A Clairvoyant Vision of the Battle of Waterloo

A Clairvoyant Vision of the Battle of Waterloo The Field of Waterloo, J.M.W. Turner, 1818, Tate, Britain. Thanks to the Two Nerdy History Girls for sharing. http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2015/06/aftermath-turners-field-of-waterloo-1818.html

A CLAIRVOYANT VISION OF WATERLOO.

The phenomenon of the spectral rehearsal of tragic events in the scenes which may have occurred is familiar to students of psychical research. There was, as has been frequently remarked, something in nature like a compound of Edison’s kinetiscope and phonograph, which, when a certain mysterious spring is inadvertently touched, displays before the astonished beholder the spectral semblance of the action that occurred long ago. The story of Mr. Light is, however, so recent and so vivid, and it relates to so famous a battle, that I have much pleasure in reproducing it here.

Mr. Light, editor of the Herts Guardian, writes to me as follows :—•

About twelve months ago I read, with great interest, but with even greater incredulity, your publications regarding “spooks.”

Last summer I met with a rather singular adventure, which has caused me to modify my disbelief; and I take the liberty of enclosing the record of my experience, in case you may care to glance at it. I published it in our Christmas Supplement two weeks ago, and I daresay it is believed by our readers to be a joke. It is absolutely true, every word of it.

AT MIDNIGHT ON MONT ST. JEAN.

(Being a Plain Unvarnished Ghost Story.)

Had a friend of my own related this story to me six months ago I should of course have had only one word for it—” Bosh!” Until that night at Mont St. Jean I had never seen the faintest trace of an apparition; though I may be said to have courted such society for years. I economise what little intellect I possess by never trying to solve psychical problems. As to ghosts, until last June I considered them as fabulous as the unicorn. When, therefore, I relate how I saw spectres on the field of Waterloo, I am quite prepared to have this narrative treated with the contempt that everybody will consider it deserves.

I had been attending the International Conference of Journalists at Antwerp and Brussels; and as the great majority of the members present were Frenchmen, I went to the spot surreptitiously, instead of listening to all the speeches. At the mound of the Belgian lion I fell in with a party thoroughly representative of Greater Britain. An ex-Cavalry SergeantMajor—who is a member of the Corps of Commissionaires, and has authority from the Belgian Government—acted most efficiently as our guide. [The battlefield had become a popular tourist attraction almost immediately.]

Of course we went over the cosy Hotel Musée (whose landlady is the descendant of a Waterloo hero).

In the afternoon I went over the farm of Hougomont [sic], the visit being made doubly interesting by the courtesy of an artist-author, representing the famous firm of Cassell & Co. The village from which the great battle takes its name is, as every one knows, some distance from Mont St. Jean, where the actual fighting was; and returning in the evening from Waterloo, along the rough stony road that must have jolted our wounded so terribly, I was overtaken by a thunderstorm, which, however, did not prevent troops of ragged urchins pursuing me with the request to purchase “ze stick of Waterloo.” I took refuge in the hotel, and finding there excellent accommodation and pleasant company, I decided to stay the night.

I went to bed in a room whose window looked direct on the hideous mound of the Belgian lion; but to the left, that section of the field of which the centre is La Haye Sainte, was clearly visible. Though ordinarily a sound sleeper, I was disturbed by the kicking of a horse in some stable hard by, and the thuds were so persistent that I resolved to sit at the window until drowsiness came to my relief. The night was still and calm, and though the sky was slightly overcast, the landscape was distinct in the pale starlight. I was not in an imaginative mood, nor even over-thoughtful, my main concern being to put in a certain quantity of sleep, in order that I might he refreshed for a walk to Planchenois in the morning. If anything was passing in my mind, it related to the jovial conversation we had held downstairs. But whilst I glanced carelessly across the field there came to me a sense that something was moving upon it.

“The wind astir amongst the barley,” I thought; but as I looked, I could see distinctly a mass of shadowy figures advancing. The array was uneven, as though marred by sudden casualties, but in front there was a fringe of fire—just such as would issue from muskets of the Brown Bess order. I shiver now a little as I recall it; but I did not shiver then.

“This is hallucination,” I thought, “and I am precipitating French legionaries as Moozeby, in the Strand Magazine precipitated things; but I’ve not come to Flanders to see ghosts, and am not going to tolerate ’em either.”

I got up, walked once or twice across the room, and resumed my seat at the window, mentally challenging any amount of grand disembodied armies to come on if they felt disposed. But I soon lost that feeling of bravado. There across the field in the faint light, that strange company was moving still. It would halt at times, and anon vanish; then I could see it again advancing steadily towards the slopes that on the memorable 18th of June were defended by the patient and invincible British soldiery.

