La Belle Alliance is an inn situated a few miles south of Brussels in Belgium.
On the morning of June 18, 1815 the inn became Napoleon Bonaparte's headquarters for the Battle of Waterloo.
After the battle, at around 21:00, the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Blücher met close to the inn signifying the end of the fighting.
Blücher, the Prussian commander, suggested that the battle should be remembered as la Belle Alliance, to commemorate the European Seventh Coalition of Britain, Russia, Prussia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, and a number of German States which had all joined the coalition to defeat the French Emperor. Wellington, who had chosen the field and commanded an allied army which had fought the French all day, instead recommended Waterloo, the village just north of the battlefield, where he himself had spent the previous night, commenting that it would not do to name the battle after the loser's command post. Nevertheless in 1815 the Rondell plaza in Berlin was renamed Belle-Alliance-Platz to commemorate the victory.
The building is currently used on Friday and Saturday evenings as a night club.
Coordinates: 50°40′6″N 4°24′49″E / 50.66833°N 4.41361°E / 50.66833; 4.41361
Famous quotes containing the words belle and/or alliance:
“Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“I think that a young state, like a young virgin, should modestly stay at home, and wait the application of suitors for an alliance with her; and not run about offering her amity to all the world; and hazarding their refusal.... Our virgin is a jolly one; and tho at present not very rich, will in time be a great fortune, and where she has a favorable predisposition, it seems to me well worth cultivating.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)