We rushed down in this fashion through the mud and over the cannon, which had been brought down to support us, and had been cut loose from the horses by the sabres of the dragoons. We scattered in every direction, Buche and I always keeping together, and it was ten minutes before we could be rallied again near the road in squads from all the regiments. Those who have the direction of affairs in war should keep such examples as these before their eyes, and reflect that new plans cost those dear who are forced to try them. We looked over our shoulders as we took breath, and saw the red dragoons rushing up the hill to capture our principal battery of twenty-four guns, when, thank God! their turn came to be massacred. The Emperor had observed our retreat from a distance, and as the dragoons mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. We could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses' feet were trying to get up, and sheltering themselves with their hands. What horrible things are battles! Buche shouted, "Strike hard!" I felt the sweat run down my forehead, and others with great gashes, and their eyes full of blood, were wiping their faces and laughing ferociously. In ten minutes, seven hundred dragoons were _hors-de-combat_; their gray horses were running wildly about on all sides, with their bits in their teeth. Some hundreds of them had retired behind their batteries, but more than one was reeling in his saddle and clutching at his horse's mane. They had found out that to attack was not all the battle, and that very often circumstances arise which are quite unexpected. In all that frightful spectacle, what impressed me most deeply, was seeing our cuirassiers returning with their sabres red to the hilt, laughing among themselves; and a fat captain with immense brown mustaches, winked good-humoredly as he passed by us, as much as to say, "You see we sent them back in a hurry, eh!" Yes, but three thousand of our men were left in that little hollow. And it was not yet finished: the companies and battalions and brigades were being re-formed, the musketry rattled in the vicinity of Haie-Sainte, and the cannon thundered near Hougoumont. "It was only just a beginning," the officers said. You would have thought that men's lives were of no value!