Les Misérables, page 89
CHAPTER XII--THE GUARD
Every one knows the rest,--the irruption of a third army; the battlebroken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously;Pirch the first coming up with Bülow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blücherin person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau ofOhain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating;Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on ourdismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming theoffensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the Frencharmy; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding eachother; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; theGuard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of allthings.
Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!"History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth inacclamations.
The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that verymoment,--it was eight o'clock in the evening--the clouds on the horizonparted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun topass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen itrise at Austerlitz.
Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this finalcatastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan,were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, withtheir large plaques bearing the eagle appeared, symmetrical, in line,tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect forFrance; they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the fieldof battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors,believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated; but Wellingtonshouted, "Up, Guards, and aim straight!" The red regiment of Englishguards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shotriddled the tricolored flag and whistled round our eagles; all hurledthemselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, theImperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vastshock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken theplace of the "Vive l'Empereur!" and, with flight behind it, it continuedto 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 inthat troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man was missingin that suicide.
Ney, bewildered, great with all the grandeur of accepted death, offeredhimself to all blows in that tempest. He had his fifth horse killedunder him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth, withuniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut off by a sword-strokefrom 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!" Butin vain; he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At Drouet d'Erlon hehurled this question, "Are you not going to get yourself killed?" Inthe 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 allthese English bullets enter my bowels!" Unhappy man, thou wert reservedfor French bullets!
