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.
It was a thousand times worse in-doors, because yells of rage mingled in the uproar; we rushed into the houses with fixed bayonets and massacred each other without mercy. On every side the cry rose, "No quarter!"
The Prussians who were surprised in the first houses we entered, were old soldiers and asked for nothing better. They perfectly understood what "No quarter" meant, and made a most desperate defence.
As we reached the third or fourth house on a tolerably wide street on which was a church, and a little bridge farther on, the air was full of smoke from the fires caused by our bombs; great broken tiles and slate were raining down upon us, and everything roared and whistled and cracked, when Zébédé, with a terrible look in his eyes, seized me by the arm, shouting, "Come!"
We rushed into a large room already filled with soldiers, on the first floor of a house; it was dark, as they had covered the windows with sacks of earth, but we could see a steep wooden stairway at one end, down which the blood was running. We heard musket-shots from above and the flashes each moment showed us five or six of our men sunk in a heap against the balustrade with their arms hanging down, and the others running over their bodies with their bayonets fixed, trying to force their way into the loft.
It was horrible to see those men with their bristling mustaches, and brown cheeks, every wrinkle expressing the fury which possessed them, determined to force a passage at any cost. The sight made me furious, and I shouted, "Forward! No quarter!"
If I had been near the stairway, I might have been cut to pieces in mounting, but fortunately for me, others were ahead and not one would give up his place.
An old fellow, covered with wounds, succeeded in reaching the top of the stairs under the bayonets. As he gained the loft he let go his musket, and seized the balustrade with both hands. Two balls from muskets touching his breast did not make him let go his hold. Three or four others rushed up behind him striving each to be first, and leaped over the top stairs into the loft above.
Then followed such an uproar as is impossible to describe, shots followed each other in quick succession, and the shouts and trampling of feet made us think the house was coming down over our heads. Others followed, and when I reached the scene behind Zébédé, the room was full of dead and wounded men, the windows were blown out, the walls splashed with blood, and not a Prussian was left on his feet. Five or six of our men were supporting themselves against the different pieces of furniture, smiling ferociously. Nearly all of them had balls or bayonet thrusts in their bodies, but the pleasure of revenge was greater than the pain of their wounds. My hair stands on end when I recall that scene.
As soon as Zébédé saw that the Prussians were all dead, he went down again, saying to me, "Come, there is nothing more to do here."