Duchess of Richmond's ball

The ball of the Duchess of Richmond was held in Brussels on June 15, 1815, the eve of the Battle of Quatre -Bras and three days before the battle of Waterloo instead. He is considered one of the most famous balls of the story because of the historical circumstances and the large number of known Present.

The ball

Charlotte, Duchess of Richmond, talked to her husband, Charles Lennox, fourth Duke of Richmond, in Brussels, because he was entrusted with the defense of the city against Napoleon during the rule of the Hundred Days. The ball itself was held on June 15, 1815 on the eve of the Battle of Quatre -Bras instead. Venue for the social event was the ground floor of the rented house of Richmond in Brussels Rue de la Blanchisserie.

On the same day it had already come to a skirmish between the troops of Charles Bernard of Saxe-Weimar -Eisenach and Marshal Michel Ney, during which succeeded the former to hold the crossroads at Quatre Bras.

Even during the festivities reached the Duke of Wellington dispatches, reporting a meeting of the allied Prussians with the French at Fleurus. In the next day following the Battle of Quatre -Bras succeeded Wellington, to keep his position, but he could not unite with the Prussians, who were subject to the same time in the battle of Ligny itself. Two days later it came to the decisive Battle of Waterloo.

Present

Celebrity guests included the Duke of Wellington, Prince William of Orange -Nassau (later King of the Netherlands ), Prince William Frederick Charles of Orange-Nassau, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Prince Frederick William of Nassau -Weilburg, Duke Ludwig von Arenberg, General Miguel Ricardo de Álava, General Edward Somerset and General Thomas Picton. Both Picton and the Duke of Brunswick -Wolfenbüttel should be reflected in the next three days the death of Friedrich Wilhelm of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, called the "Black Duke ", was the next day at Quatre -Bras, Picton two days later at Waterloo.

Reception

The ball finds mention in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair and Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. John Everett Millais painted in 1860, the painting The Black Brunswicker, which is to take the ball reference. It is the same with Henry Nelson O'Neil painting Before Waterloo from the year 1868. 1870 painted Robert Alexander Hillingford The Duchess of Richmond 's ball

In Sergei Bondarchuks film Waterloo in 1970, the ball is shown.

The Black Brunswicker by John Everett Millais

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