“Exactly!” answered the captain, “it’s the old werewolf Blücher, who comes marching upon the field with his Prussians.”
So Grouchy never came; there was Napoleon, deprived of his whole right wing, and facing 150,000 men. But with never failing coolness he gives his orders for a great change of front.
But it was too late, and the odds were too vast.
Wellington, who, by Blücher’s arrival, was enabled to bring his reserve into play, now ordered his whole army to advance. And yet once more the Allies were forced to pause for a moment by a furious charge led by Ney—the lion of the day.
“Do you see him there!” cried the captain, his eyes flashing.
And Cousin Hans saw him, the romantic hero, Duke of Elchingen, Prince of Moskwa, son of a cooper in Saarlouis, Marshal and Peer of France. He saw him rush onward at the head of his battalions—five horses had been shot under him with his sword in his hand, his uniform torn to shreds, hatless, and with the blood streaming down his face.
And the battalions rallied and swept ahead; they followed their Prince of Moskwa, their savior at the Beresina, into the hopeless struggle for the Emperor and for France. Little did they dream that, six months later, the King of France would have their dear prince shot as a traitor to his country in the gardens of the Luxembourg.
There he rushed around, rallying and directing his troops, until there was nothing more for the general to do; then he plied his sword like a common soldier until all was over, and he was carried away in the rout. For the French army fled.
The Emperor threw himself into the throng; but the terrible hubbub drowned his voice, and in the twilight no one knew the little man on the white horse.
Then he took his stand in a little square of his Old Guard, which still held out upon the plain; he would fain have ended his life on his last battlefield. But his generals flocked around him, and the old grenadiers shouted: “Withdraw, Sire! Death will not have you.”