two days was too weak to leave his bed.

For almost six weeks life returned to a semblance of normality as Fanny nursed her husband back to strength. They promenaded each afternoon along the ramparts of the city; and drove out into the Parc de Bruxelles or would walk along the very fashionable Allée Verte.

Allée Verte

Was beyond the walls of the town – two rows of thick lime trees – leads to bridge over canal to the Laeken Road. Fanny says that M.d’Arblay

“my dearest Friend had driven me, occasionally, in the famous allée verte which the inhabitants of Brussels consider as the first Promenade in the World; but it by no means answered to such praise in my Eyes; it is certainly very pretty; but too regular, too monotonous, & too flat to be eminently beautiful; though from some parts the most distant from the City there are views of cottages & hamlets that afford very great pleasure.”

For all of this, she was very disappointed not to have been on the Allée when the Duke of Wellington and Prince Blücher rode up and down there “amidst a concourse that included almost every inhabitant of Brussels but myself”.

M.d’A was summoned to a private audience with Louis XVIII in Ghent, at which he was given orders for “a new and important mission’. This was to round up and interrogate deserters from Napoleon’s army and persuade them to fight in the service of the French King. M. d’Arblay was seconded to the Prussian General Kleist von Nollendorf and sent off to Trèves.

Chateau of Laeken

Before leaving for duty, M.d’Arblay “determined that we should visit the Palais de Laken,– which had been the Dwelling assigned as the Palace for the Empress Josephine, by Buonaparte, at the time of his Divorce…My dearest husband drove me in his Cabriolet,…The drive – the Day – the road – the Views – our new horses – all were delightful…It was, at this moment wholly uninhabited, & shewn to us by some common servant. It is situated in a delicious Park à l’anglaise, and with a taste, a polish, & an elegance, that parts it from the charge of frippery or Gaudiness, though its ornaments & embellishments are all of the liveliest gaiety…”

April 22

“I opened a new source, though not an unexpected one, of tumultuous inquietude that preyed the more deeply upon my spirits & my happiness…the military call for M. d’Arblay arrived from Gant (Ghent – where the armée royale were based). He was ordered on a secret mission to Luxembourg. The plan was to collect, & examine, all the soldiers who were willing to return from the army of Buonaparté to that of Louis 18. Eleven other General officers were named to similar posts, all on frontier towns, for the better convenience of receiving the Volunteers”.

The necessity of having Apartments to ourselves, with a Dining Room for the Adjoint & aides de Camp, made us now relinquish our pic-nic with Madam d’Henin & M. de Lally, to go to a Dwelling in the Marché au Bois.

1358 Marché au Bois

near the Grand’Place and close to Mme de Maurville at 320 rue de la Montagne, in one of the city’s network of market streets. The rue du Marché au Bois was a long trapezium shape connecting the rue des Paroissiens to the rue de l’Impératrice. This is where, for five centuries, the people of Brussels had obtained their supplies of firewood. With the construction of the North-South Railway Junction, all the houses of the Marché au Bois were demolished in 1910.

Fanny writes to H.R. H. Princess Elizabeth that “I now live quite alone (M. d’Arblay had left on 13 May)– in a very good apartment, though amazingly cheap… The Duke of Wellington lives here in the simplest manner possible for his high Rank – and though, between visiting military posts, conferring with officers of all description, & receiving couriers of all nations, he has not a moment to breath, he yet never looks harried or absent.”

Dress worn at the time - in the Wellington Museum

Rue Ducale

The houses in Rue Ducale face the Park and back on to the ramparts of the town. In this street is the Salle du Grand Concert where the Duke of Wellington hosted a famous benefit concert given by the celebrated Madame Catalani. on 27th April. Fanny describes it:

“in defiance of my general seclusion, Music tempted me one night to accompany M. d’A to hear Catalani sing at the Great Concert Room where were the Reine des pays Bas, & the Hered. prince – the voice of Catalani charmed & astonished me – but well as she is worth looking at besides being heard, my Eyes were rivetted all the night upon The Hopes of the World, the Duke of Wellington who was just facing me…”

In her diary she elaborates:

“I looked at him watchfully all Night, and was charmed with every turn of his countenance, with his nobel and singular physiognomy, & his Eagle Eye, and Aquiline, forcible Nose. He was gay even to sportiveness all the Evening, conversing with the officers around him on terms of intimacy and pleasantry. He never was seated…he seemed enthusiastically charmed with Catalana, ardently applauding whatsoever she sang, – – except the Rule Britania: and there, with sagacious reserve, he listened in utter silence. Who ordered it I know not; but he felt it was injudicious, in every country but our own, to give out a Chorus of Rule, Brittania! Britannia, Rule the Waves! – And when an Encore was begun to be Vociferated from his officers, he instantly crushed it, by a commanding air of disapprobation; and thus offered me an opportunity of seeing how magnificently he could quit his convivial familiarity for imperious dominion, when occasion might call for the transformation”.

