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- William De Lancey: He's commiting Reille's Division now sir, he intends to turn us, on the right!
- Duke of Wellington: What the master does and what he intends are as different as white knight to black bishop.
- William De Lancey: We could quickly move the 95th down, sir.
- Duke of Wellington: I do not intend to run around like a wet hen! There'll be plenty of time, sir.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Cross the river. Tomorrow we will dry our boots in Brussels.
- Michel Ney: God willing, sire.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: God? God has nothing to do with it.
- King Louis XVIII: I know you loved this man.
- Michel Ney: I did, once. But I promise you, that I will bring him back to Paris in an iron cage.
- [exits]
- King Louis XVIII: How they exaggerate, these soldiers, "In an iron cage"? Nobody asked for that.
- Lord Uxbridge: [clears throat] Sir.
- Duke of Wellington: [removing his copy of The Times from over his face] Ah, Uxbridge.
- Lord Uxbridge: As I am second-in-command and in case anything should happen to you, what are your plans?
- Duke of Wellington: [brightly] To beat the French.
- [goes back to sleep, replacing the newspaper over his head]
- [Historical quote]
- Duke of Wellington: [referring to his army] I don't know what they'll do to the enemy; but, by God, they frighten me.
- [referring to the English troops]
- Duchess of Richmond: They're the salt of England, Arthur.
- Duke of Wellington: Scum. Nothing but beggars and scoundrels, all of them. Gin is the spirit of their patriotism.
- Duchess of Richmond: Yet you expect them to die for you?
- Duke of Wellington: Um-hum.
- Duchess of Richmond: Out of duty?
- Duke of Wellington: Um-hum.
- Duchess of Richmond: I doubt if even Bonaparte could draw men to him by duty.
- Duke of Wellington: Oh, Boney's not a gentleman.
- Duchess of Richmond: Arthur! What an Englishman you are.
- Duke of Wellington: On the field of battle his hat is worth fifty thousand men; but he is not a gentleman.
- Duke of Wellington: [on Napolean's maneuver that split the English and Prussian armies] By God, that man does war honor.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: When I am dead and gone what will the world say of me?
- Le Bedoyere: They'll say that you extended the limits of glory, sire.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: The limits of glory'; is that all I have to leave to my son, the 'limits of glory'?
- [On Wellington's refusal to move]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [thinks to himself] This Englishman has two qualities I admire: caution, and above all, courage
- [speaks up]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: He hasn't moved, he's nailed himself to his ridge. Now's the time to move all the heavy artillery against Picton.
- Michel Ney: Wellington's on the run! I caught him at Quatre Bras! He's retreating!
- Napoleon Bonaparte: If Wellington's retreating, what are you doing here?
- Michel Ney: But, Sire...
- Napoleon Bonaparte: If Wellington's retreating, what are you doing here? Why didn't you follow him? Why didn't you pursue?
- Michel Ney: [Raises voice] where are the reinforcements you promised me?
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [shouting] Don't you dare criticize me! Don't you dare! Don't you see if Wellington's free to choose his ground then everything I've won in this campaign you've lost!
- Mulholland: [the Old Guard is surrounded by British cavalry] Brave Frenchmen! You have done all that the honor of war demands; His Grace, the Duke of Wellington, invites you to save your lives! Will you surrender?
- Vicomte Pierre Cambronne: MERDE!
- [Cavalry pulls back exposing ranks of artillery]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Le Bedoyere, do you have any children?
- Le Bedoyere: Yes, sire; one son, very young,no taller than your boot.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: And if he were with you, would you want him with you here today?
- Le Bedoyere: Yes, sire.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Yes, why?
- Le Bedoyere: So he could see you, sire.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: See me? You know, I have a son. I'd give anything in the world to see him. I'd give my heart, I'd give my life, but not here. I wouldn't want him to witness this battle here today.
- Duke of Wellington: The whole line will advance.
- Lord Uxbridge: In which direction your grace?
- Duke of Wellington: Why, straight ahead to be sure.
- [Observing the advance of the Gordon Highlanders]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Has Wellington nothing to offer me but these Amazons?
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Well they've done it! The whole of Europe has declared war against me! Not against France, but against me.
- Le Bedoyere: They dignify you sire by making you a Nation!
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [laughing] Dignify? Dignify? They deny me the decency of law! They make it legal that any clown can kill me.
- Michel Ney: Well we've fought with mud in our boots before!
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Yes well, I'll discuss peace over Wellington's dead body, that's my peace table!
- [Bonaparte is facing down Louis XVIII's artillery, unarmed]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Soldiers of the fifth. Do you recognise me?
- [pause]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: If you want to kill your Emperor? Here I am.
- Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher: [ordering the Prussian forces into battle] Raise high the black flags, children. No pity! No prisoners! I'll shoot any man I see with pity in him!
- [Napoleon is watching the charge of the Scots Greys]
- Napoleon: Those men on grey horses are terrifying.
- Marshal Soult: They are the noblest cavalry in Europe; and the worst led.
- Napoleon: That may be; that may be, but we will match them with our lancers.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [watching the advance of troops in the distance] Prussians.
- [Ney aims his own telescope]
- Napoleon Bonaparte: That is not necessary, that is not necessary. They're Prussians, but as far as the army's concerned, they're on the moon. Understand?
- Gen. Drouot: [wounded on his horse] The Prussians are in the woods! Blucher is in the woods!
- Napoleon Bonaparte: I made one mistake in my life; I should have burned Berlin.
