Chapter 21

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_ CHAPTER 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."

But now, after this terrible massacre, after the repulse of these furious attacks, on seeing the Prussians fall on our flank, we said, "This is the decisive blow."

And we thought, "If it fails, all is lost."

This was why we all looked at the Guard as they marched steadily up on the road.

It was Ney who commanded them, as he had commanded the cuirassiers. The Emperor knew that nobody could lead them like Ney, only he should have ordered them up an hour sooner, when our cuirassiers were in the squares; then we should have gained all.

But the Emperor looked upon his Guard as upon his own flesh and blood; if he had had them at Paris five days later, Lafayette and the rest of them would not have remained long in their chamber to depose him, but he had them no longer.

This was why he waited so long before sending them; he hoped that Ney would succeed in overwhelming the enemy with the cavalry, or that the thirty-two thousand men under Grouchy would return, attracted by the sound of the cannon, and then he could send them in place of his Guard; because he could always replace thirty or forty thousand by conscription; but to have another such Guard, he must commence at twenty-five, and gain fifty victories, and what remained of the best, most solid, and the toughest would be _the Guard_.

It came, and we could see it. Ney, old Friant, and several other generals, marched in front. We could see nothing but _the Guard_--the roaring cannon, the musketry, the cries of the wounded, all were forgotten.

But the lull did not last long; the English perceived as well as we, that this was to be the decisive blow, and hastened to rally all their forces to receive it.

That part of our field at our left was nearly deserted; there was no more firing, either because their ammunition was exhausted, or the enemy were forming in a new order.

On the right, on the contrary, the cannonade was redoubled; the struggle seemed to have been transferred to that side, but nobody dared to say, "The Prussians are attacking us; another army has come to crush us."

No! the very idea was too horrible; when suddenly a staff officer rushed past like lightning, shouting:

"Grouchy, Marshal Grouchy is coming!"

This was just at the moment when the four battalions of the Guard took the left of the highway in order to go up in the rear of the orchard, and commence the attack.

How many times during the last fifty years I have seen it over again at night, and how many times I have heard the story related by others. In listening to these accounts you would think that only the Guard took part in the attack, that it moved forward like ranks of palisades; and that it was the Guard alone which received the showers of shot.

But in truth this terrible attack took place in the greatest confusion; our whole army joined in it; all the remnant of the left wing and centre, all that was left of the cavalry exhausted by six hours of fighting; every one who could stand or lift an arm. The infantry of Reille which concentrated on the left, we who remained at Haie-Sainte, _all_ who were alive and did not wish to be massacred.

And when they say we were in a panic of terror and tried to run away like cowards, it is not true. When the news arrived that Grouchy was coming, even the wounded rose up and took their places in the ranks; it seemed as if a breath had raised the dead; and all those poor fellows in the rear of Haie-Sainte with their bandaged heads and arms and legs, with their clothes in tatters and soaked with blood, every one who could put one foot before the other, joined the Guard when it passed before the breaches in the wall of the garden, and every one tore open his last cartridge.

The attack sounded, and our cannon began again to thunder. All was quiet on the hill-side, the rows of English cannon were deserted, and we might have thought they were all gone, only as the bear-skin caps of the Guard rose above the plateau, five or six volleys of shot warned us that they were waiting for us.

Then we knew that all those Englishmen, Germans, Belgians, and Hanoverians, whom we had been sabring and shooting since morning, had reformed in the rear, and that we must encounter them. Many of the wounded retired at this moment, and the Guard, upon which the heaviest part of the enemy's fire had fallen, advanced through the showers of shot almost alone, sweeping everything before it, but it closed up more and more, and diminished every moment. In twenty minutes every officer was dismounted, and the Guard halted before such a terrible fire of musketry, that even we, two hundred paces in the rear, could not hear our own guns; we seemed to be only exploding our priming. At last the whole army, in front, on the right and on the left, with the cavalry on the flanks, fell upon us.

