Napoleon had commenced those daring and rapid movements, which for a time
threw the peace of the world into the scale of fortune, and which nothing
but the interposition of a ruling Providence could avert from their
threatened success. As the the ----th dragoons wheeled into a field
already deluged with English blood, on the heights of Quatre Bras, the eye
of its gallant colonel saw a friendly battalion falling beneath the sabres
of the enemy's cuirassiers. The word was passed, the column opens, the
sounds of the quivering bugle were heard for a moment above the roar of
the cannon and the shouts of the combatants; the charge, sweeping like a
whirlwind, fell heavily on those treacherous Frenchmen, who to-day had
sworn fidelity to Louis, and to-morrow intended lifting their hands i
