Heads down the British charge, whilst from Ohain comes the roar of Blücher's guns, and up from the east, Zieten with the Prussians rushes up to join in the assault. Then the carnage begins: for the Old Guard is still advancing--in solid squares--solemn, unmoved, magnificent: the bronze eagles on their bonnets catch the golden rays of the setting sun. Thus they advance in face of deadly fire: they fall like corn before the scythe. A sublime suicide to the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" and not one of the brigade is missing except those who are dead. They know--none better--that this is the beginning of the end. Perhaps they do not care to live if their Emperor is to be Emperor no longer, if he is to be sent back to exile--to the prison of Elba or worse: and so they advance in serried squares, while Maitland's artillery has attacked them in the rear. Great gaps are made in those ranks, but they are quickly filled up again: the squares become less solid, smaller, but they remain compact. Still they advance. But now close behind them Blücher's guns begin to thunder and Zieten's columns are rapidly gaining ground: all round their fur bonnets a hailstorm of grape-shot is raging whilst Adam's artillery is in action within fifty paces at their flank. But the old growlers who had suffered death with silent fortitude in the snows of Russia, who had been as grand in their defeat at Moscow and at Leipzic as they had been in the triumphs of Auerstadt or of Friedland--they neither staggered nor paused in their advance. On they went--carrying their muskets on their shoulders--a cloud of tirailleurs in front of them, right into the cross-fire of the British guns: their loud cry of "Vive l'Empereur" drowning that other awesome, terrible cry which someone had raised a while ago and which now went from mouth to mouth: "We are betrayed! _Sauve qui peut!_" The Prussians were in their rear; the British were charging their front, and panic had seized the most brilliant cavalry the world had ever seen. "Sauve qui peut" is echoed now and re-echoed all along the crest of the plateau. And the echo rolls down the slope into the valley where Reille's infantry and a regiment of cuirassiers, and three more battalions of chasseurs, are making ready to second the assault on Mont Saint Jean. Reille and his infantry pause and listen: the cuirassiers halt in their upward movement, whilst up on the ridge of the plateau where Donzelot's grenadiers have attacked the brigade of Kempt and Lambert and Pack, the whisper goes from mouth to mouth: "We are betrayed! _Sauve qui peut!_" Panic seizes the younger men: they turn their horses' heads back toward the slopes. The stampede has commenced: very soon it grows. The British in front, the Prussians in the rear: "Sauve qui peut!"