The four battalions of the Guard, reduced from three thousand to twelve hundred men, could not withstand the charge, they fell back slowly, and we fell back also, defending ourselves with musket and bayonet.

We had seen other battles more terrible, but this was the last.

When we reached the edge of the plateau, all the plain below was enveloped in darkness and in the confusion of the defeat. The disbanded troops were flying, some on foot and some on horseback.

A single battalion of the Guard in a square near the farm-house, and three other battalions farther on, with another square of the Guard at the junction of the route at Planchenois, stood motionless as some firm structure in the midst of an inundation which sweeps away everything else.

They all went--hussars, chasseurs, cuirassiers, artillery, and infantry--pell-mell along the road, across the fields, like an army of savages.

Along the ravine of Planchenois the dark sky was lighted up by the discharges of musketry; the one square of the Guard still held out against Bulow, and prevented him from cutting off our retreat, but nearer us the Prussian cavalry poured down into the valley like a flood breaking over its barriers. Old Bluecher had just arrived with forty thousand men: he doubled our right wing and dispersed it.

What can I say more! It was dissolution--we were surrounded. The English pushed us into the valley, and it was through this valley that Bluecher was coming. The generals and officers and even the Emperor himself were compelled to take refuge in a square, and they say that we poor wretches were panic-stricken! Such an injustice was never seen.

[Illustration: Combat of Hougoumont Farm.]

Buche and I with five or six of our comrades ran toward the farm-house--the bombs were bursting all around us, we reached the road in our wild flight just as the English cavalry passed at full gallop, shouting, "No quarter! no quarter!"

At this moment the square of the Guard began to retreat, firing from all sides in order to keep off the wretches who sought safety within it. Only the officers and generals might save themselves.

I shall never forget, even if I should live a thousand years, the immeasurable, unceasing cries which filled the valley for more than a league; and in the distance the _grenadiere_ was sounding like an alarm-bell in the midst of a conflagration. But this was much more terrible; it was the last appeal of France, of a proud and courageous nation; it was the voice of the country saying, "Help, my children! I perish!"

This rolling of the drums of the Old Guard in the midst of disaster, had in it something touching and horrible. I sobbed like a child;--Buche hurried me along, but I cried, "Jean, leave me--we are lost, everything is lost!"

The thought of Catherine, and Mr. Goulden, and Pfalzbourg, did not enter my mind. What astonishes me to-day is, that we were not massacred a hundred times on the road, where files of English and Prussians were passing. But perhaps they mistook us for Germans, or they were running after the Emperor, for they were all hoping to see him.

Opposite the little farm of Rossomme, we were obliged to turn off the road to the right, into the field; it was here that the last square of the Guard still held out against the attack of the Prussians; they soon gave way, for twenty minutes afterward the enemy poured over the road, and the Prussian chasseurs separated into bands to arrest all those who straggled or remained behind. This road was like a bridge; all who did not keep on it fell into the abyss.

At the slope of the ravine in the rear of the inn "Passe-Avant," some Prussian hussars rushed upon us: there were not more than five or six of them, and they called out to us to surrender; but if we had raised the butts of our muskets, they would have sabred us. We aimed at them, and seeing that we were not wounded, they passed on.

This forced us to return to the road, where the uproar could be heard for at least two leagues; cavalry, infantry, artillery, ambulances, and baggage-wagons, were creeping along the road pell-mell, howling, beating, neighing, and weeping. The retreat at Leipzig furnished no such spectacle as this.

The moon rose above the wood behind Planchenois, and lighted up this crowd of shapskas,[1] bear-skin caps, helmets, sabres, bayonets, broken caissons, and abandoned cannon; the crowd and confusion increased every moment, plaintive howls were heard from one end of the line to the other, rolling up and down the hill-side and dying away in the distance like a sigh.

[1] Polish military cap.

