— 454 — 



"past a favourite resort of Marie Antoinette, the 

 Duchess of Orleans and Marie Louise. What various 

 memories do they not recall, alas ! How many joyful, 

 how many sorrowful thoughts have brooded over this 

 little realm of Fairyland now so silent, so deserted ! 



THE LION MOUNT OF THE WATERLOO PLAIN. 



Taking train at the Station duMidi, at Brussels, we 

 soon reached Braine l'Alleud, twelve miles from there 

 a small village adjoining that of Waterloo, the hotel 

 omnibus landed us in half an hour, in the heart of the 

 world-famous battlefield, where on a Sunday in June, 

 1815, was decided the fate of Europe. The Plain of 

 Waterloo, once so profusely soaked with french blood, 

 and formerly visited chiefly by Englishmen, is now 

 daily scanned and studied by Frenchmen since the 

 publication of Victor Hugo's thrilling romance — " Les 

 Miserables," in which it is so masterly described. This 

 vast undulating expanse, clothed in June, 1815, we are 

 told, with waiving, luxuriant harvests of wheat and 

 barley, has much altered in aspect since that period ; 

 you all know the exclamation of the Iron Duke on 

 revisiting the scene of his former triumph with the 

 Prince Eegent : " They have changed my battle field." 

 After bolting our bread and cheese, and bidre de Lou- 

 vain, a delightful beverage, we left the Hotel du 

 Musde with others, and in a few minutes reached the 

 flight of steps which lead to the summit of the Waterloo 

 Mount, in height one hundred and fifty feet, and half a 

 mile in circumference, crowned by a huge gilt lion 

 conspicuously visible from Braine l'Alleud, in fact all 

 over the Plain of Waterloo. 



'Tis not my intention to attempt a description of the 

 ever memorable struggle, which on the 18th June, 

 sixty-seven years ago, changed the map of the world by 

 relegating to the rock of St. Helena, the great disturber 

 and enslaver of nations ; the story fills a thousand 



