ordered two battalions to carry that
bridge; they have failed. Let those who never fail advance to the storm.
Montereau shall be inscribed on your helmets, men, when I see you on
yonder heights. Go forward!"

"Forward! forward!" shouted the mailed ranks, half maddened by the
exciting presence of Napoleon.

The force was formed in four separate columns of attack: the First
Cuirassiers leading; followed by the Carbineers of the Guard; then my
own regiment; and lastly, the Fourth, the corps of poor Pioche. What
would I have given to know he was there! But there was not time for such
inquiry now. The squadrons were ready awaiting the moment to dash on.

A loud detonation of nigh twenty guns shook the earth; and in the smoke
that rolled from them the bridge was concealed from view. A trumpet
sounded, and the cry of "Charge!" followed. The mass sprang forth. What
a cheer was theirs as they swept past! The cannonade opens again;
the whole ground trembles. The musketry follows; and the clatter of a
thousand sabres mingles with the war-cries of the combatants. It is but
brief,--the tumult is already subsiding.

And now comes the order for the carbineers to move up; the cuirassiers
have been cut to pieces. A few, mangled and bleeding, have reeled back
behind the hill; but the regiment is gone!

"Where are the troops of Wagram and Eylau?" said the Emperor, in
bitterness, as he saw the one broken squadron, sole remnant of a gallant
corps, reeling, bloodstained and dying, to the rear. "Where is that
cavalry that carried the Russian battery at Moskowa? You are not what
you once were!"

This cruel taunt, at the very moment when the earth was steeped in the
blood of his brave soldiers, was heard in mournful silence. None spoke a
word, but with clenched lip and clasped hand sat waiting the command
to charge. It came; but no cheer followed. The carbineers dashed on,
prepared to die: what death so dreadful as the cold irony of Napoleon!

"En avant! cuirassiers of the Tenth," called out the Emperor, as the
last squadrons of the carbineers went by, "support your comrades! Follow
up there, men of the Fourth! I must have that bridge."

And now the whole line moved up. As we turned the cliff in full trot,
the scene of combat lay before us: the terrible bridge now actually
choked up with dead and wounded, the very battlements strewn with
corpses. In an instant the carbineers were upon it; and struggling
through the mass of carnage, th