Once in the road again between the hills, we stopped to breathe. Some stretched themselves on the ground, and others sat down with their backs against the slope. The officers were furious; as if they too had not followed the movement to retreat, and some shouted to bring up the cannon, and others wanted to re-form the troops, though they could scarcely make themselves heard in the midst of the thunder of the artillery which shook the air like a tempest. I saw Jean Buche hurrying back with his bayonet red with blood. He took his place beside me without saying a word, and commenced to reload. Captain Gregoire, Lieutenant Certain, and several sergeants and corporals, and more than a hundred men were left behind in the orchards; and the first two battalions of the column had suffered as much as we. Zebede, with his great crooked nose, white as snow, seeing me at some distance, shouted, "Joseph--no quarter!" Great masses of white smoke rose over the sides of the road. The whole hill-side from Ligny to St. Amand was on fire behind the willows and aspens and poplars. As I crept up on my hands and knees, and looked over the surface of the grain and saw this terrible spectacle, and saw the long black lines of infantry on the top of the hill and near the windmills, and the innumerable cavalry on their flanks ready to fall upon us, I went back thinking: "We shall never rout that army. It fills the villages, and guards the roads, and covers the hill as far as the eye can reach, there are guns everywhere, and it is contrary to reason to persist in such an enterprise." I was indignant and even disgusted with the generals. All this did not take ten minutes. God only knew what had become of our other two columns. The terrible musketry fire on the left, and the volleys of grape and canister which we heard rushing through the air, were no doubt intended for them. I thought we had had our full share of troubles, when Generals Gerard, Vichery, and Schoeffer came riding up at full speed on the road below us, shouting like madmen, "Forward! Forward!" They drew their swords, and there was nothing to do but go. At this moment our batteries on the road below opened their fire on Ligny, the roofs in the village tumbled, and the walls sank, and we rushed forward with the generals at our head with their swords drawn, the drums beating the charge. We shouted, "_Vive l'Empereur_." The Prussian bullets swept us away by dozens, and shot fell like hail, and the drums kept up their "pan-pan-pan." We saw nothing, heard nothing, as we crossed the orchards, nobody paid any attention to those who fell, and in two minutes after, we entered the village, broke in the doors with the butts of our muskets, while the Prussians fired upon us from the windows.