The slaughter among the French at that part of the field was immense, but their case might have been very different had they stood firm and shown front, as British infantry would have done.
One thousand were literally sabred, ridden down, or cut to pieces, two thousand taken prisoners, with two eagles, one by a sergeant of the Greys, and all the drums and colours; a catastrophe which scarcely occupied five minutes’ time, and which Napoleon beheld from his post near La Belle Alliance with sensations which may easily be conceived, for these troops were the flower of his numerous army.
This was about half-past four in the afternoon, and over the whole plain of Waterloo the battle was yet raging with as much fury as ever.
"O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!" _Marmion._
When Ronald again became conscious that he was yet in the land of the living, he found himself in a waggon, the uneasy jolting of which occasioned him great agony. It was driven by two sturdy Flemish peasants, clad in blue blouses and red caps, as he could perceive by the light of the moon: they sang merrily some uncouth song, and appeared to be in a happy state of intoxication.
The Flemings were driving furiously, at a rate which threatened every moment to overturn the vehicle, and it was incessantly bumped against a wall on one side of the highway, or a high foot-path which bordered the other. Ronald often implored and commanded them to drive slower, but they heeded him no more than the wind. However, they were compelled to slacken their speed on approaching Waterloo, where, in a short time, they were brought to a halt altogether, the road being completely choked up with the wounded,—thousands upon thousands of whom were on their way to Brussels on foot, a few on horseback, and many in waggons. It was now midnight, as the toll of a distant church clock announced. A horrible medley filled the air around the place where Stuart’s waggon stopped. The cries of the wounded were piercing. In their agony, strong men were screaming like women, and the appeals for water from their parched tongues were piteous in the extreme. Some of them were men who had been wounded on the 16th at Quatre Bras, but hundreds of the sufferers who were maimed on that occasion, perished under the fury of the next day’s storm in the forest of Soignies, whither they had fled for shelter on the temporary advance of Napoleon.