1.C.1.12. THE GUARD
EVERY one knows the rest,— the irruption of a third army;
the battle broken to pieces; eighty-six months of fire thundering
simultaneously; Pirch the first coming up with Bulow;
Zieten's cavalry led by Blucher 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 horse-guard,
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!