Certainly it did not seem as though anyone except his nephew, the Duc d'Angouleme, had made the least push to be of use in the late crisis. That gentleman had raised a mixed force at Nimes, and was skirmishing in the south of France, egged on by a masterful wife. His brother, the Duc de Berri, who had accompanied his uncle into Belgium, found less dangerous employment in holding slightly farcical reviews of the handful of Royalist troops under his command at Alost.

These proceedings were not comforting to the anxious, but the proximity of the Prussian Army was more reassuring. But as General Kleist's notions of feeding this Army consisted very simply of causing it to subsist upon the country in which it was quartered, the King of the Netherlands, who held quite different views on the subject, and was besides on bad terms with his Prussian relatives, refused to permit of its crossing , the Meuse. This not unnaturally led to a good deal of bad feeling.

"Your Lordship's presence is extremely necessary to combine the measures of the heterogeneous force which is destined to defend this country," wrote Sir Charles Stuart to the Duke, with diplomatic restraint.

Everyone agreed that the Duke's presence was necessary; everyone was sure that once he was in command all the disputes and the difficulties would be immediately settled, even Mr Creevey, who had not been used to set much store by any of "those damned Wellesleys".

It was wonderful what a change was gradually coming over Mr Creevey's opinions; extraordinary to hear him adverting to the Duke's past victories in Spain, just as though he had never declared them to have been grossly exaggerated. He was still a little patronising about the Duke, but he was going to feel very much safer, tied as he was to Brussels by an ailing wife, when the Duke was at the head of the Army.