“Cuirassiers of the Guard,” said he, as with raised chapeau he saluted his brave followers, “I have ordered two battalions to carry that bridge; they have failed. Let those who never fail advance to the storm. Montereau shall be inscribed on your helmets, men, when I see you on yonder heights. Go forward!”
“Forward! forward!” shouted the mailed ranks, half maddened by the exciting presence of Napoleon.
The force was formed in four separate columns of attack: the First Cuirassiers leading; followed by the Carbineers of the Guard; then my own regiment; and lastly, the Fourth, the corps of poor Pioche. What would I have given to know he was there! But there was not time for such inquiry now. The squadrons were ready awaiting the moment to dash on.
A loud detonation of nigh twenty guns shook the earth; and in the smoke that rolled from them the bridge was concealed from view. A trumpet sounded, and the cry of “Charge!” followed. The mass sprang forth. What a cheer was theirs as they swept past! The cannonade opens again; the whole ground trembles. The musketry follows; and the clatter of a thousand sabres mingles with the war-cries of the combatants. It is but brief,—the tumult is already subsiding.
And now comes the order for the carbineers to move up; the cuirassiers have been cut to pieces. A few, mangled and bleeding, have reeled back behind the hill; but the regiment is gone!
“Where are the troops of Wagram and Eylau?” said the Emperor, in bitterness, as he saw the one broken squadron, sole remnant of a gallant corps, reeling, bloodstained and dying, to the rear. “Where is that cavalry that carried the Russian battery at Moskowa? You are not what you once were!”
This cruel taunt, at the very moment when the earth was steeped in the blood of his brave soldiers, was heard in mournful silence. None spoke a word, but with clenched lip and clasped hand sat waiting the command to charge. It came; but no cheer followed. The carbineers dashed on, prepared to die: what death so dreadful as the cold irony of Napoleon!
“En avant! cuirassiers of the Tenth,” called out the Emperor, as the last squadrons of the carbineers went by, “support your comrades! Follow up there, men of the Fourth! I must have that bridge.”
And now the whole line moved up. As we turned the cliff in full trot, the scene of combat lay before us: the terrible bridge now actually choked up with dead and wounded, the very battlements strewn with corpses. In an instant the carbineers were upon it; and struggling through the mass of carnage, they rode onward. Like men goaded to despair, they pressed on, and actually reached the archway beyond, which, defended by a strong gate, closed up the way. Whole files now fell at every discharge; but others took their places, to fall as rapidly beneath the murderous musketry.
“A petard to the gate!” is now the cry,—“a petard, and the bridge is won!”