All the companies of the corps moved with the army towards Paris, leaving a few small detachments dispersed in Flanders. The second company, second battalion, attached to the first division, was present at the capture of Peronne on the 26th June under Sub-Lieutenant W. Stratton and two captains of engineers. The ladders used on the occasion were collected in the neighbourhood, but being too short were lashed together. The company had the honour of leading the brigade of guards to the assault,[231] and behaved remarkably well.[232] Preceding the column, they threw a number of fascines and faggots, hastily prepared by them, into the ditch of the hornwork, and thus enabled the troops to pass its swampy bottom into the body of the place.[233] A party of the company advanced under a heavy fire to force the main entrance. No ladders were carried with it, nor any sledge-hammers or instruments by which to force it open. Daring men were in the batch, and their first impulse, forlorn as it was, urged them to mount the gate. Lieutenant Stratton and lance-corporal Edward Councill soon gained the top, and tearing themselves over the spikes which crowned it, jumped into the place, tore down the fastenings, and pulling the gate open, admitted the troops. In leading the stormers into the work, Captain Alexander Thompson, R.E., and Lieutenant Stratton were severely wounded, as also two men of the company. Corporal Councill was dangerously wounded in the breast. ----- Footnote 231: Ibid, i., note D, p. ix. Footnote 232: ‘Wellington Dispatches,’ viii., p. 176, edit. 1847. Footnote 233: Colonel Carmichael Smyth’s ‘Plans of attack upon Antwerp,’ &c., p. 9, and plan. ----- For the passage of the army to Paris, a pontoon bridge was thrown over the Seine at Argenteuil early in July. Twenty pontoons were employed in its formation, and also some trestles, which were placed next to the banks of the river. On its completion, the Duke of Wellington, who was present during the greater part of the operation, first passed over leading his horse, and then the whole army with its artillery and baggage.