But the saddest of all, were the cries of the women, those unhappy creatures who follow armies. When they were knocked down or crowded out on to the slope with their carts, their screams could be heard above all the uproar, but no one turned his head, not a man stretched out a hand to help them: "Every one for himself!--I shall crush you,--so much the worse for you,--I am the stronger--you scream, but it is all the same to me!--take care,--take care--I am on horseback--I shall hit you!--room--let me get away--the others do just the same--room for the Emperor! room for the marshal!" The strong crush the weak--the only thing in the world is strength! On! on! Let the cannons crush everything, if we can only save them!

But the cannon can move no farther,--unhitch them, cut the traces, and the horses will carry us off. Make them go as fast as possible, and if they break down--then let them go? If we were not the stronger our turn would come to be crushed--we should cry out and everybody would mock at our complaints. Save himself who can--and "_Vive l'Empereur!_"

"But the Emperor is dead!"

Everybody thought the Emperor had died with, the Old Guard; that seemed perfectly natural.

The Prussian cavalry passed us in files with drawn sabres, shouting, "Hurrah!" They seemed to be escorting us, but they sabred every one who straggled from the road, and took no prisoners, neither did they attack the column; a few musket-shots passed over us from the right and left.

Far in the rear we could see a red light: this was the farm-house at Caillou.

We hastened onward, borne down with fatigue, hunger, and despair; we were ready to die, but still the hope of escape sustained us. Buche said to me as we went along, "Joseph, let us help each other."

"I will never abandon you," I replied. "We will die together. I can hold out no longer, it is too terrible,--we might better lie down at once."

"No, let us keep on," said he. "The Prussians make no prisoners. Look! they kill without mercy, just as we did at Ligny."

We kept on in the same direction with thousands of others, sullen and discouraged, and yet we would turn round all at once and close our ranks and fire, when a squadron of Prussians came too near. We were still firm, still the stronger from time to time; we found abandoned gun-carriages, caissons, and cannons, and the ditches on either side were full of knapsacks, cartridge-boxes, guns, and sabres, which had been thrown away by the men to facilitate their flight.

But the most terrible thing of all was the great ambulances in the middle of the road filled with the wounded. The drivers had cut the traces and fled with the horses for fear of being taken prisoners. The poor half-dead wretches, with their arms hanging down, looked at us as we passed with despairing eyes.

When I think of all this now, it reminds me of the tufts of straw and hay which lodge among the bushes after an inundation. We say "That is our harvest, this is our crop, that is what the tempest has left us."

Ah! I have had many such reflections during fifty years!

What grieved me most and made my heart bleed in the midst of this rout was that I could not discover a single man of our battalion besides ourselves. I said to myself, "They cannot all be dead;" and I said to Buche:

"If I could only find Zebede it would give me back my courage."

But he replied: "Let us try to save ourselves, Joseph. As for me, if I ever see Harberg again, I will not complain because I have to eat potatoes. No, no. God has punished me. I shall be contented to work and go into the woods with my axe on my shoulder. If only I do not go home maimed, and if I am not compelled to hold out my hand at the roadside in order to live, like so many others. Let us try to get home safe and sound."

I thought he showed great good sense.

At about half-past ten, as we reached the environs of Genappe, terrible cries were heard in the distance. Fires of straw had been lighted in the middle of the principal street to give light to the multitude, and we could see from where we were, that the houses were full of people and the streets so full of horses and baggage that they could not move a step. We knew that the Prussians might come at any moment, and that they would have cannon; and that it would be better for us if we went round the village than to be taken prisoners altogether. This was why we turned to the left across the grain fields with a great many others. We crossed the Thy in water up to our waists, and toward midnight we reached Quatre-Bras.

We had done well not to stop at Genappe, for we already heard the roar of the Prussian cannon and musketry near the village. Great numbers of fugitives came along the road, cuirassiers, lancers, and chasseurs. Not one of them stopped.

