‘Un témoin oculaire’ [‘An eyewitness’]
Relation fidèle et détaillée de la dernière campagne de Buonaparte, terminée par la bataille de Mont-Saint-Jean, dite de Waterloo ou de la Belle-Alliance
A Paris, et se vend à Bruxelles, chez P. J. de Mat, second edition, 1815
Gg.71.20(3), map opposite title page

This early map, marked with initial battlefield dispositions and subsequent manoeuvres, illustrates a book whose title preserves the three names applied to the battle by contemporaries: Mont St Jean was the hamlet closest to the centre of the fighting, and La Belle Alliance was an inn at the centre of Napoleon’s position. The map comprehended the essence of things, emphasizing the importance of the paved road to Brussels, underlining the composite nature of Wellington’s army—’Anglaises, Belges, Hollandaises, Anovriennes’—and pointing out in the title caption that success at Waterloo was achieved by sound strategy: by armies reunited under the orders of Wellington and Blücher.