“Nothing could be more imposing than the movement of that grand column to the assault. That guard had never yet recoiled before a human foe, and the allied forces beheld with awe its firm and terrible advance to the final charge. For a moment the batteries stopped playing, and the firing ceased along the British lines, as, without the beating of a drum or the blast of a bugle to cheer their steady courage, they moved in dead silence over the plain. The next moment the artillery opened, and the head of that gallant column seemed to sink into the earth. Rank after rank went down, yet they neither stopped nor faltered. Dissolving squadrons and whole battalions disappearing, one after another, in the destructive fire, affected not their steady courage. The ranks closed up as before, and each treading over his fallen comrade, pressed firmly on. The horse which the gallant Ney rode fell under him; and he had scarcely mounted another, before it also sunk to the earth. Again and again did that unflinching man feel his steed sink down, until five had been shot under him. Then, with his uniform riddled with bullets, and his face singed and blackened with powder, he marched on foot, with drawn sabre in hand, at the head of his men. In vain did the artillery hurl its storm of fire and lead into that living mass. Up to the very muzzles they pressed, and, driving the artillery-men from their own pieces, pushed on through the English lines. But, at that moment, a file of soldiers, who had lain flat upon the ground behind a low ridge of earth, suddenly arose and poured a volley in their very faces. Another and another followed, till one broad sheet of flame rolled on their bosoms, and in such a fierce and unexpected flow that human courage could not withstand it. They reeled, shook, staggered back, then turned and fled. Ney was borne back in the refluent tide, and hurried over the field. But for the crowd of fugitives that forced him on, he would have stood alone, and fallen on his footsteps. As it was, disdaining to give way, though the whole army was flying, that noble marshal formed his men into two immense squares, and endeavored to stem the terrific current; and would have done so, had it not been for the thirty thousand fresh Prussians that pressed upon his exhausted ranks. For a long time, those squares, under the unflinching Ney, stood, and let the artillery plough through them. But the fate of Napoleon was writ, and though Ney doubtless did what no other man in the army could have done, the decree could not be reversed. The star that blazed so brightly over the world went down with honor and in blood, and the ‘bravest of the brave’ had fought his last battle. It was worthy of his great name; and the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, with him at their head, will be pointed to by remotest generations with a shudder.”