'French troops retreating through and plundering a village', 1815

From 'Historic, Military and Naval anecdotes, of personal valour, bravery and particular incidents which occurred to the armies of Great Britain, 1803-15, and her allies, in the last long-contested war terminating with the Battle of Waterloo'. 40 aquatints by Clark and Dubourg after J A Atkinson, Manskirch, W Heath, Clark, Deighton, Rigaud, published by Edward Orme, 1819.

This British propaganda print portrays the looting of a village by French soldiers. While such actions had been a regular feature of the brutal guerilla war in Spain, during the Hundred Days' Campaign in Belgium things were different. In most towns and villages they entered, Napoleon and his soldiers were greeted as liberators by the French-speaking and Catholic Walloon population who had little sympathy for their Protestant Dutch rulers of the newly created United Kingdom of the Netherlands.