The Prussians fell back, but a little distance away there was a whole battalion. Buche took Zebede on his shoulders and started up the ladder. We followed him, shouting "Hurry!" while we aided him with all our strength to climb the ladder with his burden. I was next to the last, and I thought we should never get up. We heard the shots already in the barn, but we were up at last, and all inspired with the same idea, we tried to draw the ladder up after us. To our horror we found, as we endeavored to pull it through the opening between the shots, one of which took off the head of a comrade, that it was so large we could not get it into the loft. We hesitated for a moment, when Zebede, recovering himself, exclaimed, "Shoot through the rounds!" This seemed to us an inspiration from heaven.

Below us the uproar was terrible. The whole street, as well as our barn, was full of Prussians.

They were mad with rage, and worse than we; repeating incessantly, "No prisoners!"

They were enraged by the musket-shots from the houses; they broke down the doors, and then we could hear the struggles, the falls, curses in French and German, the orders of Lieutenant Bretonville opposite, and the Prussian officers commanding their men to go and bring straw to fire the houses. Fortunately the harvest was not yet secured, or we should all have been burned.

They fired into the floor under our feet, but it was made of thick oak plank and the balls tapped on it like the strokes of a hammer. We stood one behind the other and continued our fire into the street, and every shot told.

It appeared as if they had retaken the church square, for we only heard our fire very far away. We were alone, two or three hundred men in the midst of three or four thousand. Then I said to myself, "Joseph! you will never escape from this danger. It is impossible! your end has come!" I dared not think of Catherine, my heart quaked. Our retreat was cut off, the Prussians held both ends of the street and the lanes in the rear, and they had already retaken several houses.

Suddenly the hubbub ceased; they were making some preparation we thought; they have gone for straw or fagots or they are going to bring up their guns to demolish us.

Our gunners looked out of the window, but they saw nothing, the barn was empty. This dead silence was more terrible than the tumult had been a few minutes before.

Zebede had just raised himself up, and the blood was running from his mouth and nose.

"Attention! we are going to have another attack. The rascals are getting ready. Charge!"

He hardly finished speaking when the whole building, from the gables to the foundation, swayed as if the earth had opened beneath it, and beams and lath and slate came down with the shock, while a red flame burst out under our feet and mounted above the roof. We all fell in a heap.

A lighted bomb which the Prussians had rolled into the barn had just exploded. On getting up I heard a whizzing in my ears, but that did not prevent me from seeing a ladder placed at the window of the barn. Buche was using his bayonet with great effect on the invaders.

The Prussians thought to profit by our surprise to mount the ladder and butcher us; this made me shudder, but I ran to the assistance of my comrade. Two others who had escaped, ran up shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!"

I heard nothing more, the noise was frightful. The flashes of the muskets below and from the windows lighted up the street like a moving flame. We had thrown down the ladder, and there were six of us still remaining, two in front who fired the muskets, and four behind who loaded and passed the guns to them.

In this extremity I had become calm. I resigned myself to my fate, thinking I would try to sell my own life as dearly as possible. The others no doubt had the same thoughts, and we made great havoc.

This lasted about a quarter of an hour, when the cannon began to thunder again, and some seconds after our comrades in front looked out the window and ceased firing. My cartridge-box was nearly empty, and I went to replenish it from those of my dead comrades.

The cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" came nearer and nearer, when suddenly the head of our column with its flag all blackened and torn, filed into the little square through our street.

The Prussians beat a retreat. We all wanted to go down, but two or three times the column recoiled before the grape and canister. The shouts and the thunder of the cannon mingled afresh. Zebede, who was looking out, ran to the ladder. Our column had passed the barn and we all went down in file without regarding our comrades who were wounded by the bursting of the bomb, some of whom begged us piteously not to leave them behind.

Such are men! the fear of being taken prisoners, made us barbarians.

When we recalled these terrible scenes afterward, we would have given anything if we had had the least heart, but then it was too late.



XIX

An hour before, fifteen of us had entered that old barn, now there were but six to come out.

Buche and Zebede were among the living; the Pfalzbourgers had been fortunate.

Once outside it was necessary to follow the attacking column.

We advanced over the heaps of dead. Our feet encountered this yielding mass, but we did not look to see if we stepped on the face of a wounded man, on his breast, or on his limbs; we marched straight on. We found out next morning, that this mass of men had been cut down by the battery in front of the church; their obstinacy had proved their ruin. Bluecher was only waiting to serve us in the same manner, but instead of going over the bridge we turned off to the right and occupied the houses along the brook. The Prussians fired at us from every window opposite, but as soon as we were ambushed we opened our fire on their guns and they were obliged to fall back.

They had already begun to talk of attacking the other part of the village, when the rumor was heard that a column of Prussians forty thousand strong had come up behind us from Charleroi. We could not understand it, as we had swept everything before us to the banks of the Sambre. This column which had fallen on our rear, must have been hidden in the forest.

It was about half-past six and the combat at St. Amand seemed to grow fiercer than ever. Bluecher had moved his forces to that side, and it was a favorable moment to carry the other part of the village, but this column forced us to wait.

The houses on either side of the brook were filled with troops, the French on the right and the Prussians on the left. The firing had ceased, a few shots were still heard from time to time, but they were evidently by design. We looked at each other as if to say, "Let us breathe awhile now, and we will commence again presently."

The Prussians in the house opposite us, in their blue coats and leather shakos, with their mustaches turned up, were all strongly built men, old soldiers with square chins and their ears standing out from their heads. They looked as if they might overthrow us at a blow. The officers, too, were looking on.

Along the two streets which were parallel with the brook and in the brook itself, the dead were lying in long rows.

Many of them were seated with their backs against the walls. They had been dangerously wounded in the battle but had had sufficient strength to retire from the strife, and had sunk down against the wall and died from loss of blood.

Some were still standing upright in the brook, their hands clutching the bank as if to climb out, rigid in death. And in obscure corners of the ruined houses, when they were lighted up with the sun's rays, we could see the miserable wretches crushed under the rubbish, with stones and beams lying across their bodies.

The struggle at St. Amand became still more terrible, the discharges of cannon seemed to rise one above the other, and if we had not all been looking death in the face, nothing could have prevented us from admiring this grand music.

At every discharge hundreds of men perished, but there was no interruption, the solid earth trembled under our feet. We could breathe again now, and very soon we began to feel a most intolerable thirst. During the fight nobody had thought of it, but now everybody wanted to drink.

Our house formed the corner at the left of the bridge, but the little water that was running over the muddy bottom of the brook was red with blood. Between our house and the next there was a little garden, where there was a well from which to water it. We all looked at this well with its curb and its wooden posts; the bucket was still hanging to the chain in spite of the showers of shot, but three men were already lying face downward in the path leading to it. The Prussians had shot them as they were trying to reach it.

As we stood there with our loaded muskets, one said, "I would give half my blood for one glass of that water;" another, "Yes, but the Prussians are on the watch."

This was true, there they were, a hundred paces from us, perhaps they were as thirsty as we, and were guessing our thoughts.

The shots that were still fired came from these houses, and no one could go along the street, they would shoot him at once, so we were all suffering horribly.

This lasted for another half hour, when the cannonade extended from St. Amand to Ligny, and we could see that our batteries had opened with grape and canister on the Prussians by the great gaps made in their columns at every discharge.

This new attack produced a great excitement. Buche, who had not stirred till that moment, ran down through the path leading to the well in the garden and sheltered himself behind the curb. From the two houses opposite a volley was fired, and the stones and the posts were soon riddled with balls.

But we opened our fire on their windows and in an instant it began again from one end of the village to the other, and everything was enveloped in smoke.

At that moment I heard some one shout from below, "Joseph, Joseph!"

It was Buche; he had had the courage after he had drank himself, to fill the bucket, unfasten it, and bring it back with him.



Several old soldiers wanted to take it from him, but he shouted, "My comrade first! let go, or I'll pour it all out!"

They were compelled to wait till I had drank, then they took their turn, and afterward the others who were upstairs drained the rest.

We all went up together greatly refreshed.

