WHAT DE JOINVILLE "WAS TO DO. 31 



better. But again come in the vagabond Prussians (bad 

 manners to them !) and spoil all, and, without as much as 

 " by your leave or with your leave," let fly right and left 

 and throw all into a heap, pending the which the nicrht 

 falls, and the French disappear. Such was the end of this 

 " etrange hizarrerie,^'' as the book calls it. " The fault of 

 the Duke becomes his salvation," says Mons. Yalaubelle. 

 He had a forest in his rear, which made retreat impossible, 

 otherwise thrice during the day he would have retreated. 

 That which ought to have ruined him, ended by saving him. 

 This i^ not bad. The Duke was a fool, and the English 

 were cowards. The victory was a grand mistake, voila tout! 

 But the argument proves too much. If such was the low 

 state of the English, what was the state of those who allowed 

 themselves to be conquered by them? If Hougoumont and 

 La Haye Sainte were taken by two o'clock in the day, and 

 the British beaten at all points, how comes it that they 

 were not finished off totally ? Either Napoleon was a 

 clumsy bungler, or the Duke and his army were equal to 

 Leonidas and his Spartans. But this account is a type of 

 many; and, therefore, can we wonder that the French dis- 

 pute our pretensions to military glory ? I verily believe 

 that they regard us as existing on sufferance, and that if 

 at any time they chose to put their arm out we should 

 vanish into infinite space. An old soldier once gravely 

 informed me, that after the taking of Mogador by the Prince 

 de Joinville, it was arranged that he should return by Gi- 

 braltar, and after taking it, that he should capture England, 

 but that something made them change their plan. I said 

 it was unreasonable for the Government to cut out so 



