While the column of Donzelot was engaged in this desperate struggle, the column of Marcognet had broken through the hedges and was advancing to take a battery. But as the French shouted “Victory,” the sound of the bag-pipes was heard, and the Highlanders opened fire. Owing to their faulty formation, the French could only reply by a volley from the front line of a single battalion. Their only hope was to charge with the bayonet. While desperately engaged with the Scotch troops, Lord Uxbridge dashed upon them with his cavalry. The issue could not be doubtful. The French could not deploy; the confused mass could not defend itself against infantry or cavalry. They were raked by cannon shot, and by musketry, and the English cavalry hacked them to pieces. The slaughter was pitiable and was mainly due to a formation which gave these brave men no chance to fight. In their exultation the English carried their charges too far. The Scotch Greys, indeed, dashed up the slope upon which the French were posted, captured the division of batteries of Durutte and attempted to carry the main battery. Napoleon himself ordered the countercharge which swept the English cavalry beyond La Haye-Sainte. All this while, Jerome Bonaparte was still assaulting Hougoumont. Defenders and assailants had each been reinforced. The Emperor ordered a battery of howitzers to shell the buildings. Fire broke out, and the château and its outbuildings were consumed. The English threw themselves into the chapel, the barn, the farmer’s house, a sunken road, and continued to hold the position. It was now half-past three o’clock. Wellington and Napoleon were both becoming uneasy--the former because Blücher’s troops were not yet in line, the latter because he had begun to doubt that Grouchy would come. The Emperor ordered Ney to make another attack on La Haye-Sainte. The English, from behind hedges of the Ohain road, repulsed it. While the movement was being made the main French battery of eighty guns cannonaded the English right center. “Never had the oldest soldiers heard such a cannonade,” said General Alten. The English line moved back a short distance so as to get the protection of the edge of the plateau. Ney, mistaking this movement, ordered a cavalry charge. At first he meant to use a brigade only, but owing to some misunderstanding that cannot be cleared up, this intended charge of a brigade drew into it practically all the cavalry of the French army. Napoleon himself did not see what was happening. From his position near the “Maison Decoster” inn, Napoleon did not have a view of the ground in which the cavalry divisions were forming for this premature disastrous attack.