Clausel’s division had now joined Thomières’, and a new front had been spread on the southern heights, yet loosely and unfit to resist; for the troops were, some in double lines, some in columns, some in squares, a powerful sun struck on their eyes, and the light soil, stirred up and driven forward by a breeze, which arose in the west at the moment of attack, came mingled with smoke full upon them in such stifling volumes, that scarcely able to breathe and quite unable to see their fire was given at random. In this situation, while Pakenham, bearing onward with conquering violence was closing on their flank, and the fifth division advancing with a storm of fire on their front, the interval between the two attacks was suddenly filled with a whirling cloud of dust, moving swiftly forward and carrying within its womb the trampling sound of a charging multitude. As it passed the left of the third division, Le Marchant’s heavy horsemen, flanked by Anson’s light cavalry, broke out at full speed, and the next instant twelve hundred French infantry, formed in several lines, were trampled down with a terrible clangour and tumult. Bewildered and blinded they cast away their arms and run through the openings of the British squadrons, stooping and demanding quarter, while the dragoons, big men on big horses, rode onward, smiting with their long glittering swords in uncontrollable power, and the third division, following at speed, shouted as the French masses fell in succession before this dreadful charge. Nor were these valiant swordsmen yet exhausted. Le Marchant and many officers had fallen, but Cotton and all his staff were still at their head, and with ranks confused and blended in one mass, still galloping forward, they sustained from a fresh column an irregular stream of fire which emptied a hundred saddles; yet with fine courage and downright force, the survivors broke through this the third and strongest body of men that had encountered them, and Lord Edward Somerset, continuing his course at the head of one squadron with a happy perseverance, captured five guns. The French left was thus entirely broken, more than two thousand prisoners were taken, their light horsemen abandoned that part of the field, and Thomières’ division no longer existed as a military body. Anson’s cavalry, which had passed quite over the hill and had suffered little in the charge, was now joined by D’Urban’s troopers and took the place of Le Marchant’s exhausted men; the heavy German dragoons followed in reserve, forming with the third and fifth divisions and the guns one formidable line, two miles in advance of where Pakenham had first attacked: and that impetuous officer with unmitigated strength still pressed forward spreading terror and disorder on the enemy’s left.