exchanging the functions of general for those of a
squadron-leader, heading the attack. They leaped the hedge, or burst
through it, crossed the road--at that point of shallow depth--and met
the French cuirassiers in full charge. The British were bigger men on
bigger horses, and they had gained the full momentum of their charge
when the two lines met. The French, to do them justice, did not
shrink. The charging lines crashed together, like living and swiftly
moving walls, and the sound of their impact rang sharp, sudden, deep,
and long drawn out, above the din of the conflict. The French wore
armour, and carried longer swords than the British, but they were swept
away in an instant, and went, a broken and shattered mass of men and
horses, down the slope. Some of them were tumbled into the sand-pit,
amongst the astonished Rifles there, who instantly bayoneted them.
Others were swept upon the masses of their own infantry, fiercely
followed by the Life Guards.

The 2nd Life Guards and the Dragoons, coming on a little in the rear,
struck the right regiment of the cuirassiers and hurled them across the
junction of the roads. Shaw, the famous Life Guardsman, was killed
here. He was a perfect swordsman, a man of colossal strength, and is
said to have cut down, through helmet and skull, no fewer than nine men
in the _melee_. How Shaw actually died is a matter of dispute.
Colonel Marten says he was shot by a cuirassier who stood clear of the
_melee_, coolly taking pot-shots at the English Guardsmen. Captain
Kelly, a brilliant soldier, who rode in the charge beside Shaw, says
that Shaw was killed by a thrust through the body from a French colonel
of the cuirassiers, whom Kelly himself, in return, clove through helmet
and skull.

Meanwhile the Union Brigade on the left, consisting of the Royals and
the Inniskillings, with the Scots Greys in support, had broken into the
fight. The Royals, coming on at full speed over the crest of the
ridge, broke upon the astonished vision of the French infantry at a
distance of less than a hundred yards. It was an alarming vision of
waving swords, crested helmets, fierce red nostrils, and galloping
hoofs. The leading files tried to turn, but in an instant the Royals
were upon them, cutting them down furiously. De Lacy Evans, who rode
in the charge, says, "They fled like a flock of sheep." Colonel Clark
Kennedy adds that the "jamb" in the French was so thick that the men
could not