We began to be terribly hungry. We knew very well that everything in these houses must have been eaten long ago, but still we went into the one on the left. The floor was covered with straw, on which the wounded were lying. We had hardly opened the door when they all began to cry out at once; to tell the truth, the stench was so horrible that we left immediately and took the road to Charleroi. The moon shone beautifully, and we could see on the right amongst the grain a quantity of dead men, who had not yet been buried.

Buche followed a furrow about twenty-five paces, to where three or four Englishmen were lying one on the top of the other. I asked him what he was going to do amongst the dead.

He came back with a tin bottle, and shaking it at his ear, he said, "Joseph, it is full."

He dipped it in the water of the ditch before opening it, and then took out the cork and drank, saying, "It is brandy!"

He passed it to me, and I drank also. I felt my life returning, and I gave him back the bottle half full, thanking God for the good idea that he had given us.

We looked on all sides to see if we could not find some bread in the haversacks of the dead, but the uproar increased, and as we could not resist the Prussians if they should surround us, we set off again full of strength and courage. The brandy made us look at everything on the bright side already, and I said to Buche:

"Jean, now the worst is over and we shall see Pfalzbourg and Harberg again. We are on a good road which will take us back to France. If we had gained the battle, we should have been forced to go still farther into Germany, and we should have been obliged to fight the Austrians and the Russians, and if we had had the good fortune to escape with our lives, we should have returned old gray-haired veterans, and should have been compelled to keep garrison at 'Petite Pierre,' or somewhere else."

These miserable thoughts ran through my head, but I marched on with more courage, and Buche said:

"The English are right in having their bottles made of tin, for if I had not seen this shining in the moonlight, I should never have thought of going to look for it."

Every moment while we were talking in this way men were riding by, their horses almost ready to drop, but by beating and spurring, they kept them trotting just the same.

The noise of the retreating army began to reach our ears again in the distance, but fortunately we had the advance.

It might have been about one o'clock in the morning, and we thought ourselves safe, when suddenly Buche said to me:

"Joseph, here are the Prussians!"

And looking behind us, I saw in the moonlight five bronzed hussars from the same regiment as those who, the year before, had cut poor Klipfel to pieces. I thought this was a bad sign.

"Is your gun loaded?" I asked Buche.

"Yes."

"Well! let us wait, we must defend ourselves, I will not surrender."

"Nor I either," said he, "I had rather die than to be taken prisoner."

At the same moment the Prussian officer shouted arrogantly, "Lay down your arms."

Instead of waiting, as I did, Buche discharged the contents of his musket full in the officer's breast. Then the other four fell upon us. Buche received a blow from a sabre which cut his shako down to the visor, but with one thrust with his bayonet he killed his antagonist. Three of them still remained. My musket was loaded. Buche planted himself with his back against a nut-tree, and every time the Prussians, who had fallen back, approached us, I took aim. Neither of them wanted to be the first to die! As we waited, Buche with his bayonet fixed and I with my musket at my shoulder, we heard a galloping on the road. This frightened us, for we thought more Prussians were coming, but they were our lancers. The hussars then turned off into the grain, and Buche hastened to re-load his gun.

Our lancers passed and we followed them on the run.

An officer who joined us, said that the Emperor had set out for Paris, and that King Jerome had just taken command of the army.

Buche's scalp was laid completely open, but the bone was not injured, and the blood ran down his cheeks. He bound up his head with his handkerchief.

After that we saw no more Prussians.

About two o'clock in the morning, we were so weary we could hardly take another step. About two hundred paces to the left of the road there was a little beech grove. Buche said: "Look, Joseph, let us go in there and lie down and sleep."

It was just what I wanted.

We went down across the oat-field to the wood, and entered a close thicket of young trees.

We had both kept our guns and knapsacks and cartridge-boxes. We laid our knapsacks on the ground for a pillow, and it had long been broad daylight, and the retreating crowd had been passing for hours, when we awoke and quietly pursued our journey. _

Read next: Chapter 22

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