The smoke was so thick that we could barely see the bear-skin caps of
the Old Guard on the little hill of Rossomme. I turned round also to
see the Emperor, and immediately recognized Marshal Ney, with five or
six of his staff officers. He was coming from head-quarters and pushed
straight down upon us across the fields. We stood with our backs to
him; our officers hurried to meet him, and they conversed together, but
we could not hear a word in consequence of the noise which filled our
ears.
The marshal then rode along the front of our two battalions, with his
sword drawn. I had never seen him so near since the grand review at
Aschaffenbourg; he seemed older, thinner, and more bony, but still the
same man; he looked at us with his sharp gray eyes, as if he took us
all in at a glance, and each one felt, as if he were looking directly
at him.
At the end of a second he pointed toward Haie-Sainte with his sword,
and exclaimed:
"We are going to take _that_, you will have the whole at once, it is
the turning-point of the battle. I am going to lead you myself.
Battalions by file to the left!"
We started at a quick step on the road, marching by companies in three
ranks. I was in the second. Marshal Ney was in front, on horseback,
with the two colonels and Captain Florentin: he had returned his sword
to the scabbard. The balls whistled round our ears by hundreds, and
the roar of cannon from Hougoumont and on our left and right in the
rear was so incessant, that it was like the ringing of an immense bell,
when you no longer hear the strokes, but only the booming. One and
another sank down from among us, but we passed right on over them.
Two or three times the marshal turned round to see if we were marching
in good order; he looked so calm, that it seemed to me quite natural
not to be afraid, his face inspired us all with confidence, and each
one thought, "Ney is with us, the others are lost!" which only shows
the stupidity of the human race, since so many others besides us
escaped.
As we approached the buildings the report of the musketry became more
distinct from the roar of cannon, and we could better see the flash of
the guns from the windows, and the great black roof above in the smoke,
and the road blocked up with stones.
We went along by a hedge, behind which crackled the fire of our
skirmishers, for the first brigade of Alix's division had not quitted
the orchards; and on seeing us filing along the road, they commenced to
shout, "Vive l'Empereur."
The whole fire of the German musketry was then turned on us, when
Marshal Ney drew his sword and shouted in a voice which reached every
ear, "Forward!"
He disappeared in the smoke with two or three officers, and we all
started on a run, our cartridge-boxes dangling about our hips, and our
muskets at the "ready."
Far to the rear they were beating the charge; we did not see the
marshal again till we reached a shed which separated the garden from
the road, when we discovered him on horseback before the main entrance.
It appeared that they had already tried to force the door, as there was
a heap of dead men, timbers, paving stones, and rubbish piled up before
it, reaching to the middle of the road. The shot poured from every
opening in the building, and the air was heavy with the smell of the
powder.
"Break that in," shouted the marshal. Fifteen or twenty of us dropped
our muskets, and seizing beams we drove them against the door with such
force, that it cracked and echoed back the blows like thunder. You
would have thought it would drop at every stroke; we could see through
the planks the paving stones heaped as high as the top inside. It was
full of holes, and when it fell it might have crushed us, but fury had
rendered us blind to danger. We no longer had any resemblance to men,
some had lost their shakos, others had their clothes nearly torn off;
the blood ran from their fingers and down their sides, and at every
discharge of musketry the shot from the hill struck the paving stones,
pounding them to dust around us.
I looked about me, but I could not see either Buche or Zebede or any
others of our company, the marshal had disappeared also. Our rage
redoubled; and as the timbers went back and forth, we grew furious to
find that the door would not come down, when suddenly we heard shouts
of "Vive l'Empereur" from the court, accompanied with a most horrible
uproar. Every one knew that our troops had gained an entrance into the
enclosure. We dropped the timbers, and seizing our guns we sprang
through the breaches into the garden to find where the others had
entered. It was in the rear of the house through a door opening into
the barn. We rushed through one after the other like a pack of wolves.
The interior of this old structure, with its lofts full of hay and
straw, and its stables covered with thatch, looked like a bloody nest
which had been attacked by a sparrow-hawk.
On a great dung-heap in the middle of the court, our men were
bayoneting the Germans who were yelling and swearing savagely.
