At seven o'clock in the evening all was
still. On all sides the French had fled.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BLUCHER AS A WRITER.
Darkness came, and the rain continued. The "dear little angels in
heaven," who, as Blucher said in the morning, wept for joy at the
prospect of a fight, were now perhaps shedding tears of grief at the
many thousands lying on the battle-field with gaping wounds, and
whose last sighs were borne away on the stormy wind of the night.
Blucher rode across the field toward his headquarters; no one was by
his side but his friend, General Gneisenau, and, at some distance
behind them, Christian Hennemann, holding a burning pipe in his
mouth. Absorbed in deep reflections, they were riding along the
dreadful road strewed with dead and wounded soldiers, and through
pools of blood. Even Blucher felt exhausted after the day's work;
his joy was suppressed by the incessant rain that had drenched his
clothes, and by the groans of the dying, which rent his ears and
filled his soul with compassion. But soon overcoming his sadness, he
turned toward Gneisenau. "Well," he said, "this battle we have
gained, and all the world will have to admit it; now let us think
what we may put into our bulletin to tell the people HOW we have
gained it. For ten years past Bonaparte has issued such high-
sounding accounts of his victories that I always felt in my anger as
though my heart were a bombshell ready to burst.
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