The British formed square, and, though assailed for five hours, held fast. They seemed, said an onlooker, “rooted” to the earth. Every attempt to pierce them failed, until even the British privates saw the uselessness of the attempt, and cried, as Napoleon’s squadrons charged them, “Here come those fools again.” Every attempt to take the ridge was repulsed with terrible slaughter. At last, in the thick of the fighting, the cannon of the advancing Prussians were heard, and Napoleon made one last desperate effort to break the British line. La Haye Sainte was captured about six in the evening, and Napoleon’s cannon were now so near that Wellington’s centre was in dire danger. Blücher was rapidly drawing near, and already he was threatening the French right and rear. Like a desperate gambler, Napoleon now staked all on a charge of the Old Guard. A little after seven he gave the word, and six thousand of his veterans, led by Marshal Ney, were hurled at the long-tried British. As the French rushed up the slope, the British Guards, who had been lying down behind the top of the ridge, sprang to their feet and poured a volley into the enemy. Their columns wavered, and our soldiers charged with the bayonet, hurling the enemy down the hill in utter confusion. Soon after eight o’clock the Prussians made their appearance on the scene, and speedily Napoleon found himself assailed on his flank by forty thousand men. At this juncture, “on the ridge, near the Guards, his figure standing out amidst the smoke against the bright north-eastern sky, Wellington was seen to raise his hat with a noble gesture—the signal for the wasted line of heroes to sweep like a dark wave from their covered positions, and roll out their lines and columns over the plains. With a pealing cheer the whole line advanced just as the sun was sinking.” In vain the French Guards rallied, only to be swept away by the fierce British charges. When darkness fell, the whole French army was in flight. The Prussians went in hot pursuit, and before long the proud French army of the morning was almost annihilated. Wellington and Blücher had lost twenty-two thousand men. The French loss will never be known. The battle was decisive; the long struggle was at an end; and Napoleon’s star had set. He put spurs to his horse, and rode hard through the midsummer night to escape capture. Fearing death at the hands of the Prussians, he surrendered himself to the captain of the British man-of-war _Bellerophon_. The British Government banished him to the lonely isle of St. Helena, where he languished in captivity until his death in 1821. But what of the victor of Waterloo— “Foremost captain of his time, Rich in saving common sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime.”