That the emperor had an honest and soldierly satisfaction in his own well-doing is clear; but if he had had anything like the vanity of a Domitian, the senate, ever eager to outrun a ruler's taste for flattery, would never have kept within such moderate bounds.
Probably Wellington's failure to co-operate at Ligny had heightened the Prussian chief-of-staff's unworthy suspicions of the good faith and soldierly qualifications of the British marshal; and it was well for the allies that Blucher was able to resume command before Napoleon had time to profit from the dissensions that would probably have arisen had Gneisenau remained in control.
At the head of his troops, who idolized him, he was a Cromwell, adding to the zeal of a fanatic and the energy of the born leader the special military skill and trained soldierly spirit which the English commander had to gain by experience.
From thence they returned to Edinburgh on the 28th of March, guarded by two thousand horsemen under the command of Bothwell, who had escaped from Holyrood on the night of the murder, to raise a force on the queen's behalf with his usual soldierly promptitude.
He served under Marshal Villars in the War of the Spanish Succession, but he lacked the soldierly qualities of his father.