The drums rolled fuller and louder; and soon the head of a column appeared peering over the ascent of the road. The sun shone brightly on their gay uniforms and glancing arms, and the tall and showily-dressed tambour-major stepped in advance with the proud bearing of a conqueror. “Form, men, and to the front!” said the major of the voltigeurs, who knew that his place was in the advance, and felt a noble pride that he had won it bravely. As the column came up the road, the voltigeurs, scattered along the road on either side, advanced at a run. But no longer was there any obstacle to their course; no enemy presented themselves in sight, and we mounted the ascent without a single shot being fired. As I stopped for time to recover breath, I could not help turning to behold the valley, which, now filled with armed men, was a grand and a gorgeous sight. In long columns of attack they came, the artillery filling the interspaces between them. A brilliant sunlight shone out; and I could distinguish the different brigades, with whose colors I was now familiar. Still my eye ranged over the field in search of cavalry, the arm I loved above all others,--that which, more than all the rest, revived the heroic spirit of the chivalrous ages, and made the horseman feel the ancient ardor of the belted knight. But none were within sight. Indeed, the very nature of the ground offered an obstacle to their movement, and I saw that here, as at Austerlitz, the day was for the infantry. Meanwhile we toiled up the height, and at length reached the crest of the ridge. And then burst forth a sight such as all the grandeur I had ever beheld of war had never presented the equal to. On a vast tableland, slightly undulating on the surface, was drawn up the whole Prussian army in battle array,--a splendid force of nigh thirty thousand infantry, flanked by ten thousand sabres, the finest cavalry in Europe. By some inconceivable error of tactics, they had offered no other resistance to the French ascent of the mountain than the skirmishing troops, which fell back as we came on; and even now they seemed to wait patiently for the enemy to form before the conflict should begin. As our columns crowned the hill they instantly deployed, to cover the advance of those who followed: but the precaution seemed needless; for, except at the extreme left, where we heard the firing before, the Prussian army never moved a man, nor showed any disposition to attack. It was now nine o'clock; the sky clear and cloudless, and a bright autumnal day permitted the eye to range for miles on every side. The Prussian army, but forty thousand strong, was drawn up in the form of an arch, presenting the convexity to our front; while our troops, ninety thousand in number, overlapped them on either flank, and extended far beyond them.