- Duke of Wellington: [to the Duchess of Richmond about arranging the ball] You really are the best of my generals.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: I can't believe my ears! You all stand before me waving a piece of paper crying 'Abdicate, abdicate!' I WILL NOT! I WILL NOT, NOT, NOT!
- Sarah: General Picton doesn't know how to walk in a ballroom.
- Duke of Wellington: But he is very good when he is dancing with the French.
- Mulholland: We're doing murder, your grace.
- Duke of Wellington: I hope to God... that I've fought my last battle.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [dictating a letter] To my dear Prince Alexis... I did not "usurp" the crown. I found it, in the gutter, and I, I picked it up with my sword, and it was the people, Alexis, the people who put it on my head. He who saves a nation violates no law.
- Michel Ney: You have no choice. You have to give up the throne.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Oh, Ney, Ney, Ney. The throne? You know what the throne is, Ney? The throne is an overdecorated piece of furniture. It's what's behind the throne that counts. My brains, my ambitions, my desires, my hope, my imagination, and above all, my will.
- Sir William Ponsonby: Before we go, Uxbridge...
- [proffering snuff powder]
- Lord Uxbridge: [snorts] Ah...
- [sneezes]
- Lord Uxbridge: Savage stuff, Ponsonby!
- Sir William Ponsonby: You don't see its like any more. My father left us a hundredweight, down to the last ounce. An old Jew in Alexandria had the blend.
- Lord Uxbridge: Blend?
- [Ponsonby laughs]
- Lord Gordon: Good beans, Wellington!
- Duke of Wellington: If there is anything in this world about which I know positively nothing, it is agriculture.
- [as the British cavalry charge across the battlefield]
- Lord Uxbridge: Sound the recall!
- [a trumpeter blows the signal on his trumpet. The cavalry either ignore or can't hear it, continuing to charge towards the French cannon. The trumpeter keeps sounding]
- Duke of Wellington: [irritably] Stop that useless noise!
- [kinder]
- Duke of Wellington: You'll hurt yourself.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: Grouchy! Gerard! You take 30,000 men. You take one third of my army and pursue Blucher. Don't let them regroup or consolidate and don't let them rejoin!
- Sir William Ponsonby: My Father poor fellow, was killed by the French. Never should have happened
- Lord Uxbridge: Really?
- Sir William Ponsonby: Yes, his horse got caught in a bog and the brute just gave up. Seven damn lancers had him like a tiger in a pit. Bad luck, eh, Uxbridge?
- Lord Uxbridge: Damn bad luck!
- Sarah: Mama, Iggy has promised to bring me a cuirassier's helmet to use as a work basket - without blood in it, Mama.
- Duchess of Richmond: And one for me, young man - *with* the blood.
- Sir William Ponsonby: And where do you plan to stick your Frenchman, Hay?
- Lord Richard Hay: I thought under the right arm, sir.
- Sarah: See? He has it all planned.
- General Sir Thomas Picton: When you meet a cuirassier beam-to-beam, you'll be lucky if you bring away your life with you, never mind his helmet. Boy, you'll learn the art of fighting from the French.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [in pain from the early stages of stomach cancer] My body is dying, but my mind is still good!
- Napoleon Bonaparte: [after the defeat of the Prussians at Ligny] The field of honor is never a pretty sight. Nevertheless, sixteen thousand Prussian dead; that's good news to slap on the walls in Paris, eh?
- Gen. August Gneisenau: [to Blucher on Wellington's request to move in the direction of Waterloo] If Wellington runs to the coast, none of us will make it home to Berlin. I do not trust the English, nonetheless because I have served you before, sir...
- Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher: [Disgusted with Gneisenau] I am seventy-two and a proud soldier. This sword is steel! I am too old to break it.
- Gen. August Gneisenau: Very well, I have ordered the retreat to Wavre. You may still co-operate with the Wellington, but God help us if he does not stand.
- Napoleon Bonaparte: What's he doing? What's Ney doing? What's happening? Can't I leave the field for a minute? What's he doing there? How can a man go forward with the cavalry without infantry support? What's the matter with you?
- [before the battle starts, the British troops are singing a mocking song about Napoleon]
- William De Lancey: Shall I shut them up, Sir?
- Duke of Wellington: No, no, indulge it . Anything that wastes time is good. Indulge it. Normally I don't like cheering, but there's always a time to cut cards with the Devil.
- Duke of Wellington: Bylandt's's brigade has broken. Plug the gap, if you please.
- General Sir Thomas Picton: Gordon, get your bastards up on to the crest. I'll bring up the rest of the brigade.
- Lord Gordon: Don't hurry yourself, Pic. My lads will hold them, aye, 'til you come.
- General Sir Thomas Picton: Get forward, damn your eyes!
- [the French artillery has begun firing on the English positions]
- Duke of Wellington: Well, that opens the ball.
- Duke of Wellington: They're coming on in the same old style.
- General Sir Thomas Picton: Well, then we shall have to meet them in the same old style.
- William De Lancey: He's commiting Reille's Division now sir, he intends to turn us, on the right!
- Duke of Wellington: What the master does and what he intends are as different as white knight to black bishop.
- William De Lancey: We could quickly move the 95th down, sir.
- Duke of Wellington: I do not intend to run around like a wet hen! There'll be plenty of time, sir.
- Duchess of Richmond: ...this year, soldiers are the fashion.
- Duke of Wellington: [ironically] Where would society be without my boys?