Author’s Note
173 Words
Author’s NoteOn the 8th July 1816 the Duke of Wellington gave his Great Ball in his mansion in the Champs Élysées in honour of the Royal Princes.
Strangely the Princes left early and in the small hours of the morning part of the basement was found to be on fire.
Gunpowder shavings and cartridges had been pushed through the bars of an open window, shattering the bars and setting the floorboards alight. Footmen quickly extinguished the flames and the Duke made light of the whole incident, yet many people alleged that it was a Royalist crime.
The Army of Occupation of one hundred and fifty thousand British soldiers in France, which were garrisoned at Cambrai after Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, ended in 1818.
Britain had only one hero, the Duke of Wellington. His conduct as a soldier, administrator and financier over the last three years gave him a position in Europe that no Englishman has ever achieved before. He returned home with batons of six foreign countries in his knapsack.
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