While being careful to keep his face firmly to the front, he was aware that on either side of him, from the open windows of their red brick or half-timbered houses, the people of the Upper Town of Brussels, men and women of all ranks and ages, craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the great army that it seemed had so transformed their country. Fathers balanced babies on their shoulders and women blew kisses at the unshaven, dirt-spattered redcoats who tramped the stones and the lacebedecked officers who rode at their head. It was Friday 28 May. A mere five days after the battle which had so swiftly propelled the French from the Netherlands, and Steel’s Grenadiers marched proudly at the head of Farquharson’s regiment, in the centre of one of the longest processions of soldiers which the population of this great city had ever seen. Flowers rained down upon the heads of the troops, some of whom stooped down mid-pace to pick them from the ground and tucked them into their coats until the army began to look as if it were part of some great pagan festival.
