In the face of disaster, few military commanders in history maintained the British stiff upper lip as well as Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. In mid-June 1815 he attended a ball given by Charlotte Lennox, Duchess of Richmond, in her Brussels home. Her guest list included all the highest nobility and military commanders of the city: Prince William of Orange-Nassau; Frederick, Duke of Brunswick; Lt. Gen. Sir Thomas Picton; right down to 18-year-old Lord James Hay, heir to the Earl of Erroll. “With the exception of three generals, every officer high in the army was to be there seen,” wrote Lady Katherine Arden, daughter of Richard, Baron Alvanley.
If the Richmond home was practically a military headquarters, it was with good reason. In March Napoleon Bonaparte, the former Emperor of France and would-be conqueror of Europe, had escaped exile on Elba. From the Mediterranean to Paris, the heart of Europe rang once more with cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” And that very day reports indicated that France’s 130,000-strong Army of the North had invaded Belgium.
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