An Infamous Army Read Free Page A

been his aide-de-camp.
    "I shall never forget that period of my life," wrote the Prince, forgetting his injuries in a burst of enthusiasm. "I owe everything to it; and if I now may hope to be of use to my country it is to the experience I acquired under him that I have to attribute it."
    Such a frame of mind augured well for the future; but the task of controlling the Prince's martial activities continued to be a difficult one. The British Ambassador to The Hague transferred his establishment to Brussels with the principal motive of assisting Lord Hill in his duty, and found it so arduous that he more than once wrote to the Duke to tell him how necessary was his presence in Brussels. "You will see that I have spared no efforts to keep the Prince quiet," wrote Sir Charles Stuart in his plain style… "Under these circumstances I leave you to judge of the extreme importance we all attach to your early arrival."
    Meanwhile, though the Congress at Vienna might declare Napoleon to be hors la loi, every day saw French Royalists hurrying a little ignominiously over the frontier. Louis XVIII, yet another of Europe's uninspiring monarchs, removed his Court from Paris to Ghent, and placidly explained that he had been all the while impelled, in France, to employ untrustworthy persons because none whom he could trust were fit to be employed. Certainly it did not seem as though anyone except his nephew, the Duc d'Angouleme, had made the least push to be of use in the late crisis. That gentleman had raised a mixed force at Nimes, and was skirmishing in the south of France, egged on by a masterful wife. His brother, the Duc de Berri, who had accompanied his uncle into Belgium, found less dangerous employment in holding slightly farcical reviews of the handful of Royalist troops under his command at Alost.
    These proceedings were not comforting to the anxious, but the proximity of the Prussian Army was more reassuring. But as General Kleist's notions of feeding this Army consisted very simply of causing it to subsist upon the country in which it was quartered, the King of the Netherlands, who held quite different views on the subject, and was besides on bad terms with his Prussian relatives, refused to permit of its crossing , the Meuse. This not unnaturally led to a good deal of bad feeling.
    "Your Lordship's presence is extremely necessary to combine the measures of the heterogeneous force which is destined to defend this country," wrote Sir Charles Stuart to the Duke, with diplomatic restraint.
    Everyone agreed that the Duke's presence was necessary; everyone was sure that once he was in command all the disputes and the difficulties would be immediately settled, even Mr Creevey, who had not been used to set much store by any of "those damned Wellesleys".
    It was wonderful what a change was gradually coming over Mr Creevey's opinions; extraordinary to hear him adverting to the Duke's past victories in Spain, just as though he had never declared them to have been grossly exaggerated. He was still a little patronising about the Duke, but he was going to feel very much safer, tied as he was to Brussels by an ailing wife, when the Duke was at the head of the Army.
    But he thought it very strange that Worth should have had no news from his brother in Vienna. Probe as he might, nothing could be elicited. Colonel Audley had not mentioned the subject of his Chiefs coming.
    Mr Creevey was forced to go away unsatisfied. Sir Peregrine lingered. "I must say, I agree with him, that it's odd of Charles not to have told you when he expects to be here," he complained.
    "My dear Perry, I daresay he might not know," said Lady Worth.
    "Well, when one considers that he has been on the Duke's personal staff since he went back to the Peninsula after your marriage in August of 1812 it seems quite extraordinary he should be so little in Wellington's confidence," said Sir Peregrine.
    His sister drew her worktable towards her, and began to occupy herself with a