The Creevey Papers
Major Andrew Hamilton to Thomas Creevey, [18 March? 1815]
“Brussels, Thursday, 4 p.m. [about 18th March].
“If you will not blab, you
shall hear all the news I can pick up, bad and good, as it comes. I am sorry to
tell you bad news to-day. General Fagal writes from Paris
to say that Bonaparte may be in that
capital ere many days. His army encreases hourly; and as fast as a regiment is
brought up to the neighbourhood of Lyons, it goes over to its old master.
Soult is said to have promised not
to act against the King, but that his
obligations to Bony would not allow him to take part
against the latter. Thus saying, he resigned to Louis the office of War
Minister, and the man who now holds it said he would only do so so long as the
Chamber of Deputies were in favor with the nation. Fagal,
take notice, is an alarmist, and I hope our next accounts will not be of so
gloomy a nature.
“Yours,
Thomas Creevey (1768-1838)
Whig politician aligned with Charles James Fox and Henry Brougham; he was MP for Thetford
(1802-06, 1807-18) Appleby (1820-26) and Downton (1831-32). He was convicted of libel in
1813.
Andrew Hamilton (d. 1821)
British officer; after service in the Peninsular War and Waterloo in 1816 he married
Anne, eldest daughter of William Ord of Fanham; he was afterwards aide-de-camp to Sir
Edward Barnes in Ceylon. He was Mrs. Creevey's brother-in-law.
Louis XVIII, king of France (1755-1824)
Brother of the executed Louis XVI; he was placed on the French throne in 1814 following
the abdication of Napoleon.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
Nicholas Soult (1769-1851)
Marshal of France and commander in the Peninsular War.