Rue Royale

The Duke of Wellington’s headquarters were in Rue Royale which was a broad street on the opposite side of the park to the Rue Ducale. From the Place Royale troops marched down Rue de Namur towards the Namur Gate. Fanny says:

“ the Duke and his company came into the Park, to gratify the awaiting multitude, that were swarming about his door and windows…he looked remarkably well. All the mob followed quietly & well behaved…Since his return to military command, he has an Air the most commanding, a high, superior port, & a look of animated spirit. I think he has grown taller! He has just taken a much larger and nobler House (on rue de la Montagne dur Parc at the corner of the rue Royale that runs along the north-west side of the Parc de Bruxelles)” Fanny tells Mrs Locke in a letter that “the Duke of Wellington has just taken a larger house which has spread a report of Peace throughout Brussels!”

Parc Public

“I strolled daily in the Park, or on the Place Royale, formed by very handsome white stone edifices. To the Botanic Garden (Parc Public that faces the royal palace – ancient garden was landscaped and replanted with many unusual shrubs and trees in 1774) but after Kew Garden it appeared a mere Doll’s toy: on the Ramparts, whence the views are in some parts charming…”

Rue Namur

Rue Namur – where Mme de la Tour du Pin took lodgings -Fanny went there frequently but on one occasion she went to a large party to celebrate the birthday of Madame de Maurville –

“& I just missed meeting the famous Lady Caroline Lamb, who had been there at Dinner, and whom I saw, however, crossing the Place Royale, from Made de la Tour du Pin’s to the grand Hotel.”

Rue d’Assaut

Fanny’s friends, Mr and Mrs Walter Boyd (he was a financier) lived in this street. It was 5 minutes’ walk from rue de la Montagne – both streets between Grand’ Place and Place Sainte-Gudule. In a letter to M. d’Arblay on 29 May she writes

“10 at night. Eh bien, I am returned (from the Boyds) after a long visit & conference. They were already apprized of the notion that a coup de main might bring the Enemy hither — & in that case, they mean to go to Anvers – whither, should I find nothing else more eligible, I shall accompany them…”

Rue de Louvain

Where the British Commandant’s Office was situated. Fanny rushed there when she was trying to get money before going to Trèves to the rescue of her husband.

Protestant Chapel

“The protestant Church was here open to me, & the King & Queen of the Netherlands went to it themselves, with their family…It was the royal chapel beside the Museum.”

After the battle she writes further:

“Brussels, now, which had seemed for so many days, from the unremitting passage of maimed, dying, or dead, a mere outdoors Hospital, revived, or, rather, was invigorated to something above its native state; for from uninteresting tameness it became elevated to spirit, consequence, & vivacity. On the following Sunday, I had the gratification of hearing, at the Protestant Chapel the Te Deum for the Grand Victory, in presence of the King & Queen of the Low Countries – or Holland, – & of the Dowager Princess of Orange, & the young Warriour, her Grandson. This Prince looked so ill, so meager, so weak, from his half cured Wounds, that to appear on this occasion, seemed another, & perhaps not less dangerous effort of heroism, to add to those which had so recently distinguished him in the field.”

End of the Duchess of Richmond's Ball

The former coaching inn which became Wellington’s headquarters

The Duke of Wellington speaking at Apsley House in London

The various News of this horrible day has altered my projects every hour. All, at first, was ill – and I accompanied the Boyds to the water side, to embark in a Barge for Anvers: but our vessel was seized for some wounded officers, & we could get no other. The news then changed, &, in the Evening, I was assured Lord Wellington & M Blücher united had gained a complete victory. 800 prisoners were brought in …but now, the last news of all, tells us the Enemy is working at turning the right wing of Lord Wellingon who is in great danger, & that Brussels is threatened with being taken tomorrow morning…. By Monday morning June 19 she is writing “Mr Boyd and his family have been upon La place Royale to see the prisoners who were almost all severely wounded, & were in immense numbers. & to see 2 tri-coloured Drapeaux, & two large & beautiful Eagles. The English have continued arriving on foot, in carts, & on Horseback, grievously wounded also. Never yet, all agree, has there been so bloody a battle fought! We have had as yet no consistent details – but the continued sight of the maimed, wounded, mutilated & tortured victims to this exterminating warfare is shocking & afflicting beyond description. News came that Brussels was saved, the enemy had fled…”No official news is given since 3 in the morning of the 19th -! Lord Wellingon & M. Blücher were then both following the Enemy…

(Note; only Blücher and the Prussians continued the pursuit during the night of 18-19 June. Wellington’s army was exhausted and his cavalry had been virtually destroyed by repeated charges.)

