The Imperial Guard, which consisted of 24 battalions, organized into 12 regiments, of which 4 belonged to the Old Guard, 4 to the Middle Guard, and 4 to the Young Guard, had been stationed at the beginning of the day just in front of the farm of Rossomme, and on either side of the Charleroi turnpike. From this point 16 battalions had been detached to various points, as we have seen. The Emperor in person now took the remaining 8 battalions[732] from this position to the front, and handed them over to Ney just to the south of La Haye Sainte. This was about 7 P.M. Here he addressed them; he encouraged them, and urged them to make their best efforts. These eight (or, probably, only six battalions) were then formed in as many columns, each of a front of two companies, and arranged in _échelon_,[733] the right battalion in front.[734] This was the 1st battalion of the 3d regiment of grenadiers, commanded by General Poret de Morvan. Two batteries of horse-artillery, placed on the left flank, accompanied the infantry. There seems to have been no arrangement for the proper support of the movement by cavalry, although a body of cuirassiers did, shortly before the main shock took place, charge Napier’s battery. They were, however, easily and speedily driven off. The French cavalry was, in fact, nearly exhausted. Protection on the left of the advancing column, however, the Guard imperatively needed, as, in its march towards the enemy, its left flank would inevitably be exposed to all the troops stationed between the north end of Hougomont and the main British line. On its right, the column was protected from a flank attack by the troops of the 1st Corps. (See Map 14.) It was, according to all the accounts, Napoleon’s intention that Reille should disengage at least one division of his corps from the enclosures of Hougomont, and support this charge of the Guard on the left; but this does not seem to have been even attempted. D’Erlon, on the other hand, must have exerted himself to the utmost to support the Guard; for the divisions of Donzelot and Quiot most gallantly and forcibly attacked the Anglo-Allied line for about a third of a mile to the west of the turnpike, overthrowing and driving back the Brunswick and Nassau troops, and even the Hanoverians and English, so that the personal interposition of the Duke was required to reëstablish the line. These attacks were made about the time when the Guard began its forward movement, and they had the effect of shaking the allied troops on this part of the field so much that they certainly could not have stood another serious and well-sustained assault, such as might have been delivered by the Imperial Guard. But the movement of the column[735] of the Imperial Guard was not made in this direction, but diagonally across the field towards the enemy’s right centre, where Wellington had stationed his reserves, and where he had at least one battery, Bolton’s, then commanded by Napier, in good condition.