Instead of waiting, as I did, Buche discharged the contents of his musket full in the officer's breast. Then the other four fell upon us. Buche received a blow from a sabre which cut his shako down to the visor, but with one thrust with his bayonet he killed his antagonist. Three of them still remained. My musket was loaded. Buche planted himself with his back against a nut-tree, and every time the Prussians, who had fallen back, approached us, I took aim. Neither of them wanted to be the first to die! As we waited, Buche with his bayonet fixed and I with my musket at my shoulder, we heard a galloping on the road. This frightened us, for we thought more Prussians were coming, but they were our lancers. The hussars then turned off into the grain, and Buche hastened to re-load his gun. Our lancers passed and we followed them on the run. An officer who joined us, said that the Emperor had set out for Paris, and that King Jerome had just taken command of the army. Buche's scalp was laid completely open, but the bone was not injured, and the blood ran down his cheeks. He bound up his head with his handkerchief. After that we saw no more Prussians. About two o'clock in the morning, we were so weary we could hardly take another step. About two hundred paces to the left of the road there was a little beech grove. Buche said: "Look, Joseph, let us go in there and lie down and sleep." It was just what I wanted. We went down across the oat-field to the wood, and entered a close thicket of young trees. We had both kept our guns and knapsacks and cartridge-boxes. We laid our knapsacks on the ground for a pillow, and it had long been broad daylight, and the retreating crowd had been passing for hours, when we awoke and quietly pursued our journey. XXII Numbers of our comrades and of the wounded remained behind at Gosselies, but the larger part of the army kept on their way, and about nine o'clock we began to see the spires of Charleroi in the distance, when suddenly we heard shouts, cries, complaints, and shots intermingled, half a league before us. The whole immense column of miserable wretches halted, shouting: "The city closes its doors against us! we are stopped here!" Consternation and despair were stamped on every face. But a moment after, the news came that the convoys of provisions were coming and that they would not distribute them. "Let us fall upon them! Kill the rascals who are starving us! We are betrayed!" The most fearful and the most exhausted quickened their pace, and drew their sabres or loaded their muskets. It was plain that there would be a veritable butchery if the guards did not give way. Buche himself shouted: "They ought all to be murdered, we are betrayed. Come, Joseph, let us be revenged." But I held him back by the collar and exclaimed: "No, Jean, no! We have had murders enough already, and we have escaped all, and we do not want to be killed here by Frenchmen. Come!"