On June 20 she wrote to HRH Princess Elizabeth:

“In traversing the streets, the disorder & despair I witnessed strongly affected me…The shops (open here ordinarily on Sundays) were suddenly shut up – the goods hidden – the common people in groups, always curious, however trembling, in the middle of the streets, the others at the windows, & running away from them, alternately every other minute – & poor women with Babes at their breasts screaming aloud their apprehensions that their Infants would be all victims! With Me de Maurville, I remained shut up till about 10 o’clock at night – witnessing from the window – continual, incessant arrivals of wounded, maimed, ill, or dying! On foot, on Horse, on Brancards; on carts & in waggons..at last an English gentleman, belonging to some army office, came in to tell us he was just returned from the Field of Battle! & he thought all was going on well – and that…Les Francais were indeed & by hundreds arrived – as Prisoners! The D of Wellington is just gone back to the army. He came hither, yesterday, when the Battle was over, and a long pursuit of B- who has, however, escaped once more: but so beaten that how he will be received in France, or whether received at all, is doubtful…Meanwhile the D de FitzJames is commissioned to go from the Duke to Louis 18 to advise his Maj. de se rendre à Tournai – & thence to go at once into France…How astonishing! The D. then thinks this great Battle already decisive!”

La Monnaie du Mont

Battle of Waterloo

Napoleon was defeated and surrendered in May 1814 after 23 years of nearly continuous war. The Treaty of Paris was followed by the Congress of Vienna, an international diplomatic conference to reconstitute the European political order after Napoleon’s downfall. On 7 March the Congress heard of Napoleon’s escape from Elba and on13 March the great powers (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia) and their allies at the Congress of Vienna signed a declaration which outlawed Napoleon, beginning the War of the Seventh Coalition The Duke of Wellington, who was there in Vienna, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British and Dutch-Belgian forces. The Prussians already had an army and Russia and Austria were building theirs.

Throughout May, a continual procession of Prussian, Austrian, English, Scottish, Bavarian and Russian soldiers passed through Brussels on their way to the plains of Waterloo, some ten miles outside the city towards the border with France.

Fanny says in her letter to Princess Elizabeth that:

“the general opinion here is that hostilities will not begin till the middle or end of June. How tremendous will be the opening battle! & how big with consequences…”

It rained virtually every day during the fortnight preceding the battle, creating the muddy conditions that had such a disastrous effect on the morale of Napoleon’s troops as they struggled to retreat from the allies.

June 9 – week before the battle began Fanny talked to a British officer who told her that the Duke of Wellington was completely prepared but that he wanted to defer the conflict until the harvest was over, so that there would be enough grain to feed the survivors.

June 16 she writes that there is hardly a day without rain.

“All idea of Buonaparte’s coming hither is now scouted. ‘Tis laughed at. Nor are Duke of Wellington’s forces here at present. The brave Highlanders are going forward…”

(Battle of Quatre Bras which delayed Napoleon and gave Wellington time to concentrate his forces for the main battle of Waterloo.)

But on June 15, Fanny awakened by noises in the street below. The Duke of Wellington with fifty of his red-coated officers, had attended the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, held in showroom of coach-builder in rue de la Blanchisserie, where he had revealed that Napoleon had begun his invasion of ‘les pays bas’. The ball ended around 2 am on 16 June with the farewells of the daughters of the Duchess of Richmond to the Duke of Brunswick and to James, Lord Hay, both of whom were killed later that day at Quatre Bras.