I was running hap-hazard through this butchery, when I heard some one
call, "Joseph, Joseph!" I looked round, thinking, "That is Buche
calling me." In a moment I saw him at the door of a woodshed, crossing
bayonets with five or six of our men.
I caught sight of Zebede at that same instant, as our company was in
that corner, and rushing to Buche's assistance, I shouted, "Zebede!"
Parting the combatants, I asked Buche what was the matter.
"They want to murder my prisoners!" said he. I joined him, and the
others began to load their muskets to shoot us. They were voltigeurs
from another battalion.
At that moment Zebede came up with several men from our company, and
without knowing how the matter stood, he seized the most brutal one by
the throat and exclaimed, "My name is Zebede, sergeant of the Sixth
light infantry. When this affair is settled, we will have a mutual
explanation."
Then they went away, and Zebede asked:
"What is all this, Joseph?"
I told him we had some prisoners. He turned pale with anger against
us, but when he went into the wood-shed he saw an old major, who
presented him the guard of his sabre in silence, and another soldier,
who said in German, "Spare my life, Frenchman; don't take my life."
The cries of the dying still filled the court, and his heart relenting,
Zebede said, "Very well, I take you prisoners."
He went out and shut the door. We did not quit the place again until
the assembly began to beat.
Then, when the men were in their ranks, Zebede notified Captain
Florentin that we had taken a major and a soldier prisoners.
They were brought out and marched across the court without arms, and
put in a room with three or four others. These were all that remained
of the two battalions of Nassau troops which were intrusted with the
defence of Haie-Sainte.
While this had been going on, two other battalions from Nassau, who
were coming to the assistance of their comrades, had been massacred
outside by our cuirassiers, so that for the moment we were victorious:
we were masters of the principal outpost of the English and could begin
our attack on their centre, cut their communication by the highway with
Brussels, and throw them into the miserable roads of the forest of
Soignes. We had had a hard struggle, but the principal part of the
battle had been fought. We were two hundred paces from the English
lines, well sheltered from their fire; and I believe, without boasting,
that with the bayonet and well supported by the cavalry, we could have
fallen upon them, and pierced their line. An hour of good work would
have finished the affair.
But while we were all rejoicing over our success, and the officers,
soldiers, drummers, and trumpeters were all in confusion, amongst the
ruins, thinking of nothing but stretching our legs and getting breath,
the rumor suddenly reached us that the Prussians were coming, that they
were going to fall on our flank, and that we were about to have two
battles, one in front and the other on our right, and that we ran the
risk of being surrounded by a force double our own.
This was terrible news, but several hot-headed fellows exclaimed:
"So much the better, let the Prussians come! we will crush them all at
once."
Those who were cool saw at once what a mistake we had made by not
making the most of our victory at Ligny, and in allowing the Prussians
quietly to leave in the night without being pursued by our cavalry, as
is always done.
We may boldly say that this great fault was the cause of our defeat at
Waterloo. It is true, the Emperor sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at
noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it
was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form,
to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive.
The next day after Ligny, the Prussians still had ninety thousand men,
of whom thirty thousand were fresh troops, and two hundred and
seventy-five cannon. With such an army they could do what they
pleased; they could have even fought a second battle with the Emperor,
but they preferred falling on our flank, while we were engaged with the
English in front. That is so plain and clear, that I cannot imagine
how any one can think the movement of the Prussians surprising.
Bluecher had already played us the same trick at Leipzig--and he
repeated it now in drawing Grouchy on to pursue him so far. Grouchy
could not force him to return, and he could not prevent him from
leaving thirty or forty thousand men to stop his pursuers, while he
pushed on to the relief of Wellington.
Our only hope was that Grouchy had been ordered to return and join us,
and that he would come up in the rear of the Prussians; but the Emperor
sent no such order.
It was not we, the common soldiers, as you may well think, who had
these ideas; it was the officers and generals; we knew nothing of it;
we were like children, utterly unconscious that their hour is near.
But now having told you what I think, I will give you the history of
the rest of the battle just as I saw it myself, so that each one of you
will know as much about it as I do.