The loss on the British side during this dreadful battle was, as the Duke of Wellington, no user of exaggerated expressions, truly termed it, _immense_. One hundred officers slain, five hundred wounded, many of them to death, fifteen thousand men killed and wounded, (independent of the Prussian loss at Wavre,) threw half Britain into mourning. Many officers of distinction fell. It required all the glory, and all the solid advantages, of this immortal day, to reconcile the mind to the high price at which it was purchased. The commander-in-chief, compelled to be on every point of danger, was repeatedly in the greatest jeopardy. Only the Duke himself, and one gentleman, of his numerous staff, escaped unwounded in horse and person.
It would be difficult to form a guess at the extent of the French loss. Besides those who fell in the battle and flight, great numbers deserted. We do not believe, that of 75,000 men, the half were ever again collected under arms.[150]
Having finished our account of this memorable action, we are led to notice the communications and criticisms of Napoleon himself on the subject, partly as illustrative of the narrative, but much more as indicating his own character.
The account of the battle of Waterloo, dictated by Napoleon to Gourgaud, so severely exposed by General Grouchy[151] as a mere military romance, full of gratuitous suppositions, misrepresentations, and absolute falsehoods, accuses the subordinate generals who fought under Buonaparte of having greatly degenerated from their original character. Ney and Grouchy are particularly aimed at; the former by name, the latter by obvious implication. It is said they had lost that energy and enterprising genius by which they had formerly been distinguished, and to which France owed her triumphs. They had become timorous and circumspect in all their operations; and although their personal bravery remains, their greatest object was to compromise themselves as little as possible. This general remark, intended, of course, to pave the way for transferring from the Emperor to his lieutenants the blame of the miscarriage of the campaign, is both unjust and ungrateful. Had they lost energy, who struggled to the very last in the field of Waterloo, long after the Emperor had left the field? Was Grouchy undecided in his operations, who brought his own division safe to Paris, in spite of all the obstacles opposed to him by a victorious army, three times the amount of his own in numbers? Both these officers had given up, for the sake of Napoleon, the rank and appointments which they might have peacefully borne under the Bourbons. Did it indicate the reluctance to commit themselves, with which they are charged, that they ventured on the decided step of joining his desperate career, not only abandoning all regard to their interest and their safety, but compromising their character as men of loyalty in the face of all Europe, and exposing themselves to certain death, if the Bourbons should be successful? Those who fight with the cord around their neck, which was decidedly the case with Grouchy and Ney, must have headed the forlorn hope; and is it consistent with human nature, in such circumstances, to believe that they, whose fortune and safety depended on the victory, personally brave as they are admitted to be, should have loitered in the rear, when their fate was in the balance?