“…early in the night, a Bugle Horn in Marché aux Bois called me to the window. (the Marché au Bois being open to several streets, & I saw light gleaming from some of the chambers in the Neighbourhood) I saw a few soldiers (probably the Brunswickers passing through Brussels from their encampment north of the city) & thought them collecting for some change of sentinels: but about 3 in the morning I was awakened by the Hubbub in the street, that made me rise & run hastily again to the window: it was not light, & a sound of a few voices, in passing stragglers, made me once more conclude there was nothing material, & go quietly to Bed again. But at six o’clock Friday the 16th the same sounds called me forth to examine the neighbourhood…the Enemy has broken into La Belgique (the French were at Charleroi)… That day, & this which is now finishing, June 17th I passed in hearing the cannon -!- seeing the wounded & disabled return, & the ready-armed & vigorous victims march forth to the same destruction. – I was with Princess d’Henin at least 10 times – spent 2 hours chez Me La Tour du Pin – who was returned to Brussels – all changing plans 20 times an hour…”

On June 18 Sunday, (Battle of Waterloo) Fanny describes being interrupted in her room by

“the sound of a Howl, violent, loud, affrighting, & issuing from many voices. I ran to the Window, & saw the Marchée aux Bois suddenly filling with a rushing populace, pouring in from all its avenues, & hurrying on, rapidly, & yet in a scrambling manner…while Women with Children in their arms, or clinging to their cloathes, ran screaming out of doors: & cries , though not a word was ejaculated, filled the air: and from every house, I saw Windows closing, & Shutters fastening:… a burst into my apartment, to announce that the French were come! ..The Alerte I learned the next day was utterly false. The French, indeed, were coming: but not in triumphantly; they were Prisoners…"

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron written while he travelled through Belgium and up the Rhine to Switzerland. A visit to Waterloo inspired thoughts of frustration at the vanity of Napoleon’s military ambition, contrasted praise for an English officer – but lead to futility of war. Vivid is his poetry about the Duchess’s Ball and the romance of the revellers (XXI – XXVI)

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!
How in an hour the power which gave annuls
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!
In ‘pride of place’ here last the eagle flew,
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through:
Ambition’s life and labours all were vain;
He wears the shattered links of the world’s broken chain.

XIX.

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit,
And foam in fetters, but is Earth more free?
Did nations combat to make ONE submit;
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?
What! shall reviving thraldom again be
The patched-up idol of enlightened days?
Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we
Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze
And servile knees to thrones? No; PROVE before ye praise!

XX.

If not, o’er one fall’n despot boast no more!
In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears
For Europe’s flowers long rooted up before
The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears,
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord
Of roused-up millions: all that most endears
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens’ tyrant lord.

XXI.

There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

XXII.

Did ye not hear it?—No; ’twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.
But hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is—it is—the cannon’s opening roar!

XXIII.

Within a windowed niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound, the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

XXIV.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated: who would guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

XXV.

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips—’The foe! They come! they come!’

XXVI.

And wild and high the ‘Cameron’s gathering’ rose,
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears.

My trip to Brussels May 2022

It is very difficult to imagine what Brussels was like at that time. How was Fanny able to watch from her window the wounded soldiers coming back from Waterloo? Brussels was bombed in two world wars and in the last half of the 20th century it became the de facto capital of the European Union hosting a number of the principal EU institutions in the European Quarter, and has, as a result been enlarged with commercial buildings and private homes and apartments. There is now a master plan with planned architectural competitions so that the city grows in an orderly way.

The centre of the city is still easy to walk around, though that cannot be said for driving with the roads obstructed by cranes, trucks and other building equipment or being dug up for the installation of services. However, we were able to walk over to Rue de Blanchisserie near the corner with Rue Neuve but there was no sign of the coach builders showroom where the Duchess of Richmond held her Ball. The whole block was taken up with City2 Shopping Centre.

Our hotel was just behind La Monnaie/ du Munt (opera and arts centre, originally built in 1700; in 1815 the building was dilapidated and obsolescent and was replaced by a completely new theatre in 1819, this burned to the ground in 1855 so there was a new building which was renovated in 1985).

From our hotel we could walk up the hill to Rue de la Montagne which ran down to the Grote Market. But the area was so built up with roundabouts for buses and cars sweeping by that there was little to be seen of Brussels in 1815. The Boulevarde de l’Imperatrice Kelterin now passes the top of Rue de la Montagne and across a green park is the Cathedral, currently being repaired. Rue d’Assaut which Fanny mentions as being where the Boyd family lived, is one street away.

Beyond the Cathedral is the Parc de Bruxelles which Fanny and her husband walked in. However, she preferred the garden of the Royal Palace. It is currently closed but I was able to photograph through the gates thanks to the co-operation of the security guards.

