For some moments a cannonade had been going on at the other side of the city, where Blücher was attacking the faubourg of Halle. Soon after, the firing stretched along to the right; it was Bernadotte attacking the faubourg of Kohlgartenthor, and at the same time the first shells of the Austrians fell among us. They formed their columns of attack on the Caunewitz road, and poured down on us from all sides. Nevertheless, we held our own until about ten o'clock, and then were forced back to the old ramparts, through the breaches of which the Kaiserliks pursued us under the cross-fire of the fourteenth and twenty-ninth of the line. The poor Austrians were not inspired with the fury of the Prussians, but nevertheless, showed a true courage; for, in half an hour, they had won the ramparts, and although, from all the neighboring windows, we kept up a deadly fire, we could not force them back. Six months before, it would have horrified me to think of men being thus slaughtered, but now I was as insensible as any old soldier, and the death of one man or of a hundred would not cost me a thought. Until this time all had gone well, but how were we to get out of the houses? The enemy held every avenue, and it seemed that we would be caught like foxes in their holes, and I thought it not unlikely that the Austrians, in revenge for the loss we had inflicted upon them, might put us to the point of the bayonet. {31} Meditating thus, I ran back to a room, where a dozen of us yet remained, and there I saw Sergeant Pinto leaning against the wall, his arms hanging by his sides, and his face white as paper. He had just received a bullet in the breast; but the old man's warrior soul was still strong within him, as he cried: "Defend yourselves, conscripts! Defend yourselves! Show the Kaiserliks that a French soldier is yet worth four of them! Ah! the villains!" We heard the sound of blows on the door below thundering like cannon-shots. We still kept up our fire, but hopelessly, when we heard the clatter of hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop of lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before them. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lancers, with their red pennons, were swifter than they, and many a white coat was pierced from behind. The lancers were Poles--the most terrible warriors I have ever seen, and, to speak truth, our friends and our brothers. _They_ never turned from us in our hour of need; they gave us the last drop of their blood. And what have we done for their unhappy country? When I think of our ingratitude, my heart bleeds.