The Guard — Les Misérables

Every one knows the rest. A third army irrupts. The battle is broken to pieces. Eighty-six mouths of fire thunder at once. Pirch comes up with Bulow. Zieten's cavalry is led by Blucher in person. The French are driven back. Marcognet is swept from the plateau of Ohain. Durutte is dislodged from Papelotte. Lobau is caught on the flank. A fresh battle throws itself on the dismantled regiments at nightfall. The whole English line resumes the offensive. A gigantic breach is made in the French army. English grape-shot and Prussian grape-shot aid each other. Disaster in front, disaster on the flank. The Guard enters the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all things. Conscious that they are about to die, they shout Vive l'Empereur. History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in acclamations.

The sky had been overcast all day. All of a sudden, at eight o'clock in the evening, the clouds on the horizon part and let the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it rise at Austerlitz. Each battalion of the Guard is commanded by a general for this final catastrophe. When the tall caps of the grenadiers appear, symmetrical, in line, tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy feels a respect for France. They think they behold twenty victories entering the field with wings outspread. Those who were the conquerors, believing themselves vanquished, retreat. But Wellington shouts: Up, Guards, and aim straight! The red regiment of English guards, lying flat behind the hedges, springs up. A cloud of grape-shot riddles the tricoloured flag and whistles round the eagles. All hurl themselves forward, and the final carnage begins. In the darkness the Imperial Guard feels the army losing ground around it. In the vast shock of the rout it hears the desperate flight which has taken the place of Vive l'Empereur. With flight behind it, it continues to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step. 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, uniform unbuttoned, one epaulet half cut off by a sword-stroke from 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! 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 crushing a handful of men, he shouted that there was nothing for him. He would like to have all these English bullets enter his bowels. Unhappy man, thou wert reserved for French bullets.