ABSTRACT
Flemish innkeeper pressed into service as Napoleon’s guide. According to historian Harold T. Parker (1944), Decoster (whom he mistakenly refers to as ‘Lacoste’)
was a man in the early fifties who kept a small, obscure tavern on the high road between the farm of Rossome and Belle-Alliance. On the day of the battle he was used by Napoleon as a native guide, and was by the side of the Emperor from about eight o’clock in the morning unil late at night.
