I must borrow an illustration--Victor Hugo's letter A. The apex is
Mount St. Jean, the right hand base La Belle Alliance, the left hand
base Hougoumont, the cross bar that sunken road which perhaps changed
the future of Europe, the two sides broad Belgian roads, paved with
square stones and bordered with graceful and lofty poplar trees, their
proud heads waving in every breeze that drifts across this undulating
plain. The Lion's Mound is just below the middle of this cross bar.
Mont St. Jean, La Belle Alliance and Hougoumont, at the three angles
of the triangle, are small villages--scarcely more than hamlets. All
were important points in the fortunes of that memorable 18th of June,
1815. Hougoumont, with its chateau and wall, in some sense was like a
fortress.
Go with me if you will in imagination to the summit of the Lion's
Mound. A flight of 225 stone steps will take us there, a toilsome
ascent in this chilling air and this persistent rain. Toward Mont
St. Jean, the surface of the ground is rolling, the waves of it high
enough to conceal standing men from view.
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