Note 154 — Chapter LXXXIX
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Some people have been silly enough to consider the Duke of Wellington's being surprised as a thing indisputable, because the news of the French advance first reached him in a ball-room. It must be supposed that these good men's idea of war is, that a general should sit sentinel with his truncheon in his hand, like a statue in the midst of a city market-place, until the tidings come which call him to the field.
"Free is his heart who for his country fights; He on the eve of battle may resign Himself to social pleasure—sweetest then, When danger to the soldier's soul endears The human joy that never may return."
Home's Douglas.—S.
"The fiction of the Duke of Wellington having been surprised on this great occasion, has maintained its place in almost all narratives of the war for fifteen years. The duke's magnanimous silence under such treatment, for so long a period, will be appreciated by posterity. The facts of the case are now given from the most unquestionable authority. At half-past one o'clock, P.M., of Thursday the 15th, a Prussian officer of high rank arrived at Wellington's headquarters in Brussels, with the intelligence of Napoleon's decisive operations. By two o'clock, orders were despatched to all the cantonments of the duke's army, for the divisions to break up and concentrate on the left of Quatre-bras his grace's design being that his whole force should be assembled there by eleven o'clock on the next night, Friday the 16th. It was at first intended, to put off a ball announced for the evening of Thursday, at the Duchess of Richmond's hotel in Brussels; but on reflection it seemed highly important that the population of that city should be kept, as far as possible, in ignorance as to the course of events, and the Duke of Wellington desired that the ball should proceed accordingly; nay, the general officers received his commands to appear in the ball room, each taking care to quit the apartment as quietly as possible at ten o'clock, and proceed to join his respective division en route. This arrangement was carried into strict execution. The duke himself retired at twelve o'clock, and left Brussels at six o'clock next morning for Quatre-bras."—Hist. of Nap. Buonaparte, Family Library, vol. ii., p. 309.