"Forty-five years ago, the first duty of the British tourist was to visit the field of Waterloo. The impostor who asserted he had stood at Napoleon's elbow was dead, and the worthy Sergeant Cotton had been gathered to his fathers. But there were still plausible rustics doing a good stroke of business as guides who professed to have been spectators of the battle, and doubtless some of them had been skulking within hearing of the cannon. Like the Marchioness in "The Old Curiosity Shop," if you made believe very much, their fluency gave a zest to their feigned reminiscences.
And though the bloody manoeuvring ground had been cut about to build the mound of the Belgian lion, the years had done little to dilapidate the old chĂąteau and the Flemish farm-house, scorched by flames and riddled with shot. It was good business to preserve these relics, and Hougomont, with its outbuildings and its walled enclosures, was much as it had been when held by the guards, who lay sleeping under the rank growth of fruit bushes and nettles. Since then many another decisive battle has been fought, and Waterloo is ancient history. Then it was still the battle of the century."
AH. Hallam Murray: Old time travel (1903)
