Fields of waving corn, green woods, fruitful orchards, a pretty farmhouse and a few cottages—such was the plain of Waterloo. And there, on a summer Sunday, nearly a hundred years ago, was fought a famous battle, in which the British troops under the Duke of Wellington beat the French army, and broke the power of the great Napoleon for ever.

"We have them," cried Napoleon as he saw the British drawn up before him. He thought it would be easy to destroy this army, so much smaller than his own, before their friends the Prussians, who were on the way to help them, came up. But he was mistaken. Wellington had placed his foot-soldiers in squares, and though the French horsemen, then the finest soldiers in the world, charged again and again, thes............