bring down their arms or level a musket, and the Dragoons
rode in the intervals between their formation, reaching forward with
the stroke of their long swords, and slaying at will. More than 2000
Frenchmen flung down their arms and surrendered; and on the next
morning the abandoned muskets were still lying in long straight lines
and regular order, showing that the men had surrendered before their
lines were broken. The charge of the Inniskillings to the left of the
Royals was just as furious and just as successful. They broke on the
front of Donzdot's divisions and simply ground them to powder.

The Scots Greys were supposed to be "in support"; but coming swiftly
up, they suddenly saw on their left shoulder Marcognet's divisions, the
extreme right of the French. At that sight the Greys swung a little
off to their left, swept through the intervals of the 92nd, and smote
the French battalions full in front. As the Greys rode through the
intervals of the footmen--Scotch horsemen through Scotch infantry--the
Scotch blood in both regiments naturally took fire. Greetings in
broadest Doric flew from man to man. The pipes skirled fiercely.
"Scotland for ever!" went up in a stormy shout from the kilted lines.
The Greys, riding fast, sometimes jostled, or even struck down, some of
the 92nd; and Armour, the rough-rider of the Greys, has told how the
Highlanders shouted, "I didna think ye wad hae saired me sae!" Many of
the Highlanders caught hold of the stirrups of the Greys and raced
forward with them--Scotsmen calling to Scotsmen--into the ranks of the
French. The 92nd, in fact, according to the testimony of their own
officers, "went half mad." What could resist such a charge?

The two British cavalry brigades were by this time riding roughly
abreast, the men drunk with warlike excitement and completely out of
hand, and most of their officers were little better. They simply rode
over D'Erlon's broken ranks. So brave were some of the French,
however, that again and again a solitary soldier or officer would leap
out of the ranks as the English cavalry came on, and charge them
single-handed! One French private deliberately ran out as the
Inniskillings came on at full gallop, knelt before the swiftly
galloping line of men and horses, coolly shot the adjutant of the
Inniskillings through the head, and was himself instantly trodden into
a bloody pulp! The British squadrons, wildly disordered, but drunk
with battle fury,