ontinued:

"Fear nothing. You will see home again!"

I thought that he pitied my youth and wished to console me; but my
chest seemed crushed, and I could not hope.

The sergeant said no more, only from time to time he raised his head to
see if our columns were coming. He swore between his teeth and ended
by falling at length upon the ground, saying:

"My business is done! But the villain has paid for it!"

He gazed at the hedge opposite, where a Prussian grenadier was
stretched, cold and stiff, the old sergeant's bayonet yet in his body.

It might then have been six in the evening. The enemy filled all the
houses, gardens, orchards, the main streets and the alleys. I was cold
and had dropped my head forward upon my knees, when the roll of
artillery called me again to my senses. The two pieces in the garden
and many others posted behind them threw their broad flashes through
the darkness, while Russians and Prussians crowded through the street.
But all this was as nothing in comparison to the fire of the French,
from the hill opposite the village, while the constant glare showed the
Young Guard coming on at the double-quick, generals and colonels on
horseback in the midst of the bayonets, waving their swords and
cheering them on, while the twenty-four guns the Emperor had sent to
support the movement thundered behind. The old wall against which I
leaned shook to its foundations. In the street the balls mowed down
the enemy like grass before the scythe. It was their turn to close up
the ranks.

I also heard the enemy's artillery replying behind us, and I thought,
"Heaven grant that the French win the day; then their suffering wounded
will be taken care of, instead of these Prussians and Cossacks first
looking after their own, and leaving us all to perish."

I paid no further attention to the sergeant, I only looked at the
Prussian gunners loading their guns, aiming and firing them, cursing
them all the time from the bottom of my heart, but all the time
listening to the inspiring shouts of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" ringing out
in the momentary silence between the reports of the guns.

In about twenty minutes the Russians and Prussians were forced to fall
back; going in crowds by the narrow passage where we were; the shouts
of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" grew nearer and nearer. The cannoneers at the
pieces before me loaded and fired at their utmost speed, when three or
four grape-shots fell among them and broke the