cattered English. There was nothing
for the latter to do but retire. Retire they did, having accomplished
all that anyone could expect of cavalry, fighting every step of the
way. Just as soon as they opened the fronts of the regiments' in line,
the infantry and artillery began again, and then the French cavalry got
its punishment in its turn.

It takes but moments to tell of this charge and, indeed, in the
battlefield it seemed but a few moments. But the French did not give
way until after long hard fighting. From the beginning of the
preliminary artillery-duel to the repulse of the charge an hour and a
half elapsed. Indeed, they did not give way altogether either, for
Donzelot and Allix, who commanded the left divisions, were the men who
finally succeeded in capturing La Haye Sainte. And both sides suffered
furiously before the French gave back.

There was plenty of fight left in the French yet. Ney, whatever his
strategy and tactics, showed himself as of yore the bravest of the
brave. It is quite safe to say that the hero of the retreat from
Russia, the last of the Grand Army, the star of many a hotly contested
battle, surpassed even his own glorious record for personal courage on
that day. Maddened by the repulse, he gathered up all the cavalry,
twelve thousand in number, and with Kellerman, greatest of cavalrymen,
to second him and with division leaders like Milhaud and Maurice, he
hurled himself upon the English line between Hougomont and La Haye
Sainte. But the English made no tactical mistakes like that of Ney and
d'Erlon. The artillerists stood to their guns until the torrent of
French horsemen was about to break upon them, then they ran back to the
safety of the nearest English square.

The English had been put in such formation that the squares lay
checkerwise. Each side was four men deep. The front rank knelt, the
second rank bent over at a charge bayonets, the third and the fourth
ranks stood erect and fired. The French horsemen might have endured
the tempest of bullets but they could not ride down the _chevaux de
frise_, the fringe of steel. They tried it. No one could find fault
with that army. It was doing its best; it was fighting and dying for
its Emperor. Over and over they sought to break those stubborn British
squares. One or two of them were actually penetrated, but unavailingly.

Men mad with battle-lust threw themselves and their horses upon the
bayonets. The guns were cap