It was about seven o'clock and near sunset, the shadows of the houses on our side reached quite to the brook—while those occupied by the Prussians were still in the sunlight, as well as the hill-side of Bry, down which we could see the fresh troops coming on the run. The cannonade had never been so fierce as at this moment from our side.

Every one now knows, that at nightfall between seven and eight o'clock the Emperor, having discovered that the column which had been signalled in our rear was the corps of General d'Erlon, which had missed its route between the battle of Ney with the English at Quatre-Bras and ours here at Ligny, had ordered the Old Guard to support us at once.

The lieutenant who was with us said, "This is the grand attack. Attention!"

The whole of the Prussian cavalry was swarming between the two villages. We felt that there was a grand movement behind us, though we did not see it. The lieutenant repeated, "Attention to orders! Let no one stay behind after the order to march! Here is the attack!"

We all opened our eyes. The farther the night advanced the redder the sky grew over St. Amand. We were so absorbed in listening to the cannonade that, we no longer thought of anything else. At each discharge you would have said the heavens were on fire. The tumult behind us was increasing.

Suddenly the broad street running along the brook was full of troops, from the bridge quite to the end of Ligny. On the left in the distance the Prussians were shooting from the windows again, while we did not reply. The shout rose—"The Guard! the Guard!" I do not know how that mass of men passed the muddy ditch, probably by means of plank thrown across, but in a moment they were on the left bank in force.

The batteries of the Prussians at the top of the ravine between the two villages, cut gaps through our columns, but they closed up immediately, and moved steadily up the hill. What remained of our division ran across the bridge, followed by the artillerymen and their pieces with the horses at a gallop.

Then we went down to the street, but we had not reached the bridge when the cuirassiers began to file over it, followed by the dragoons and the mounted grenadiers of the guard. They were passing everywhere, across and around the village. It was like a new and innumerable army.

The slaughter began again on the hill, this time the battle was in the open fields, and we could trace the outlines of the Prussian squares on the hill-side at every discharge of musketry.

We rushed on over the dead and wounded, and when we were clear of the village we could see that there was an engagement between the cavalry, though we could only distinguish the white cuirasses as they pierced the lines of the Uhlans; then they would be indiscriminately mingled and the cuirassiers would re-form and set off again like a solid wall.

It was dark already, and the dense masses of smoke made it impossible to see fifty paces ahead. Everything was moving toward the windmills, the clatter of the cavalry, the shouts, the orders of the officers and the file-firing in the distance, all were confounded. Several of the squares were broken. From time to time a flash would reveal a lancer bent to his horse's neck, or a cuirassier, with his broad white back and his helmet with its floating plume, shooting off like a bullet, two or three foot soldiers running about in the midst of the fray,—all would come and go like lightning. The trampled grain, the rain streaking the heavens, the wounded under the feet of the horses, all came out of the black night—through the storm which had just broken out—for a quarter of a second.

Every flash of musket or pistol showed us inexplicable things by thousands. But everything moved up the hill and away from Ligny; we were masters.

We had pierced the enemy's centre, the Prussians no longer made any defence, except at the top of the hill near the mills and in the direction of Sombref, at our right. St. Amand and Ligny were both in our hands.

As for us, a dozen or so of our company there alone among the ruins of the cottages, with our cartridge-boxes almost empty;—we did not know which way to turn.

Zebede, Lieutenant Bretonville, and Captain Florentin had disappeared, and Sergeant Rabot was in command. He was a little old fellow, thin and deformed, but as tough as steel; he squinted and seemed to have had red hair when young. Now, as I speak of him, I seem to hear him say quietly to us, "The battle is won! by file right! forward, march!"

Several wanted to stop and make some soup, for we had eaten nothing since noon and began to be hungry. The sergeant marched down the lane with his musket on his shoulder, laughing quietly, and saying in an ironical tone:

"Oh! soup, soup! wait a little, the commissary is coming!"

We followed him down the dark lane; about midway we saw a cuirassier on horseback with his back toward us. He had a sabre cut in the abdomen and had retired into this lane, the horse leaned against the wall to prevent him from falling off.

As we filed past he called out, "Comrades!" But nobody even turned his head.

Twenty paces farther on we found the ruins of a cottage completely riddled with balls, but half the thatched roof was still there, and this was why Sergeant Rabot had selected it; and we filed into it for shelter.

We could see no more than if we had been in an oven; the sergeant exploded the priming of his musket, and we saw that it was the kitchen, that the fireplace was at the right, and the stairway on the left. Five or six Prussians and Frenchmen were stretched on the floor, white as wax, and with their eyes wide open.

"Here is the mess-room," said the sergeant, "let every one make himself comfortable. Our bedfellows will not kick us."

As we saw plainly that there were to be no rations, each one took off his knapsack and placed it by the wall on the floor for a pillow. We could still hear the firing, but it was far in the distance on the hill.

The rain fell in torrents. The sergeant shut the door, which creaked on its hinges, and then quietly lighted his pipe. Some of the men were already snoring when I looked up, and he was standing at the little window, in which not a pane of glass remained, smoking.

He was a firm, just man, he could read and write, had been wounded and had his three chevrons, and ought to have been an officer, only he was not well formed.

He soon laid his head on his knapsack, and shortly after all were asleep. It was long after this when I was suddenly awakened by footsteps and fumbling about the house outside.

I raised up on my elbow to listen, when somebody tried to open the door. I could not help screaming out. "What's the matter?" said the sergeant.

We could hear them running away, and Rabot turned on his knapsack saying:

"Night birds,—rascals,—clear out, or I'll send a ball after you!" He said no more and I got up and looked out of the window, and saw the wretches in the act of robbing the dead and wounded. They were going softly from one to another, while the rain was falling in torrents. It was something horrible.

I lay down again and fell asleep overcome by fatigue.

At daybreak the sergeant was up and crying, "En route!"

We left the cottage and went back through the lane. The cuirassier was on the ground, but his horse still stood beside him. The sergeant took him by the bridle and led him out into the orchard, pulled the bits from his mouth and said:

"Go, and eat, they will find you again by and by."

And the poor beast walked quietly away. We hurried along the path which runs by Ligny. The furrows stopped here and some plats of garden ground lay along by the road. The sergeant looked about him as he went, and stooped down to dig up some carrots and turnips which were left. I quickly followed his example, while our comrades hastened on without looking round.

I saw that it was a good thing to know the fruits of the earth. I found two beautiful turnips and some carrots, which are very good raw, but I followed the example of the sergeant and put them in my shako.

I ran on to overtake the squad, which was directing its steps toward the fires at Sombref. As for the rest, I will not attempt to describe to you the appearance of the plateau in the rear of Ligny where our cuirassiers and dragoons had slaughtered all before them. The men and horses were lying in heaps. The horses with their long necks stretched out on the ground and the dead and wounded lying under them.

Sometimes the wounded men would raise their hands to make signs when the horses would attempt to get up and fall back, crushing them still more fearfully.

Blood! blood! everywhere. The directions of the balls and shot was marked on the slope by the red lines, just as we see in our country the lines in the sand formed by the water from the melting snow. But will you believe it? These horrors scarcely made any impression upon me. Before I went to Lutzen such a sight would have knocked me down. I should have thought then, "Do our masters look upon us as brutes? Will the good God give us up to be eaten by wolves? Have we mothers and sisters and friends, beings who are dear to us, and will they not cry out for vengeance?"

I should have thought of a thousand other things, but now I did not think at all. From having seen such a mass of slaughter and wrong every day and in every fashion, I began to say to myself:

"The strongest are always right. The Emperor is the strongest, and he has called us, and we must come in spite of everything, from Pfalzbourg, from Saverne, or other cities, and take our places in the ranks and march. The one who would show the least sign of resistance ought to be shot at once. The marshals, the generals, the officers, down to the last man, follow their instructions, they dare not make a move without orders, and everybody obeys the army. It is the Emperor who wills, who has the power and who does everything. And would not Joseph Bertha be a fool to believe that the Emperor ever committed a single fault in his life? Would it not be contrary to reason?"

That was what we all thought, and if the Emperor had remained here, all France would have had the same opinion.

My only satisfaction was in thinking that I had some carrots and turnips, for in passing in the rear of the pickets to find our place in the battalion, we learned that no rations had been distributed except brandy and cartridges.

The veterans were filling their kettles; but the conscripts, who had not yet learned the art of living while on a campaign, and who had unfortunately already eaten all their bread, as will happen when one is twenty years old, and is on the march with a good appetite, they had not a spoonful of anything. At last about seven o'clock we reached the camp. Zebede came to meet me and was delighted to see me, and said, "What have you brought, Joseph? We have found a fat kid and we have some salt, but not a mouthful of bread."

I showed him the rice which I had left, and my turnips and carrots.

"That's good," said he, "we shall have the best soup in the battalion."

I wanted Buche to eat with us too, and the six men belonging to our mess, who had all escaped with only bruises and scratches, consented. Padoue, the drum-major, said, laughing, "Veterans are always veterans, they never come empty-handed."

We looked into the kettles of the five conscripts, and winked, for they had nothing but rice and water in them, while we had a good rich soup, the odor of which filled the air around us.

At eight we took our breakfast with an appetite, as you can imagine.

Not even on my wedding-day did I eat a better meal, and it is a pleasure even now to think of it. When we are old we are not so enthusiastic about such things as when we are young, but still we always recall them with satisfaction.

This breakfast sustained us a long time, but the poor conscripts with only a few crumbs as it were soaked in rain water, had a hard time next day—the 18th. We were to have a short but terrible campaign.

Though all is over now, yet I cannot think of those terrible sufferings without emotion, or without thanking God that we escaped them. The sun shone again and the weather was fine,—we had hardly finished our breakfast when the drums began to beat the assembly along the whole line.

The Prussian rear-guard had just left Sombref, and it was a question whether we should pursue them. Some said we ought to send out the light-horse, to pick up the prisoners. But no one paid any attention to them,—the Emperor knew what he was doing.

But I remember that everybody was astonished notwithstanding, because it is the custom to profit by victories. The veterans had never seen anything like it. They thought that the Emperor was preparing some grand stroke; that Ney had turned the enemy's line, and so forth.

Meanwhile the roll commenced and General Gerard reviewed the Fourth corps. Our battalion had suffered most, because in the three attacks we had always been in the front.

The Commandant Gemeau and Captain Vidal were wounded, and Captains Gregoire and Vignot killed, seven lieutenants and second lieutenants, and three hundred and sixty men hors de combat.

Zebede said that it was worse than at Montmirail, and that they would finish us up completely before we got through.

Fortunately the fourth battalion arrived from Metz under Commandant Delong and took our place in the line.

Captain Florentin ordered us to file off to the left, and we went back to the village near the church, where a quantity of carts were stationed.

We were then distributed in squads to superintend the removal of the wounded. Several detachments of chasseurs were ordered to escort the convoys to Fleurus as there was no room for them at Ligny; the church was already filled with the poor fellows. We did not select those to be removed, the surgeons did that, as we could hardly distinguish in numbers of cases, between the living and the dead. We only laid them on the straw in the carts.

I knew how all this was, for I was at Lutzen, and I understand what a man suffers in recovering from a ball, or a musket-shot, or such a cut as our cuirassiers made.

Every time I saw one of these men taken up, I thanked God that I was not reduced to that condition, and, thinking that the same thing might befall me, I said to myself: "You do not know how many balls and slugs have been near you, or you would be horrified." I was astonished that so many of us had escaped in the carnage, which had been far greater than at Lutzen or even at Leipzig. The battle had only lasted five hours, and the dead in many places were piled two or three feet deep. The blood flowed from under them in streams. Through the principal street where the artillery went, the mud was red with blood, and the mud itself was crushed flesh and bones.

It is necessary to tell you this, in order that the young men may understand. I shall fight no more, thank God, I am too old, but all these young men who think of nothing but war, instead of being industrious and helping their aged parents, should know how the soldiers are treated. Let them imagine what the poor fellows who have done their duty think, as they lie in the street, wanting an arm or a leg, and hear the cannon, weighing twelve or fifteen thousand pounds, coming with their big well-shod horses, plunging and neighing.

Then it is that they will recall their old parents who embraced them in their own village, while they went off saying:

"I am going, but I shall return with the cross of honor, and with my epaulettes."

Yes, indeed! if they could weep and ask God's pardon, we should hear their cries and complaints, but there is no time for that; the cannon and the caissons with their freight of bombs and bullets arrive—and they can hear their own bones crack beforehand—and all pass right over their bodies, just as they do through the mud.

When we are old, and think that such horrible things may happen to the children we love, we feel as if we would part with the last sou before we would allow them to go.

But all this does no good, bad men cannot be changed, while good ones must do their duty, and if misfortune comes, their confidence in the justice of God remains. Such men do not destroy their fellows from the love of glory, they are forced to do so, they have nothing with which to reproach themselves, they defend their own lives and the blood which is shed is not on their hands.

But I must finish my story of the battle and the removal of the wounded.

I saw sights there which are incredible; men killed in a moment of fury, whose faces had not lost their horrible expression, still held their muskets in their hands and stood upright against the walls, and you could almost hear them cry, as they stared with glazed eyes, "To the bayonet! No quarter!"

It was with this thought and this cry that they appeared before God. He was awaiting them, and He may have said to them, "Here am I. Thou killest thy brethren—thou givest no quarter? None shall be given thee!"

I have seen others mortally wounded strangling each other. At Fleurus we were obliged to separate the French and the Prussians, because they would rise from their beds, or their bundles of straw, to tear each other to pieces. Ah! war! those who wish for it, and those who make men like ferocious beasts, will have a terrible account to settle above.



XX

The removal of the wounded continued until night. About noon shouts of Vive l'Empereur extended along the whole line of our bivouac from the village of Bry to Sombref. Napoleon had left Fleurus with his staff and had passed in review the whole army on the plateau. These shouts continued for an hour, and then all was quiet and the army took up its march.

We waited a long time for the orders to follow, but as they did not come, Captain Florentin went to see what was the matter, and came back at full speed shouting, "Beat the assembly!" The detachments of the battalion joined each other and we passed through the village at a quick step.

All had left, many other squads had received no orders, and in the vicinity of St. Amand the streets were full of soldiers.

Several companies remained behind, and reached the road by crossing the fields on the left, where we could see the rear of the column as far as the eye could reach—caissons, wagons, and baggage of every sort.

I have often thought that we might have been left behind, as Gerard's division was at St. Amand, and nobody could have blamed us, as we followed our orders to pick up the wounded, but Captain Florentin would have thought himself dishonored.

We hurried forward as fast as possible. It had commenced to rain again and we slipped in the mud and darkness. I never saw worse weather, not even at the retreat from Leipzig when we were in Germany. The rain came down as if from a watering pot, and we tramped on with our guns under our arms with the cape of our cloaks over the locks, so wet that if we had been through a river it could not have been worse; and such mud! With all this we began to feel the want of food. Buche kept saying:

"Well! a dozen big potatoes roasted in the ashes as we do at Harberg would rejoice my eyes. We don't eat meat every day at home, but we always have potatoes."

I thought of our warm little room at Pfalzbourg, the table with its white cloth, Father Goulden with his plate before him, while Catherine served the rich hot soup and the smoked cutlets on the gridiron. My present sufferings and troubles overwhelmed me, and if wishing for death only had been necessary to rid me of them, I should have long ago been out of this world.

The night was dark, and if it had not been for the ruts, into which we plunged to our knees at every step, we should have found it difficult to keep the road; as it was, we had only to march in the mud to be sure we were right.

Between seven and eight o'clock we heard in the distance something like thunder. Some said: "It is a thunder-storm!" others, "It is cannon!"

Great numbers of disbanded soldiers were following us.

At eight o'clock we reached Quatre-Bras. There are two houses opposite each other at the intersection of the road from Nivelles to Namur with that from Brussels to Charleroi. They were both full of wounded men. It was here that Marshal Ney had given battle to the English, to prevent them from going to the support of the Prussians along the road by which we had just come. He had but twenty thousand men against forty thousand, and yet Nicholas Cloutier, the tanner, maintains to-day even, that he ought to have sent half his troops to attack the Prussian rear, as if it were not enough to stop the English.

To such people everything is easy, but if they were in command, it would be easy to rout them with four men and a corporal.

Below us the barley and oat fields were full of dead men. It was then that I saw the first red-coats stretched out in the road.

The captain ordered us to halt, and he went into the house at the right. We waited for some time in the rain, when he came out with Dauzelot, general of the division, who was laughing, because we had not followed Grouchy toward Namur; the want of orders had compelled us to turn off to Quatre-Bras. Notwithstanding, we received orders to continue our march without stopping.

I thought I should drop every moment from weakness, but it was worse still when we overtook the baggage, for then we were obliged to march on the sides of the road, and the farther from it we went the more deeply we sank in the soft soil.

About eleven o'clock we reached a large village called Genappe, which lies on both sides of the route.

The crowd of wagons, cannon, and baggage was so great that we were forced to turn to the right and cross the Thy by a bridge, and from this point we continued to march through the fields of grain and hemp, like savages who respect nothing. The night was so dark that the mounted dragoons, who were placed at intervals of two hundred paces like guide-posts, kept shouting, "This way, this way!"

About midnight we reached a sort of farm-house thatched with straw, which was filled with superior officers. It was not far from the main road, as we could hear the cavalry and artillery and baggage wagons rushing by like a torrent.

The captain had hardly got into the house, when we jumped over the hedge into the garden. I did like the rest, and snatched what I could. Nearly the whole battalion followed this example in spite of the shouts of the officers, and each one began digging up what he could find with his bayonet. In two minutes there was nothing left. The sergeants and corporals were with us, but when the captain returned we had all regained our ranks.

Those who pillage and steal on a campaign ought to be shot; but what could you do? There was not a quarter enough food in the towns through which we passed to supply such numbers. The English had already taken nearly everything. We had a little rice left, but rice without meat is not very strengthening.

The English troops received sheep and beeves from Brussels, they were well fed and glowing with health. We had come too late, the convoys of supplies were belated, and the next day when the terrible battle of Waterloo was fought the only ration we received was brandy.

We left the village, and on mounting a little elevation we perceived the English pickets through the rain. We were ordered to take a position in the grain fields with several regiments which we could not see, and not to light our fires for fear of alarming the English, if they should discover us in line, and so induce them to continue their retreat.

Now just imagine us lying in the grain under a pouring rain like regular gypsies, shivering with cold and bent on destroying our fellows, and happy in having a turnip or a radish to keep up our strength and tell me if that is the kind of life for honest people. Is it for that, that God has created us and put us in the world? Is it not abominable that a king or an emperor, instead of watching over the affairs of the state, encouraging commerce, and instructing the people in the principles of liberty and giving good examples, should reduce us to such a condition as that by hundreds of thousands. I know very well that this is called glory, but the people are very stupid to glorify such men as those. Yes, indeed, they must have first lost all sense of right, all heart, and all religion!

But all this did not prevent my teeth from chattering, or from seeing the English in our front warming and enjoying themselves around their good fires, after receiving their rations of beef, brandy, and tobacco. And I thought, "It is we poor devils, drenched to our very marrow, who are to be compelled to attack these fellows who are full of confidence, and want neither cannon nor supplies, who sleep with their feet to the fire, with their stomachs well lined, while we must lie here in the mud." I was indignant the whole night. Buche would say:

"I do not care for the rain, I have been through many a worse one when on the watch; but then I had at least a crust of bread and some onions and salt."

I was quite absorbed with my own troubles and said nothing, but he was angry.

The rain ceased between two and three in the morning. Buche and I were lying back to back in a furrow, in order to keep warm, and at last overcome by fatigue I fell asleep.

When I woke about five in the morning, the church bells were ringing matins over all that vast plain.

I shall never forget the scene; and as I looked at the gray sky, the trampled grain, and my sleeping comrades on the right and left, my heart sunk under the sense of desolation. The sound of the bells as they responded to each other from Planchenois to Genappe, from Frichemont to Waterloo, reminded me of Pfalzbourg, and I thought:

"To-day is Sunday, the day of rest and peace. Mr. Goulden has hung his best coat, with a white shirt, on the back of his chair. He is getting up now and he is thinking of me; Catherine has risen too and is sitting crying on the bed, and Aunt Gredel at Quatre Vents is pushing open the shutters and she has taken her prayer-book from the shelf and is going to mass." I could hear the bells of Dann and Mittelbronn and Bigelberg ring out in the silence. I thought of that peaceful quiet life and was ready to burst into tears.

The roll of the drums was heard through the damp air, and there was something inauspicious and portentous in the sound.

Near the main road, on the left, they were beating the assembly, and the bugles of the cavalry sounded the reveille. The men rose and looked over the grain. Those three days of marching and fighting in the bad weather without rations made them sober; there was no talking as at Ligny, every one looked in silence and kept his thoughts to himself.

We could see too, that the battle was to be a much more important affair, for instead of having villages already occupied, which caused so many separate battles, on our front, there was an immense elevated naked plain on which the English were encamped.

Behind their lines at the top of the hill was the village of Mont-St.-Jean, and a league and a half still farther away, was a forest which bounded the horizon.

Between us and the English, the ground descended gently and rose again nearest us, forming a little valley, but one must have been accustomed to the country to perceive this; it was deepest on the right and contracted like a ravine. On the slope of this ravine on our side, behind the hedges and poplars and other trees, some thatched roofs indicated a hamlet; this was Planchenois. In the same direction but much higher, and in the rear of the enemy's left, the plain extended as far as the eye could reach, and was scattered over with little villages.

The clear atmosphere after the storm enabled us to distinguish all this very plainly.

We could even see the little village of Saint-Lambert three leagues distant on our right.

At our left in the rear of the English right, there were other little villages to be seen, of which I never knew the names.

We took in all this grand region covered with a magnificent crop just in flower, at a glance; and we asked ourselves why the English were there, and what advantage they had in guarding that position. But when we observed their line a little more closely—it was from fifteen hundred to two thousand yards from us—we could see the broad, well-paved road, which we had followed from Quatre-Bras and which led to Brussels, dividing their position nearly in the centre. It was straight, and we could follow it with the eye to the village of Mont-St.-Jean and beyond quite to the entrance of the forest of Soignes. This we saw the English intended to hold to prevent us from going to Brussels.

On looking carefully we could see that their line of battle was curved a little toward us at the wings, and that it followed a road which cut the route to Brussels like a cross. On the left it was a deep cut, and on the right of the road it was bordered with thick hedges of holly and dwarf beech which are common in that country. Behind these were posted mass of red-coats who watched us from their trenches. In the front, the slope was like a glacis. This was very dangerous.

Immense bodies of cavalry were stationed on the flanks, which extended nearly three-quarters of a league.

We saw that the cavalry on the plateau in the vicinity of the main road after having passed the hill, descended before going to Mont-St.-Jean, and we understood that there was a hollow between the position of the English and that village; not very deep, as we could see the plumes of the soldiers as they passed through, but still deep enough to shelter heavy reserves from our bullets.

I had already seen Weissenfels, Lutzen, Leipzig, and Ligny, and I began to understand what these things meant, and why they arranged themselves in one way rather than another, and I thought that the manner in which these English had laid their plans and stationed their forces on this cross-road to defend the road to Brussels, and to shelter their reserves, showed a vast deal of good sense.

But in spite of all that, three things seemed to me to be in our favor. The position of the enemy with its covered ways and hidden reserves was like a great fort. Every one knows that in time of war everything is demolished that can furnish a shelter to the enemy.

Well! just in their centre, on the high-road and on the slope of their glacis, was a farm-house like the "Roulette" at Quatre Vents, but five or six times larger.

I could see it plainly from where we stood. It was a great square, the offices, the house, the stables and barns formed a triangle on the side toward the English, and on our side the other half was formed by a wall and sheds, with a court in the centre. The wall running along the field side, had a small door, the other on the road had an entrance for carriages and wagons.

It was built of brick and was very solid. Of course the English had filled it with troops like a sort of demilune, but if we could take it we should be close to their centre and could throw our attacking columns upon them, without remaining long under their fire.

Nothing could be better for us. This place was called Haie-Sainte, as we found out afterward.

A little farther on, in front of their right wing was another little farmstead and grove, which we could also try to take. I could not see it from where I stood, but it was a stronger position than Haie-Sainte as it was covered by an orchard, surrounded with walls, and farther on was the wood. The fire from the windows swept the garden, and that from the garden covered the wood, and that from the wood the side-hill, and the enemy could beat a retreat from one to the other.

I did not see this with my own eyes, but some veterans gave me an account of the attack on this farm; it was called Hougoumont.

One must be exact in speaking of such a battle, the things seen with one's own eyes are the principal, and we can say:

"I saw them, but the other accounts I had from men incapable of falsehood or deception."

And lastly in front of their left wing on the road leading to Wavre, about a hundred paces from the hill on our side, were the farms of Papelotte and La Haye, occupied by the Germans, and the little hamlets of Smohain, Cheval-de-Bois, and Jean-Loo, which I informed myself about afterward in order to understand all that took place. I could see these hamlets plainly enough then, but I did not pay much attention to them as they were beyond our line of battle on the right, and we did not see any troops there.

Now you can all see the position of the English on our front, the road to Brussels which traversed it, the cross-road which covered it, the plateau in the rear where the reserves were, and the three farms, Hougoumont, Haie-Sainte, and Papelotte in front, well garrisoned. You can all see that it would be very difficult to force.

I looked at it about six o'clock that morning very attentively, as a man will do who is to run the risk of breaking his bones and losing his life in some enterprise, and who at least likes to know if he has any chance of escape.

Zebede, Sergeant Rabot, and Captain Florentin, Buche, and indeed every one as he rose cast a glance at that hill-side without saying a word. Then they looked around them at the great squares of infantry, the squadrons of cuirassiers, of dragoons, chasseurs, lancers, etc., encamped amid the growing grain.

Nobody had any fears now that the English would beat a retreat, we lighted as many fires as we pleased, and the smoke from the damp straw filled the air. Those who had a little rice left, put on their camp-kettles, while those who had none looked on thinking:

"Each has his turn; yesterday we had meat, and we despised the rice, now we should be very grateful for even that."

About eight o'clock the wagons arrived with cartridges and hogsheads of brandy; each soldier received a double ration: with a crust of bread we might have done very well, but the bread was not there. You can imagine what sort of humor we were in.

This was all we had that day: immediately after, the grand movements commenced. Regiments joined their brigades, brigades their divisions, and the divisions re-formed their corps. Officers on horseback carried orders back and forth, everything was in motion.

Our battalion joined Donzelot's division; the others had only eight battalions, but his had nine.

I have often heard the veterans repeat the order of battle given by Napoleon. The corps of Reille was on the left of the road opposite Hougoumont, that of d'Erlon, at the right, opposite Haie-Sainte; Ney on horseback on the highway, and Napoleon in the rear with the Old Guard, the special detachments, the lancers and chasseurs, etc. That was all that I understood, for when they began to talk of the movements of eleven columns, of the distance which they deployed, and when they named the generals one after another, it seemed to me as if they were talking of something which I had never seen.

I like better therefore to tell you simply what I saw and remember myself.

The first movement was at half-past eight, when our four divisions received the order to take the advance to the right of the highway. There were about fifteen or twenty thousand men marching in two columns, with arms at will, sinking to our knees at every step in the soft ground. Nobody spoke a word.

Several persons have related that we were jubilant and were all singing; but it is false. Marching all night without rations, sleeping in the water, forbidden to light a fire, when preparing for showers of grape and canister, all this took away any inclination to sing, we were glad to pull our shoes out of the holes in which they were buried at every step, and chilled and drenched to our waists by the wet grain, the hardiest and most courageous among us wore a discontented air. It is true that the bands played marches for their regiments, that the trumpets of the cavalry, the drums of the infantry, and the trombones mingled their tones and produced a terrible effect, as they do always.

It is also true that these thousands of men marched briskly and in good order, with their knapsacks at their backs, and their muskets on their shoulders, the white lines of the cuirassiers followed the red, brown, and green of the dragoons, hussars, and lancers, with their little swallow-tailed pennons filling the air; the artillerymen in the intervals between the brigades, on horseback around their guns, which cut through the ground to their axles,—all these moved straight through the grain, not a head of which remained standing behind them, and truly there could not be a sight more dreadful.

The English drawn up in perfect order in front, their gunners ready with their lighted matches in their hands, made us think, but did not delight us quite so much as some have pretended, and men who like to receive cannon-balls are still rather rare.

Father Goulden told me that the soldiers sang in his time, but then they went voluntarily and not from force. They fought in defence of their homes and for human rights, which they loved better than their own eyes, and it was not at all like risking our lives to find out whether we were to have an old or a new nobility. As for me, I never heard any one sing either at Leipzig or Waterloo.

On we went, the bands still playing by order from head-quarters.

The music ceased, and the silence which followed was profound. Then we were at the edge of the little valley, and about twelve hundred paces from the English left. We were in the centre of our army, with the chasseurs and lancers on our right flank.

We took our distances and closed up the intervals. The first brigade of the first division turned to the left and formed on the highway. Our battalion formed a part of the second division, and we were in the first line, with a single brigade of the first division before us. The artillery was passed up to the front, and that of the English was directly opposite and on the same level. And for a long time the other divisions were moving up to support us. It seemed as if the earth itself was in motion. The veterans would say: "There are Milhaud's cuirassiers! Here are the chasseurs of Lefebvre-Desnoettes! Yonder is Lobau's corps!"

On every side, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing to be seen but cuirasses, helmets, colbacks,[1] sabres, lances, and files of bayonets.

[1] Military caps of bear-skin.

"What a battle," exclaimed Buche. "Woe to the English!"

I had the same thought; I did not believe a single Englishman would escape. But it was we who were unfortunate that day, though had it not been for the Prussians I still believe we should have exterminated them.

During the two hours we stood there, we did not see the half of our regiments and squadrons, and new ones were continually coming. About an hour after we took our position we heard suddenly on the left, shouts of "Vive l'Empereur," they increased as they approached us like a tempest; we all stood on our tiptoes and stretched our necks to see; they spread through all the ranks, and even the horses in the rear neighed as if they would shout too. At that moment a troop of general officers whirled along our front like the wind. Napoleon was among them, and I thought I saw him, though I was not certain, he went so swiftly, and so many men raised their shakos on the points of their bayonets that I hardly had time to distinguish his round shoulders and gray coat in the midst of the laced uniforms. When the captain had shouted, "Carry arms! present arms!" it was over.

We saw him in this way every day, at least when we were on guard.

After he had passed, the shouts continued along our right farther and farther away, and we all thought the battle would begin in twenty minutes.

But we were obliged to wait a long time and we grew impatient. The conscripts in d'Erlon's corps, who were not in battle the day before, began to shout "Forward!" At last, about noon, the cannon thundered on the left and were followed by the fire from the battalion and then the file. We could see nothing, for it was on the other side of the road. The attack had commenced on Hougoumont. Immediately shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" broke out. The cannoneers of our four divisions were standing the whole length of the hill-side, at twenty paces from each other. At the discharge of the first gun, they all commenced to load at once. I see them still, as they put in the charge, ram it home, raise up, and shake out their matches as by a single movement. This made us shiver. The captains of the guns, nearly all old officers, stood behind their pieces and gave orders as if on parade; and when the whole twenty-four guns went off together, the report was deafening, and the whole valley was covered with smoke.

At the end of a second, we heard the calm voices of these veterans above the whistling in our ears saying "Load! take aim! fire!" And that continued without interruption for half an hour. We could see nothing at all, but the English had opened their fire, and we heard their bullets scream in the air and strike with a dull sound in the mud; and then we could hear another sound too, that of the muskets striking against each other, and the sound of the bodies of wounded men as they were thrown like boneless sacks twenty paces in the rear, or sank in a heap with a leg or an arm wanting. All this mingled with the dull rumbling; the destruction had commenced.

The groans of the wounded mingled also with these sounds, and with the fierce terrible neighing of the horses, which are naturally ferocious, and delight in slaughter. We could hear this tumult half a league in the rear; and it was with great difficulty the animals could be restrained from setting off to join in the battle.

For a long time we had been able to see nothing but the shadows of the gunners as they manoeuvred in the smoke, on the border of the ravine, when we heard the order, "Cease firing!" At the same moment we heard the piercing voices of the colonels of our four divisions shout, "Close up the ranks for battle!" All the lines approached each other.

"Now it is our turn," said I to Buche.

"Yes," he replied, "let us keep together."

The smoke from our guns rose up into the air, and then we could see the batteries of the English, who still continued their fire all along the hedges which bordered the road.

The first brigade of Alix's division advanced at a quick step along the road leading to Haie-Sainte. In the rear I recognized Marshal Ney with several of the officers of his staff.

From every window of the farm-house, and from the garden, and walls which had been pierced with holes, came fiery showers, and at every step men were left stretched on the road. General Ney on horseback with the corners of his great hat pointing over his shoulders, watched the action from the middle of the road. I said to Buche:

"That is Marshal Ney, the second brigade will go to support the first, and we shall come next."

But I mistook; at that very moment the first battalion of the second brigade received orders to march in line on the right of the highway, the second in the rear of the first, the third behind the second, and the fourth following in file.

We had not time to form in column, but we were solidly arrayed after all, one behind the other, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men in line in front, the captains between the companies, and the commandants between the battalions. But the balls instead of carrying off two men at a time would now take eight. Those in the rear could not fire because those in front were in the way and we found too that we could not form in squares. That should have been thought of beforehand, but was overlooked in the desire to break the enemy's line and gain all at a blow.

Our division marched in the same order: as the first battalion advanced, the second followed immediately in their steps, and so on with all the rest. I was pleased to see, that, commencing on the left, we should be in the twenty-fifth rank, and that there must be terrible slaughter before we should be reached.

The two divisions on our right were also formed in close column, at three hundred paces from each other.

Thus we descended into the little valley, in the face of the English fire. We were somewhat delayed by the soft ground, but we all shouted, "To the bayonet!"

As we mounted on the other side, we were met by a hail of balls from above the road at the left. If we had not been so crowded together, this terrible volley would have checked us. The charge sounded and the officers shouted, "Steady on the left!"

But this terrible fire made us lengthen our right step more than our left, in spite of ourselves, so that when we neared the road bordered by the hedges, we had lost our distances and our division formed a square, so to speak, with the third.

Two batteries now swept our ranks, and the shot from the hedges a hundred feet distant pierced us through and through; a cry of horror burst forth and we rushed on the batteries, overpowering the redcoats who vainly endeavored to stop us.

It was then that I first saw the English close at hand. They were strong, fair, and closely shaved, like well-to-do bourgeois. They defended themselves bravely, but we were as good as they. It was not our fault—the common soldiers—if they did defeat us at last, all the world knows that we showed as much and more courage than they did.

It has been said that we were not the soldiers of Austerlitz and Jena, of Friedland and of Moskowa. It was because they were so good, perhaps, that they were spared. We would have asked nothing better, than to have seen them in our place.

Every shot of the English told, and we were forced to break our ranks. Men are not palisades, and must defend themselves when attacked.

Great numbers were detached from their companies, when thousands of Englishmen rose up from among the barley and fired, their muskets almost touching our men, which caused a terrible slaughter. The other ranks rushed to the support of their comrades, and we should all have been dispersed over the hill-side like a swarm of ants, if we had not heard the shout, "Attention, the cavalry!"

Almost at the same instant, a crowd of red dragoons mounted on gray horses, swept down upon us like the wind, and those who had straggled were cut to pieces without mercy.

They did not fall upon our columns in order to break them, they were too deep and massive for that; but they came down between the divisions, slashing right and left with their sabres, and spurring their horses into the flanks of the columns to cut them in two, and though they could not succeed in this, they killed great numbers and threw us into confusion.

It was one of the most terrible moments of my life. As an old soldier I was at the right of the battalion, and saw what they were intending to do. They leaned over as far as possible when they passed, in order to cut into our ranks; their strokes followed each other like lightning, and more than twenty times I thought my head was off my shoulders, but Sergeant Rabot closed the file fortunately for me; it was he who received this terrible shower of blows, and he defended himself to the last breath. At every stroke he shouted, "Cowards, Cowards!"

His blood sprinkled me like rain, and at last he fell. My musket was still loaded, and seeing one of the dragoons coming with his eye fixed on me and bending over to give me a thrust, I let him have it full in the breast. This was the only man I ever saw fall under my fire.

The worst was, that at that moment their foot-soldiers rallied and recommenced their fire, and they even were so bold as to attack us with the bayonet. Only the first two ranks made a stand. It was shameful to form our men in that manner.

Then the red dragoons and our columns rushed pell-mell down the hill together.

And still our division made the best defence, for we brought off our colors, while the two others had lost two eagles.

We rushed down in this fashion through the mud and over the cannon, which had been brought down to support us, and had been cut loose from the horses by the sabres of the dragoons.

We scattered in every direction, Buche and I always keeping together, and it was ten minutes before we could be rallied again near the road in squads from all the regiments.

Those who have the direction of affairs in war should keep such examples as these before their eyes, and reflect that new plans cost those dear who are forced to try them.

We looked over our shoulders as we took breath, and saw the red dragoons rushing up the hill to capture our principal battery of twenty-four guns, when, thank God! their turn came to be massacred.

The Emperor had observed our retreat from a distance, and as the dragoons mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. We could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses' feet were trying to get up, and sheltering themselves with their hands.

What horrible things are battles! Buche shouted, "Strike hard!"

I felt the sweat run down my forehead, and others with great gashes, and their eyes full of blood, were wiping their faces and laughing ferociously.

In ten minutes, seven hundred dragoons were hors-de-combat; their gray horses were running wildly about on all sides, with their bits in their teeth. Some hundreds of them had retired behind their batteries, but more than one was reeling in his saddle and clutching at his horse's mane.

They had found out that to attack was not all the battle, and that very often circumstances arise which are quite unexpected.

In all that frightful spectacle, what impressed me most deeply, was seeing our cuirassiers returning with their sabres red to the hilt, laughing among themselves; and a fat captain with immense brown mustaches, winked good-humoredly as he passed by us, as much as to say, "You see we sent them back in a hurry, eh!"

Yes, but three thousand of our men were left in that little hollow. And it was not yet finished: the companies and battalions and brigades were being re-formed, the musketry rattled in the vicinity of Haie-Sainte, and the cannon thundered near Hougoumont. "It was only just a beginning," the officers said. You would have thought that men's lives were of no value!

But it was necessary to get possession of Haie-Sainte, and to force a passage from the highway to the enemy's centre just as an entrance must be effected into a fortification through the fire of the outworks and the demilunes. We had been repulsed the first time, but the battle was begun, and we could not go back. After the charge of the cuirassiers, it took a little time for us to re-form: the battle continued at Hougoumont, and the cannonade re-opened on our right, and two batteries had been brought up to sweep the highway in the rear of Haie-Sainte, where the road begins to mount the hill. We all saw that that was to be the point of attack.

We stood waiting with shouldered arms, when about three o'clock Buche looked behind him on the road and said, "The Emperor is coming!"

And others in the ranks repeated, "Here is the Emperor."

The smoke was so thick that we could barely see the bear-skin caps of the Old Guard on the little hill of Rossomme. I turned round also to see the Emperor, and immediately recognized Marshal Ney, with five or six of his staff officers. He was coming from head-quarters and pushed straight down upon us across the fields. We stood with our backs to him; our officers hurried to meet him, and they conversed together, but we could not hear a word in consequence of the noise which filled our ears.

The marshal then rode along the front of our two battalions, with his sword drawn. I had never seen him so near since the grand review at Aschaffenbourg; he seemed older, thinner, and more bony, but still the same man; he looked at us with his sharp gray eyes, as if he took us all in at a glance, and each one felt, as if he were looking directly at him.

At the end of a second he pointed toward Haie-Sainte with his sword, and exclaimed:

"We are going to take that, you will have the whole at once, it is the turning-point of the battle. I am going to lead you myself. Battalions by file to the left!"

We started at a quick step on the road, marching by companies in three ranks. I was in the second. Marshal Ney was in front, on horseback, with the two colonels and Captain Florentin: he had returned his sword to the scabbard. The balls whistled round our ears by hundreds, and the roar of cannon from Hougoumont and on our left and right in the rear was so incessant, that it was like the ringing of an immense bell, when you no longer hear the strokes, but only the booming. One and another sank down from among us, but we passed right on over them.

Two or three times the marshal turned round to see if we were marching in good order; he looked so calm, that it seemed to me quite natural not to be afraid, his face inspired us all with confidence, and each one thought, "Ney is with us, the others are lost!" which only shows the stupidity of the human race, since so many others besides us escaped.

As we approached the buildings the report of the musketry became more distinct from the roar of cannon, and we could better see the flash of the guns from the windows, and the great black roof above in the smoke, and the road blocked up with stones.

We went along by a hedge, behind which crackled the fire of our skirmishers, for the first brigade of Alix's division had not quitted the orchards; and on seeing us filing along the road, they commenced to shout, "Vive l'Empereur."

The whole fire of the German musketry was then turned on us, when Marshal Ney drew his sword and shouted in a voice which reached every ear, "Forward!"

He disappeared in the smoke with two or three officers, and we all started on a run, our cartridge-boxes dangling about our hips, and our muskets at the "ready."

Far to the rear they were beating the charge; we did not see the marshal again till we reached a shed which separated the garden from the road, when we discovered him on horseback before the main entrance.

It appeared that they had already tried to force the door, as there was a heap of dead men, timbers, paving stones, and rubbish piled up before it, reaching to the middle of the road. The shot poured from every opening in the building, and the air was heavy with the smell of the powder.

"Break that in," shouted the marshal. Fifteen or twenty of us dropped our muskets, and seizing beams we drove them against the door with such force, that it cracked and echoed back the blows like thunder. You would have thought it would drop at every stroke; we could see through the planks the paving stones heaped as high as the top inside. It was full of holes, and when it fell it might have crushed us, but fury had rendered us blind to danger. We no longer had any resemblance to men, some had lost their shakos, others had their clothes nearly torn off; the blood ran from their fingers and down their sides, and at every discharge of musketry the shot from the hill struck the paving stones, pounding them to dust around us.

I looked about me, but I could not see either Buche or Zebede or any others of our company, the marshal had disappeared also. Our rage redoubled; and as the timbers went back and forth, we grew furious to find that the door would not come down, when suddenly we heard shouts of "Vive l'Empereur" from the court, accompanied with a most horrible uproar. Every one knew that our troops had gained an entrance into the enclosure. We dropped the timbers, and seizing our guns we sprang through the breaches into the garden to find where the others had entered. It was in the rear of the house through a door opening into the barn. We rushed through one after the other like a pack of wolves.

The interior of this old structure, with its lofts full of hay and straw, and its stables covered with thatch, looked like a bloody nest which had been attacked by a sparrow-hawk.

On a great dung-heap in the middle of the court, our men were bayoneting the Germans who were yelling and swearing savagely.

I was running hap-hazard through this butchery, when I heard some one call, "Joseph, Joseph!" I looked round, thinking, "That is Buche calling me." In a moment I saw him at the door of a woodshed, crossing bayonets with five or six of our men.

I caught sight of Zebede at that same instant, as our company was in that corner, and rushing to Buche's assistance, I shouted, "Zebede!" Parting the combatants, I asked Buche what was the matter.

"They want to murder my prisoners!" said he. I joined him, and the others began to load their muskets to shoot us. They were voltigeurs from another battalion.

At that moment Zebede came up with several men from our company, and without knowing how the matter stood, he seized the most brutal one by the throat and exclaimed, "My name is Zebede, sergeant of the Sixth light infantry. When this affair is settled, we will have a mutual explanation."

Then they went away, and Zebede asked:

"What is all this, Joseph?"

I told him we had some prisoners. He turned pale with anger against us, but when he went into the wood-shed he saw an old major, who presented him the guard of his sabre in silence, and another soldier, who said in German, "Spare my life, Frenchman; don't take my life."

The cries of the dying still filled the court, and his heart relenting, Zebede said, "Very well, I take you prisoners."

He went out and shut the door. We did not quit the place again until the assembly began to beat.

Then, when the men were in their ranks, Zebede notified Captain Florentin that we had taken a major and a soldier prisoners.

They were brought out and marched across the court without arms, and put in a room with three or four others. These were all that remained of the two battalions of Nassau troops which were intrusted with the defence of Haie-Sainte.

While this had been going on, two other battalions from Nassau, who were coming to the assistance of their comrades, had been massacred outside by our cuirassiers, so that for the moment we were victorious: we were masters of the principal outpost of the English and could begin our attack on their centre, cut their communication by the highway with Brussels, and throw them into the miserable roads of the forest of Soignes. We had had a hard struggle, but the principal part of the battle had been fought. We were two hundred paces from the English lines, well sheltered from their fire; and I believe, without boasting, that with the bayonet and well supported by the cavalry, we could have fallen upon them, and pierced their line. An hour of good work would have finished the affair.

But while we were all rejoicing over our success, and the officers, soldiers, drummers, and trumpeters were all in confusion, amongst the ruins, thinking of nothing but stretching our legs and getting breath, the rumor suddenly reached us that the Prussians were coming, that they were going to fall on our flank, and that we were about to have two battles, one in front and the other on our right, and that we ran the risk of being surrounded by a force double our own.

This was terrible news, but several hot-headed fellows exclaimed:

"So much the better, let the Prussians come! we will crush them all at once."

Those who were cool saw at once what a mistake we had made by not making the most of our victory at Ligny, and in allowing the Prussians quietly to leave in the night without being pursued by our cavalry, as is always done.

We may boldly say that this great fault was the cause of our defeat at Waterloo. It is true, the Emperor sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive.

The next day after Ligny, the Prussians still had ninety thousand men, of whom thirty thousand were fresh troops, and two hundred and seventy-five cannon. With such an army they could do what they pleased; they could have even fought a second battle with the Emperor, but they preferred falling on our flank, while we were engaged with the English in front. That is so plain and clear, that I cannot imagine how any one can think the movement of the Prussians surprising.

Bluecher had already played us the same trick at Leipzig—and he repeated it now in drawing Grouchy on to pursue him so far. Grouchy could not force him to return, and he could not prevent him from leaving thirty or forty thousand men to stop his pursuers, while he pushed on to the relief of Wellington.

Our only hope was that Grouchy had been ordered to return and join us, and that he would come up in the rear of the Prussians; but the Emperor sent no such order.

It was not we, the common soldiers, as you may well think, who had these ideas; it was the officers and generals; we knew nothing of it; we were like children, utterly unconscious that their hour is near.

But now having told you what I think, I will give you the history of the rest of the battle just as I saw it myself, so that each one of you will know as much about it as I do.



XXI

Almost immediately after the news of the arrival of the Prussians, the assembly began to beat, the soldiers of the different battalions formed their ranks, and ours, with another from Quiot's brigade, was left to guard Haie-Sainte, and all the others went on to join General d'Erlon's corps, which had advanced again into the valley, and was endeavoring to flank the enemy on the left.

The two battalions went to work at once to barricade the doors and the breaches in the walls with timbers and paving stones, and men were stationed in ambush at all the holes which the enemy had made in the wall on the side toward the orchard and on that next the highway.

Buche and I, with the remainder of our company, were posted over a stable in a corner of the barn, about ten or twelve hundred paces from Hougoumont. I can still see the row of holes which the Germans had knocked in the wall, about as high as a man's head, in order to defend the orchard. As we went up into this stable, we looked through these holes, and we could see our line of battle, the high-road to Brussels and Charleroi, the little farms of Belle-Alliance, Rossomme, and Gros-Caillou, which lie along this road at little distances from each other; the Old Guard which was stationed across it, with their shouldered arms, and the staff on a little eminence at the left, and farther away in the same direction, in the rear of the ravine of Planchenois, we could see the white smoke rising continually above the trees. This was the attack of the first Prussian corps.

We heard afterward that the Emperor had sent Lobau with ten thousand men to turn them back. The battle had begun, but the Old and the Young Guard, the cuirassiers of Milhaud and of Kellerman, and the chasseurs of Lefebvre-Desnoettes; in fact the whole of our magnificent cavalry remained in position. The great, the real battle was with the English.

What a crowd of thoughts must have been suggested, by that grand spectacle and that immense plain, to the Emperor, who could see it all mentally better than we could with our own eyes.

We might have stayed there for hours, if Captain Florentin had not come up suddenly, and exclaimed, "What are you doing here? Are we going to dispute the passage with the Guard? Come! hurry! Knock a hole in that wall on the side toward the enemy!"

We picked up the sledges and pickaxes which the Germans had dropped on the floor, and made holes through the wall of the gable.

This did not take fifteen minutes, and then we could see the fight at Hougoumont; the blazing buildings, the bursting of the bombs from second to second among the ruins, and the Scotch chasseurs in ambuscade in the road in the rear of the place, and on our right about two gunshots distant, the first line of the English artillery, falling back on their centre, and stationing their cannon, which our gunners had begun to dismount, higher up the hill. But the remainder of their line did not change; they had squares of red and squares of black touching each other at the corners like the squares of a chess-board, in the rear of the deep road; and in attacking them we would come under their crossfire. Their artillery was in position on the brow of the hill, and in the hollow on the hill-side toward Mont-St.-Jean their cavalry was waiting.

The position of the English seemed to me still stronger than it was in the morning; and as we had already failed in our attack on their left wing, and the Prussians had fallen on our flank, the idea occurred to me, for the first time, that we were not sure of gaining the battle.

I imagined the horrible rout that would follow in case we lost the battle—shut in between two armies, one in front and the other on our flank, and then the invasion which would follow; the forced contributions, the towns besieged, the return of the emigres, and the reign of vengeance.

I felt that my apprehension had made me grow pale.

At that moment the shouts of "Vive l'Empereur" broke from thousands of throats behind us. Buche, who stood near me in a corner of the loft, shouted with all the rest of his comrades, "Vive l'Empereur!"

I leaned over his shoulder and saw all the cavalry of our right wing; the cuirassiers of Milhaud, the lancers and the chasseurs of the Guard, more than five thousand men—advancing at a trot. They crossed the road obliquely and went down into the valley between Hougoumont and Haie-Sainte. I saw that they were going to attack the squares of the English, and that our fate was to be decided.

We could hear the voices of the English artillery officers, giving their orders, above the tumult and the innumerable shouts of "Vive l'Empereur."

It was a terrible moment when our cuirassiers crossed the valley; it made me think of a torrent formed by the melting snows, when millions of flakes of snow and ice sparkle in the sunshine. The horses, with the great blue portmanteaux fastened to their croups, stretched their haunches like deer and tore up the earth with their feet, the trumpets blew their savage blasts amidst the dull roar as they passed into the valley, and the first discharge of grape and canister made even our old shed tremble. The wind blew from the direction of Hougoumont, and drove the smoke through all the openings; we leaned out to breathe, and the second and third discharges followed each other instantly.

I could see through the smoke that the English, gunners had abandoned their cannon and were running away with their horses, and that our cuirassiers had immediately fallen upon the squares, which were marked out on the hill-side by the zig-zag line of their fire.

Nothing could be heard but a grand uproar of cries, incessant clashing of arms and neighing of horses, varied with the discharge from time to time, and then new shouts, new tumult and fresh groans. A score of horses with their manes erect, rushed through the thick smoke which settled around us, like shadows; some of them dragging their riders with one foot caught in the stirrup.

And this lasted more than an hour.

After Milhaud's cuirassiers, came the lancers of Lefebvre-Desnoettes, after them the cuirassiers of Kellerman, followed by the grenadiers of the Guard, and after the grenadiers came the dragoons. They all mounted the hill at a trot, and rushed upon the squares with drawn sabres, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" in tones which reached the clouds. At each new charge it seemed as if the squares must be overthrown; but when the trumpets sounded the signal for rallying and the squadrons rushed pell-mell back to the edge of the plateau to re-form, pursued by the showers of shot, there were the great red lines, steadfast as walls, in the smoke.

Those Englishmen are good soldiers, but then they knew that Bluecher was coming to their assistance with sixty thousand men, and no doubt this inspired them with great courage.

In spite of everything, at six o'clock we had destroyed half their squares, but the horses of our cuirassiers were exhausted by twenty charges over the ground soaked with rain. They could no longer advance over the heaps of dead.

As night approached, the great battle-field in our rear began to be deserted; at last the great plain where we had encamped the night before was tenantless, only the Old Guard remained across the road with shouldered arms, all had gone—on the right against the Prussians, on the left against the English. We looked at each other in terror.

It was already growing dark, when Captain Florentin appeared at the top of the ladder, and placing both hands on the floor, he said in a grave voice, "Men, the time has come to conquer or die!"

I remembered that these words were in the proclamation of the Emperor, and we all filed down the ladder. It was still twilight, but all was gray in the devastated court; the dead were lying stiff on the dung-heap and along the walls.

The captain formed our men on the right side of the court, and the commandant of the other battalion ranged his on the left; our drums resounded through the old building for the last time, and we filed out of the little rear door into the garden, stooping one after the other as we went through.

The walls of the garden outside had been knocked down, and all along the rubbish, men were binding up their wounds—one his head, another his arm or his leg. A cantiniere with her donkey and cart, and with a great straw hat flattened on her back—was there too in a corner. I do not know what had brought the wretched creature there. Several sorry-looking horses were standing there, exhausted with fatigue, with their heads hanging down, and covered with blood and mud.

What a difference between them now, and in the morning. Then the companies were half destroyed, but still they were companies. Confusion was coming. It had taken only three hours to reduce us to the same condition we were in at Leipzig at the end of a year. The remains of the two battalions still formed only one line, in good order, and I must admit that we began to be anxious.

When men have tasted nothing for twenty-four hours, and have exhausted all their strength by fighting all day, the pangs of hunger seize them at night, fear comes also, and the most courageous lose hope. All our great retreats, with their horrors, are traceable to the want of food.

For in spite of everything we were not conquered; the cuirassiers still held their position on the plateau, and from all sides over the thunder of cannon, over all the tumult, the cry was heard, "The Guard is coming!" Yes, the Guard was coming at last! We could see them in the distance on the highway, with their high bear-skin caps, advancing in good order.

Those who have never witnessed the arrival of the Guard on the battle-field, can never know the confidence which is inspired by a body of tried soldiers; the kind of respect paid to courage and force.

The soldiers of the Old Guard were nearly all old peasants, born before the Republic; men five feet and six inches in height, thin and well built, who had held the plough for convent and chateau; afterward they were levied with all the rest of the people, and went to Germany, Holland, Italy, Egypt, Poland, Spain, and Russia, under Kleber, Hoche, and Marceau first, and under Napoleon afterward. He took special care of them and paid them liberally. They regarded themselves as the proprietors of an immense farm, which they must defend and enlarge more and more. This gained them consideration; they were defending their own property. They no longer knew parents, relatives, or compatriots; they only knew the Emperor; he was their God. And lastly they had adopted the King of Rome, who was to inherit all with them, and to support and honor them in their old age. Nothing like them was ever seen, they were so accustomed to march, to dress their lines, to load, and fire, and cross bayonets, that it was done mechanically in a measure, whenever there was a necessity. When they advanced, carrying arms, with their great caps, their white waistcoats and gaiters, they all looked just alike; you could plainly see that it was the right arm of the Emperor which was coming. When it was said in the ranks, "The Guard is going to move," it was as if they had said, "The battle is gained."