Yesterday morning we paid a visit to Tournay, which is distant from Leuze
about ten miles, and we breakfasted at the Signe d'Or.
We then proceeded
to pay our respects to the Commandant General V.[11] The garrison consists
of Belgians. General V. had been some time in England as a prisoner of war.
He was made prisoner, I think he said, at Batavia. He received us very
politely, and not only gave us permission to visit the works of the
citadel, but sent a sergeant to accompany us. The new citadel is building
on the site of the old one, and, like it, is to be a regular pentagon. The
fortifications of the city itself are not to be reconstructed; these of the
citadel, which will be very strong, rendering them superfluous. The
sergeant was a native of Wuertemberg and had served in the army of his own
country and in that of France in most of the campaigns under Napoleon. He
was a fine old veteran, and very intelligent, for he explained to us the
nature of the works with great perspicuity. With true Suabian dignity he
refused a five franc piece which I offered him as a slight remuneration for
the trouble he had taken, and as he seemed, I thought, rather offended at
the offer, I felt myself bound to apologize. From the number of workmen
employed in repairing the citadel, it will not be long before it is placed
in a respectable state of defence. Tournay is a large handsome city and the
spacious quais on the banks of the Scheld which runs through it add much to
the neatness of its appearance. It is only ten miles distant from Lille,
but all communication from France is stopped. We learned that some of the
Hanoverians had been deserting. In return we met with a young French hussar
who had come over to the Allies. He seemed to be an impudent sort of
fellow, and said, with the utmost sang-froid, that the reason he deserted
was that he had not been made an officer as he was promised, and he hoped
that Louis XVIII would be more sensible of his merits than the Emperor
Napoleon. We returned to Leuze to dinner in the afternoon. This morning we
went to assist at a review of General Clinton's division, on a plain called
Le Paturage, about seven miles distant from Leuze. The Light Brigade and
the Hanoverian Brigades form this division. The manoeuvres were performed
with tolerable precision, but they were chiefly confined to advancing in
line, retiring by alternate companies covered by light infantry and change
of position on one of the flanks by echelon. The British troops were
perfect; the Hanoverians not so, they being for the most part new levies.
In one of the echelon movements, when the line was to be formed on the
left company of the left battalion, a Hanoverian battalion, instead of
preserving its parallelism, was making a terrible diversion to its right,
when a thundering voice from the commander of the brigade to the commandant
of the battalion:
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