Duke saw it, and he ordered the guards to form line and drive the enemy off, which they did, when some cuirassiers approached, but our lads were in square again. The cuirassiers moved off, receiving the fire from the squares of the guards, as well as from those of the 52d and 95th. [Illustration: LA BELLE-ALLIANCE.] Some time after, the remaining two brigades of Bulow’s corps debouched, and forming into columns sent their batteries to the front, which made the Prussian artillery more formidable than that of the French. Blücher’s left was making towards Plancenoit, in the right rear of the enemy. At this time, seven o’clock, the Prussian force in the field amounted to nearly 29,000 men and sixty-four guns. Their guns commanded the whole of the French right _en potence_; which, like the Prussian line, was parallel to the Genappe road, and nearly at right angles to their former front. The undulating ground over which the Prussians were advancing, rose like an amphitheatre, and their guns, in consequence, could open from the summit of numerous little heights; whilst at the intervals between the batteries, their troops advanced into the plain. Nothing could be more favourable for a force attacking an enemy’s flank. A Prussian battery dislodged a French one on the heights near Chantilly, and taking up the abandoned position, it directed its fire upon the enemy posted between Plancenoit and La Belle-Alliance. The Prussian left was now close approaching the village of Plancenoit, which, up to the present period, had not been occupied. The French force being less numerous than the Prussian, De Lobau fell back towards the Genappe road, where the Prussian round-shot was now thickly falling upon both sides of La Belle-Alliance; near which, Napoleon had remained during the greater part of the day. The only reserve he now had was the infantry of the Imperial guard, and the pressure upon his right flank was so great, that he was obliged to send the eight battalions of the young guard, with their divisional and two twelve-pounder reserve batteries, under general Duhesme, to the village of Plancenoit, as the only means of preventing the Prussians from getting in the French rear. At this time Blücher received intelligence that his 3d corps, which had been left at Wavre as a rear-guard to check the enemy’s corps under Grouchy, had been attacked by a superior force and obliged to retire[53]. Notwithstanding such intelligence might have shaken the firmest nerves, nothing changed the purpose of the indomitable veteran. Blücher saw clearly that the field upon which he was now engaged was the spot where the fate of the campaign would be decided. He therefore sent orders to Thielmann, to hold out as well as he could; and ordered his left wing to move upon Plancenoit, and to get possession of it, if possible.