occupying Quatre Bras, to fall on the Prussians' rear; but as he did not appear, the signal for attack was given at 4 p.m. For five hours two hundred pieces of ordnance deluged the field with blood; during which period, the French and Prussians, alternately vanquished and victors, disputed the ground hand to hand, and foot to foot, so that no less than seven times in succession, Ligny was taken and lost. The Prussians were driven from Ligny with the loss of 15,000 men and 21 guns, besides 10,000 stragglers, while the loss of the French was scarcely 7,000.
At Quatre Bras, an equally desperate conflict was raging between Wellington and Ney. On learning the defeat of the Prussians, however, the Duke fell back, on the morning of the 17th, through Gemappe to Waterloo. Napoleon meanwhile drew up his army on both sides of the road, from Charleroi to Brussels. The field on which the immortal strife was to be decided, extends about two miles from Hougoumont, on the right, to La Haye, on the left—the great road from Brussels to Charleroi, running through the centre of the position, which is about three quarters of a mile south of the village of Waterloo, and three hundred yards in front of the farm house of Mont St. Jean. The British army occupied the crest of a range of eminences crossing the high road at right angles; while the French occupied a line of ridges on the opposite side of the valley.
The night of the 17th was dreadful, and seemed to presage the calamities of the day, as the violent and incessant rains did not allow a moment's rest to the army. In the morning, the British army was still seen on its ground; and Napoleon who had feared they would retreat during the night, exclaimed with exultation—"At last I have them, those English!" Between 10 and 11 o'clock, Napoleon commenced a furious attack upon the British post at Hougoumont; but this important position was maintained through
