“They are confused. All is lost!” Hoping to stem the tide of the English advance and to establish rallying points for his flying troops, he formed four squares from a column of the Old Guard which had not been engaged. These he posted above La Haye-Sainte. As the English horsemen came on, they dashed in vain against these walls of steel and fire. But nothing so frail as four squares could arrest the advance of 40,000 men. The English cavalry poured through the gaps which separated the squares and continued their headlong pursuit of the terrified French. When the English infantry came up and raked the squares with musketry; when the English batteries began to hail grapeshot upon them, the Emperor gave the order to abandon the position. Attended by a small escort he galloped to the height of La Belle Alliance. The three squares fell back, slowly, steadily, surrounded on all sides by the enemy. With the regularity of the paradeground these matchless soldiers of the Old Guard halted to fire, to reform their ranks, and then move on again. “Fugitives from the battlefield looked back from the distance and marked the progress of the retreat by the regular flash of these guns.” On that black valley of death and vast misfortune it was the repeated flashes of lightning irradiating a stormcloud. Filled with admiration and sympathy, let us hope, an English officer cried out, “Surrender!” And Cambronne shot out the word which Victor Hugo indecently glorified, but which with convincing emphasis spurned the very thought of surrender. The squares, unbroken, reached the summit of La Belle Alliance, where Cambronne fell, apparently dead, from a ball which struck him in the face. It was here that the Prussians, who had at last broken in on the right, bore down on the squares. Assailed by overwhelming odds--infantry, artillery, cavalry--they were destroyed. Several hundred yards back there were two battalions of the Old Guard, formed in squares. Within one of these squares was the Emperor. Planting a battery of 12-pounders, he made a final effort to check the pursuit and to rally his troops. The Guard’s call to arms was sounded, but the fugitives continued to pour by and none rallied. The battery exhausted its ammunition and the gunners, refusing to fly, were cut down by the English hussars. Upon the squares themselves the enemy could make no impression until overpowering masses of Prussian and English infantry came up. Then the Emperor ordered a retreat. In good order these veterans marched off the field, stopping from time to time to fire a volley upon their pursuers. At the farm of Le Caillou the battalion formed in column, and on its flank slowly rode the Emperor, reeling with fatigue, so that he had to be supported in the saddle. His bridle reins were loose upon his horse’s neck. CHAPTER IX As the moon came out that night, her cold face was hateful to the fleeing French, for it lit the roads for the merciless pursuers.