by
Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite which
we cannot comprehend.

The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to descry with his
field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his
attention. He had said, "I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be
troops." Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, "Soult, what do you see in
the direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?" The marshal, levelling his
glass, answered, "Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy."
But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staff
had studied "the cloud" pointed out by the Emperor. Some said: "It is
trees." The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached
Domon's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter.

Bulow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could
accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army
corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before
entering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril,
Blucher ordered Bulow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words: "We
must give air to the English army."

A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel
deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia
debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the
Prussian cannon-balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in
reserve behind Napoleon.

CHAPTER XII--THE GUARD

Every one knows the rest,--the irruption of a third army; the battle
broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously;
Pirch the first coming up with Bulow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blucher
in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of
Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating;
Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our
dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the
offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French
army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each
other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the
Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all
things.

Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!"
History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in