ruits, who hardly knew how to handle a musket holding their own against Essling''s and Rivoli''s old troops,--that is what was grand.
Wellington was tenacious; in that lay his merit, and we are not seeking to lessen it: but the least of his foot-soldiers and of his cavalry would have been as solid as he.
The iron soldier is worth as much as the Iron Duke. As for us, all our glorification goes to the English soldier, to the English army, to the English people.
If trophy there be, it is to England that the trophy is due.
The column of Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore on high the statue of a people.
But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion.
She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people.
And as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its head.
As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier, it allows itself to be flogged.
It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a sergeant who had, it appears, saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Paglan, as the English military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports.