Kabanata Kabanata 83 · THE GUARD

Every one knows the rest,—the irruption of a third army; the battle

broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously;

Pirch the first coming up with Bülow; Zieten’s cavalry led by Blücher

in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of

Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating;

Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our

dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the

offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French

army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each

other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the

Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all

things.

Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, “Vive l’Empereur!”

History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in

acclamations.

The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very

moment,—it was eight o’clock in the evening—the clouds on the horizon

parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to

pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it

rise at Austerlitz.

Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this final

catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan,

were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with

their large plaques bearing the eagle appeared, symmetrical, in line,

tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for

France; they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the field of

battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors,

believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated; but Wellington

shouted, “Up, Guards, and aim straight!” The red regiment of English

guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot

riddled the tricolored flag and whistled round our eagles; all hurled

themselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, the

Imperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vast

shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the

place of the “Vive l’Empereur!” and, with flight behind it, it

continued to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that

it took. There were none who hesitated, no timid men in its ranks. The

soldier in that troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man

was missing in that suicide.

Ney, bewildered, great with all the grandeur of accepted death, offered

himself to all blows in that tempest. He had his fifth horse killed

under him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth,

with uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut off by a

sword-stroke from a horseguard, his plaque with the great eagle dented

by a bullet; bleeding, bemired, magnificent, a broken sword in his

hand, he said, “Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field

of battle!” But in vain; he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At

Drouet d’Erlon he hurled this question, “Are you not going to get

yourself killed?” In the midst of all that artillery engaged in

crushing a handful of men, he shouted: “So there is nothing for me! Oh!

I should like to have all these English bullets enter my bowels!”

Unhappy man, thou wert reserved for French bullets!