I got a map of the battle-field out of a pocket, and marked on it the exact spot of the appearances; and on the back I made notes as to what seemed to be happening. If I had been out on that field I should doubtless have been less deliberate and more uncomfortable; but I reflected that there were plenty of mortals within easy hail, and that the poor restless outsiders must be quite as dead as Julius Caesar.

Thinking that if there was anything to see, it should not be lost for lack of looking out of window, I returned to my post, and I declare solemnly that I beheld the same dim fire-fringed line again advancing. It disappeared, and there seemed a change in the ordering of the battle, for the indistinct mass that next became visible advanced with a bounding motion. “These,” I thought, “are cavalry, and history is repeating itself at midnight.” [It was really then between one and two a.m.] I then owned to a sensation of awe, which was increased when over La Haye Sainte I saw columns of smoke arising, lit by a glare amongst the buildings below. These appearances were repeated a plusieurs reprises; and then, as it seemed to me, all the movement was away from, instead of towards, the “sunken road of Ohain” that marked the front of the English position. Finally, there was a confused and choking rush of shadowy figures along the road that leads from La Haye Sainte past Belle Alliance to Gemappe; and, after that, although I looked steadily across the same ground, I could see nothing. The same slight breeze, which had never changed direction, was still rustling the barley, but otherwise the surface of the field was motionless; and I felt that in the hush of the starlight I had seen one of the Fifteen Decisive Battles that have shaped the fate of nations.

Next morning I was jaded; for it is perhaps needless to say that I did not sleep directly after that experience. After breakfast, I walked across the sodden fields to Planchenois, which the Prussians stormed so gallantly.

A storm was impending when I reached La Belle Alliance, on the road to Braine l’Alleud, and the inn there proved a convenient shelter.

Just past Hougomont, I met what is euphemistically termed a “lady guide.” As she trudged alongside me, conversing with the frankest simplicity, I judged that she was a good woman and honest, but bound to keep an eye to business. One of her relatives, she said, had once lived at Hougomont. I then asked her point-blank if apparitions were included amongst the live-and-dead stock of that historic farm. The quaint little Flemish peasant became reserved and serious.

“It is not good to talk of,” said Audrey.

“Would your brother, or the husband that is to be, care to cross the field at night?”

“No, no,” she replied vehemently, adding, “As to the other, no one would have me; I am too plain.”

Admitting to myself that there was sound basis for her remark, I told her how l had either seen or imagined spectral battalions moving towards Mont St. Jean.

“That is it,” she exclaimed. “It is always like that—it has been seen before.”

Mademoiselle gave me also to understand that those whose own relatives fought at Waterloo have a kind of special faculty for viewing phantoms.

Doubtless there are whole troops of legends such as these— the wonder would rather be at their absence from a spot that was the sepulchre of so many thousands—but the story I have told, however mythical it may appear, is the true record of my actual experience; and these depositions I would confirm on oath.

Borderland, Vol. 2, January 1895, p. 75

For a battle so immensely important to the fate of Europe–Victor Hugo called it “the changing face of the universe,”–there are remarkably few ghost stories (at least in English–I haven’t examined any Belgian or French works.) about the conflict. The piece above seems to be the only significant account in the Spiritualist literature. Was it possibly influenced by this passage from Victor Hugo?

The field of Waterloo has at the present day that calmness which belongs to the earth, and resembles all plains, but at night a sort of visionary mist rises from it, and if any traveller will walk about it, and listen and dream, like Virgil on the mournful plains of Philippi, the hallucination of the catastrophe seizes upon him. The frightful June 18th lives again, the false monumental hill is levelled, the wondrous lion is dissipated, the battlefield resumes its reality, lines of infantry undulate on the plain, furious galloping crosses the horizon; the startled dreamer sees the flash of sabres, the sparkle of bayonets, the red light of shells, the monstrous collision of thunderbolts; he hears, like a death-groan from the tomb, the vague clamour of the phantom battle. These shadows are grenadiers; these flashes are cuirassiers; this skeleton is Napoleon; this skeleton is Wellington; all this is non-existent, and yet still combats, and the ravines are stained purple, and the trees rustle, and there is fury in even the clouds and in the darkness, while all the stern heights, Mont St. Jean, Hougomont, Frischermont, Papelotte, and Planchenoit, seem confusedly crowned by hosts of spectres exterminating one another. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo, 1862

Waterloo’s casualties were immense–in the range of 50,000. Many dying soldiers were abandoned on the battlefield–sauve qui peut. The night of the battle, ghouls  looted the bodies of the dead and pulled out dead soldiers’ teeth, which were prized for dentures, known as “Waterloo teeth.” Folklore or local tradition, at least, would suggest that some of the dead might haunt the battlefield, as they do at the blood-soaked ground at Gettysburg, but are there any lightning flashes from spirit artillery batteries or ghostly echoes of “La Guarde recule!”?

Chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

See also this post on Spiritualists’ reports of Waterloo refought.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.