Rue Ducale, where concert by Catalani was held, is also currently being renovated and is closed to the public. However, there are other places now to hear music. We went to a beautiful concert given by the Dutch violinist Janine Jansen in the Henry Le Boeuf Hall, Bozar the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts. Bozar seems to have taken over one section of the Rue Ravensteinstraat as we also ate at the Bozar restaurant across the road. The Protestant Church looks exactly as when Fanny knew it.

Aerial view of the City2 shopping centre on Rue de la Blanchisserie

Looking down Rue de la Blanchisserie towards the City2 shopping centre

Our hotel which was formerly an Abbey so to keep up the atmosphere, chanting of monks plays in the lifts.
In the building next door the painter Jacques Louis David lived and died in 1825 — Our hotel which was formerly an Abbey so to keep up the atmosphere, chanting of monks plays in the lifts. In the building next door the painter Jacques Louis David lived and died in 1825

Rue d’Assaut looking towards the cathedral

Top of Rue d’Assaut looking across Bde de l’Imperatrice to the National Bank of Brussels

Palace of Charles of Lorraine, in the Royal Quarter of Brussels

Waterloo

Trains run every half hour from Brussels stations to Waterloo and the trip takes about half an hour.
In 1815 the village of Waterloo 20 kms south was linked to Brussels by a single paved road. It was a mainly agricultural region, a rolling landscape, with many scattered villages, farms, fields, woods and windmills. The rain, horses, artillery and the battle devastated the land. Nowadays there is no battleground to be seen, only green fields and woods. The Memorial which is built entirely underground, was inaugurated in 2015. It has a “Memory Wall” with commemorative plaques dedicated to the 1815 combatants. Accessed via the Memorial is the Lion Mound which was erected by William I, King of the Netherlands between 1824-1826 to commemorate the battle at the Quatre Bras crossroads on June 16 and is situated at the spot where his eldest son, Prince William of Orange-Nassau, was wounded.

We walked down from the station to the Museum in the former coaching Inn that was Wellington’s headquarters. It was here that he wrote his famous victory dispatch in the late evening of 18 June and from which the battle got its name. The following is an account by John Robert Hume who was visiting the Duke of Wellington after the Battle of Waterloo:

“I came back from the field of Waterloo with Sir Alexander Gordon, whose leg I was obliged to amputate on the field late in the evening. He died rather unexpectedly in my arms about half-past three in the morning on the 19th. I was hesitating about disturbing the Duke, when Sir Charles Vere Brooke came. He wished to take his orders about the movement of the troops. I went upstairs and tapped gently at the door, when he told me to come in. He had as usual taken off his clothes but had not washed himself. As I entered, he sat up in bed, his face covered in the dust and sweat of the previous day, and extended his hand to me, which I took and held in mine, whilst I told him of Gordon’s death, and of such of the casualties as had come to my knowledge. He was much affected. I felt tears dropping fast upon my hand and looking towards him, saw them chasing one another in furrows over his dusty cheeks. He brushed them suddenly away with his left hand, and said to me in a voice tremulous with emotion, “Well, thank God, I don’t know what it is to lose a battle; but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one’s friends”

By the evening of June 18, the Allies had won the Battle. The Duke of Wellington and Field-Marshal Blücher met at La Belle-Alliance to shake hands and speak. Despite Napoleon’s strategy to keep the two armies separated, they had been in contact throughout the battle and were able to come to each other’s aid which was the key to their success, as predicted by the Duke of Wellington who had said that he and Blücher together would be able to defeat Napoleon.

Each room was filled with memorabilia of the battle, clothes, portraits, guns, maps. It was a painful story of a terrible battle with a victorious end for the opponents of Napoleon. The representatives of the victorious countries acted on the decisions concerning the new Europe taken at the Congress of Vienna. The Treaty of Paris in November 1815 drew up new borders for France, which had to pay large amounts in compensation to the victorious Allies. The treaty was designed to ensure that France would not again challenge the new outlines of Europe, and would not rebel against its restored monarchy.

The first room was the one in which Wellington’s aide-de-camp Sir Alexander Gordon had died. There was his wooden bed and the grieving messages of Wellington including a letter to Gordon’s brother Lord Aberdeen

Duke of Wellington and Field-Marshal Blucher

Delegates at the Congress of Vienna 1815 - watercolour by Jean-Baptiste Isabey in the Royal Collection. M. Frédéric de la Tour du Pin Gouvernet is at the back, 7th from the left

On the wall behind Reception at the Hotel Warwick, Brussels.
They represent Duke of Wellington and ten battles he fought. — On the wall behind Reception at the Hotel Warwick, Brussels. They represent Duke of Wellington and ten battles he fought.