The Iola register., 1891-10-16


displayed over here. These Belgian
buildings are particularly we'll adorn-
ed. And the lady guide who shows
them to you has the sweetest voice,
and the most delicious accent, and the
cunningest turn of the head, and the
prettiest gestures, and the longest fin
ger nails you are likely to meet in a
months travel.
There are great many picture gal
leries i'm Brussels, but there is one
that il worth all the rest, and that is
the Wiertz museum. And there is
one picture i'm this that Is worth all
the others; and that is Napoleon in
Hell.n 1t is large canvass crowded
with figures, of which Napoleon is the
central one. The lurid and sulphur
Gus flames from the everlasting fires
under his feet are curling about him,
little children, made orphans by his
ambition. are demanding of him to
give back their fathers, wives and
mothers are heaping reproaches upon
him for the loss of their husbands and
sons, men manned In battle are thrust
ing their severed limbs before his eyes
with the fiercest threats and maledic-
tions. But through it all, amid the
tears and the reproaches and the
curses and the threats, amid the din
and smoke of hell itself, the Man of
Destiny stands with arms folded and
lips set, unmoved, inpassiDle-KING
to the last! I hope there was a
way found, through the depths of In
finite Mercy, for Napoleon to enter
into heaven,-for want to see him
sometime. But if he failed, and came
short of that eternal weight of glory,
and if he is doomed forever to stand
amid flames and amid reproaches and
threats and curses, then hope he will
stand, as this picture represents him,
grimly defiant through all eternity.
When man starts out to be King let
him be King and take the consequent
ces like King.
After thinking of that picture 1t Is
easy to think of Waterloo. Indeed L
have found it impossible not to think
of Waterloo ever since 1 came to Brus-
sells. The names are so indissolubly
linked together that even when the
city is brightest, busiest and gayest l
cannot forget the "hurrying to and
fro" and the mounting IN hot haste"
of that dread nightwhen "the cannon's
awful roar" announced the beginning
of the battle, and can't look upon the
fine promenades and the happy crowds
thronging them without seeing also the
sombre plain and the solemn mound
that mark the spot where the Sun of
Austerlitz went down forever.
The battlefield is twelve miles from
Brussels and easily reached by fire.
quent trains. improved the first op-
portunity to visit it, and was shown
over the ground by an old man who
learned the story from the lips of his
father who witnessed the battle and
helped care for the wounded and bury
the dead on the day following. a
walk of three quarters of mile from
the little station of Braine d. Allied,
along road bordered with blood-red
poppies-could there be a filter growth
from such a field!-brought us to the foot
of the huge mound of earth erected by
the Dutch to commemorate the battle.
This mound is perfect cone 200 feet
high and is surmounted by u huge
cast iron lion which stands on gran
ite pedestal upon the plinth of which
is inscribed in gold letters the date of
the battle, lie dixhuitieme JUN
MDCCCXV" and nothing more. I had
always supposed that this was the
British lion, but it is not. The Brit
ish lion carries its tail on its back,
while this the Dutch lion, has his be-
tween his legs! Nevertheless it is an
imposing looking beast as it stands
with its left fore paw resting on a
cannon ball and with its head lifted,
looking off defiantly toward the south,
toward France. The mound is ascend
ed by flight of stone steps and when
the summit is reached the fatefulest
battlefield that this earth can show is
spread out at your feet like map. A
quarter of mile away to the east is
the crossroads where Wellington stood
during the battle, and the little village
of La Belle Alliance, where Napoleon
had his headquarters, is three quar-
ters of mile to the south of that. On
the road between them a quarter of a
mile from Wellington, is the farm
house La Hale Saint, which was so
fiercely fought for on that day. The
sunken road which swallowed up two
lines of the French Cuirassiers until
the bodies of men and horses made a
bridge for the third line to pass over,
runs east and west near the north base
of the mound. Half a mile west of the
monument is HuguemOnt, where the
battle was begun. And here, where
the monument stands, was the center
eff the British position, where the Old
Guard died because it did not know
how to surrender. That last charge
began near La Belle Alliance. In two
hours and half it ended here. And
our guide said that his father, walk