That junction was ably and certainly accomplished, though all Napoleon's skill in manœuvring and activity of movement were used to prevent it.
On the morning of Thursday the 15th, the French drove in the Prussian outposts on the west bank of the Sambre, and at length assaulted Charleroi: the purpose of Napoleon was now apparent—to crush Blucher before he could concentrate his own army, before Wellington could aid him, and then fall upon Brussels. In spite, however, of a severe loss, Ziethen maintained his ground so long at Charleroi, that the alarm spread along the whole Prussian line: he then fell back in an orderly manner upon a position between Ligny and Amand; where Blucher, at the head of his whole army, excepting Bulow's division, which had not yet come from Liege,—awaited Napoleon's attack. Bonaparte had thus failed in his attempt to beat the Prussian divisions in detail; it remained to be seen whether the second part of his plan, that of wholly separating Blucher from Wellington's army, would succeed.
At half-past one o'clock of the same day, a Prussian officer came to the Duke of Wellington's quarters at Brussels, with the intelligence of the French movements. By two o'clock the Duke issued orders to all his cantonments, for the divisions to break up, and effeet a junction on the left at Quatre Bras: there the British general intended his whole force to assemble, by eleven o'clock of the following night, the 16th. That night a ball which was to have been given at the Duchess of Richmond's hotel in Brussels, was intended to be put off; but as on reflection it seemed expedient that the inhabitants should be as little as possible acquainted with the progress of events, at the Duke of Wellington's request it proeeeded—him self enjoining tho general officers to appear in the ball-room, but each to quit the apartment quietly at ten o'clock, and to join his respeetive division en route.
