"The most famous Ball in History" Topic

"Colonel Colquhoun Grant was Wellington's most trusted intelligence officer. Call him what you like, spy observer, secret agent, he got the job done. He was intelligent, practical, ever reliable, discreet and resourceful, when he had been captured by the French, Wellington had offered a high reward for anyone who helped him escape and was the man that the Duke was especially waiting to hear from. That the French could have attacked without Grant's forewarning was a deep source of concern. Grant was now in France doing what he did best, watching, reading the hidden signs of military manoeuvres, noting down troop concentrations and strengths, like a seer could read a palm Grant could read an army. Napoleon had kept his plans a dark secret, and when he moved to the frontier he drew a veil across his intentions that no one in Belgium could pierce, he sent false and varied information across the border and exercised tight security throughout his army. He fooled Wellington into thinking he would probably lunge at Mons, and kept the Prussian's in inky mystification, threatening every point along the hundred mile front, and yet nowhere. Grant however, working amongst the French about a days ride from Belgium had sussed him. On the morning of the 15th General Dornberg, commanding a brigade of cavalry at Mons had intercepted an urgent message, it was from Grant, informing Wellington that Napoleon would strike at Charleroi. Dornberg did not know Grant, nor how much trust Wellington placed in him, he judged the note too absurd to believe and that because of the audacity of its contents, made him believe all the more that Napoleon would strike at Mons. He returned the letter to Grant explaining this. In a futile gesture born of desperation and unqualified frustration Grant mounted a horse to ride to Wellington himself, but would not reach him in time to help coordinate a response.
It was about midnight when a dispatch arrived from Dornberg, who after hearing of the French attacks against the Prussian's had realised his mistake. With a sickening sense of realisation Wellington wrote to Müffling…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Everyday is a school day.

I thought the most famous ball in history was the one they kept in the Albert Hall.

How many of those well dressed officers ending fighting with those same fancy uniforms at Waterloo?

Amicalement
Armand

Well certainly the ball was not held in anything like such palatial surroundings and the ladies' rig was not mid Victorian, as shown here. The woman with her back to you would have been thrown out of a Brussels knocking shop in that outfit in 1815!