“The dance is going to begin,” cried my captain. “Bonsoir!”
Those were the last words I heard him utter.
The drums rolled inside the redoubt. I saw all the muskets drop. I
closed my eyes, and I heard a most appalling crash, followed by shrieks
and groans. I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself still among the
living. The redoubt was filled with smoke once more. I was surrounded
by dead and wounded. My captain lay at my feet; his head had been
shattered by a cannon-ball, and I was covered with his brains and his
blood. Of all my company only six men and myself were left on our feet.
This carnage was succeeded by a moment of stupefaction. The colonel,
placing his hat on the point of his sword, was the first to scale the
parapet, shouting: “_Vive l’Empereur!_” He was followed instantly by
all the survivors. I have a very dim remembrance of what followed.
We entered the redoubt; how, I have no idea. We fought hand to hand,
amid smoke so dense that we could not see one another. I believe that
I struck, for my sabre was all bloody. At last I heard shouts of
“Victory!” and as the smoke grew less dense, I saw blood and corpses
completely covering the surface of the redoubt. The guns especially
were buried beneath piles of bodies. About two hundred men, in the
French uniform, were standing about in groups, with no pretence of
order, some loading their muskets, others wiping their bayonets. Eleven
hundred Russian prisoners were with them.
The colonel, covered with blood, was lying on a shattered caisson near
the ravine. A number of soldiers were bustling about him. I approached.
“Where is the senior captain?” he asked a sergeant.
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders most expressively.
“And the senior lieutenant?”
“Monsieur here, who arrived last night,” said the sergeant, in a
perfectly matter-of-fact tone.
The colonel smiled bitterly.
“Well, monsieur,” he said, “you command in chief; order the entrance to
the redoubt to be strengthened with these waggons, for the enemy is in
force; but General C---- will see that you are supported.”
“Colonel,” I said, “are you severely wounded?”
“Finished, my boy, but the redoubt is taken!”
1829.