d it was not yet finished: the companies and battalions and brigades
were being re-formed, the musketry rattled in the vicinity of
Haie-Sainte, and the cannon thundered near Hougoumont. "It was only
just a beginning," the officers said. You would have thought that
men's lives were of no value!

But it was necessary to get possession of Haie-Sainte, and to force a
passage from the highway to the enemy's centre just as an entrance must
be effected into a fortification through the fire of the outworks and
the demilunes. We had been repulsed the first time, but the battle was
begun, and we could not go back. After the charge of the cuirassiers,
it took a little time for us to re-form: the battle continued at
Hougoumont, and the cannonade re-opened on our right, and two batteries
had been brought up to sweep the highway in the rear of Haie-Sainte,
where the road begins to mount the hill. We all saw that that was to
be the point of attack.

We stood waiting with shouldered arms, when about three o'clock Buche
looked behind him on the road and said, "The Emperor is coming!"

And others in the ranks repeated, "Here is the Emperor."

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 r