Note 24 — Chapter XIII

At one time I thought this a French ruse de guerre. I remember the man perfectly, with his silver arrow and chain attached to his black shoulder-belt. In Sir John Sinclair’s ‘Translation of Baron Muffling’s Account,’ London, 1816, and at p. 29, I find that about 4 P.M., whilst the cuirassiers, after charging through the 1st British line, were roaming over the interval between it and the 2d, “the enemy advanced a battalion on the plain of the platform, at hardly 500 yards’ distance from the position, so as, perhaps, to establish his infantry on this side of the little wood of Hougoumont and in La Haye Sainte.” Could this have been the one? At p. 35 he says, “The shot from Bulow’s artillery reached the British, and the Duke was obliged to send notice of it.” Query—Did the Duke observe this himself, or was it communicated to him by my black hussar?