knew what had become of
our other two columns. The terrible musketry fire on the left, and the
volleys of grape and canister which we heard rushing through the air,
were no doubt intended for them.

I thought we had had our full share of troubles, when Generals Gerard,
Vichery, and Schoeffer came riding up at full speed on the road below
us, shouting like madmen, "Forward! Forward!"

They drew their swords, and there was nothing to do but go.

At this moment our batteries on the road below opened their fire on
Ligny, the roofs in the village tumbled, and the walls sank, and we
rushed forward with the generals at our head with their swords drawn,
the drums beating the charge. We shouted, "_Vive l'Empereur_." The
Prussian bullets swept us away by dozens, and shot fell like hail, and
the drums kept up their "pan-pan-pan." We saw nothing, heard nothing,
as we crossed the orchards, nobody paid any attention to those who
fell, and in two minutes after, we entered the village, broke in the
doors with the butts of our muskets, while the Prussians fired upon us
from the windows.

It was a thousand times worse in-doors, because yells of rage mingled
in the uproar; we rushed into the houses with fixed bayonets and
massacred each other without mercy. On every side the cry rose, "No
quarter!"

The Prussians who were surprised in the first houses we entered, were
old soldiers and asked for nothing better. They perfectly understood
what "No quarter" meant, and made a most desperate defence.

As we reached the third or fourth house on a tolerably wide street on
which was a church, and a little bridge farther on, the air was full of
smoke from the fires caused by our bombs; great broken tiles and slate
were raining down upon us, and everything roared and whistled and
cracked, when Zebede, with a terrible look in his eyes, seized me by
the arm, shouting, "Come!"

We rushed into a large room already filled with soldiers, on the first
floor of a house; it was dark, as they had covered the windows with
sacks of earth, but we could see a steep wooden stairway at one end,
down which the blood was running. We heard musket-shots from above and
the flashes each moment showed us five or six of our men sunk in a heap
against the balustrade with their arms hanging down, and the others
running over their bodies with their bayonets fixed, trying to force
their way into the loft.

It was horrible to see those men with their bristlin