All this time a tremendous and unprecedented cannonade was being kept up. Between Borodino and Utitza some 900 guns were in action. The Great Redoubt was being furiously bombarded by Eugène’s artillery, while Ney’s batteries brought a converging fire to bear upon it from the southward. To storm it Eugène detailed Gérard’s division, hitherto but lightly engaged, while Morand and Broussier supported; and Napoleon ordered Montbrun, with his Cuirassier divisions, to charge the Russian line on Gérard’s right. Montbrun was killed as he led forward his men, and General Caulaincourt, brother of the Duke of Vicenza, came hastily from the Emperor to take up the command. “Don’t stop to lament!” he said to the dead general’s aides. “Follow and avenge him!” The mass of mail-clad horsemen broke through the Russian line south of the redoubt, wheeled to the left and came thundering upon its rear, just as Eugène’s infantry reached it in front. For the four regiments of Likhachev’s division which held it there was no escape--at least as regards the major part. Some of them who were outside the work succeeded in saving themselves; but those within were trapped and, after maintaining a desperate resistance against the charges in front and rear, were almost all cut to pieces. Likhachev, who was very ill, flung himself among the assailants, and had almost found the death which he sought when some French soldiers, attracted by his insignia, took him prisoner, severely wounded. Caulaincourt was struck down as he led the triumphant charge of his Cuirassiers--one more victim of the fatal “Battle of the Generals.” The capture of the redoubt opened a huge gap in the Russian line, through which Eugène’s and Grouchy’s cavalry poured to complete the victory. Against them Barclay hurled all the horsemen whom he had under his hand--the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Corps and the Cuirassiers of the Guard--leading more than one charge in person, while Ostermann-Tolstoï’s corps, supported by the yet unengaged portions of the 5th Corps, was ordered to make a counter-attack towards Semenovskoï. Ostermann-Tolstoï, as he had shown at Ostrovno, was not the man for an emergency; Löwenstern says that he appeared to have entirely lost his head. He moved forward so slowly that Ney, Davout and Murat were able to make preparations to receive him. The French infantry were almost fought out; the cavalry had literally “foamed themselves away” in endeavouring to shatter the resistance of the stubborn Russian infantry; the fire of the Russian artillery was as steady and effective as ever. The Marshals sent again and again for some part of the Guard to support their weary men, but Napoleon refused to risk it. The Russian writers express astonishment at his caution. All that he would do was to send forward the reserve of heavy artillery, under Comte Sorbier. Sorbier swore at Lejeune, who brought the order to advance. “I ought to have had it an hour ago!” was his comment.