"Thanks for the ladder, comrade," he said to the latter with a grin; and opening the gate of the city, he allowed the cavalry to enter.
Still the Mexicans fought with the energy of despair. General Guerrero, who flattered himself with the hope of giving the French a severe lesson, surprised and terrified by their fury, no longer knew what measures to take in order to resist these invincible demons, as he called them, whom nothing could arrest, and who, without deigning to reply to their enemies' fire, had only fought with the bayonet since their first discharge.
Driven in on all sides, the general concentrated his troops on the Alameda, and protected the approaches by guns loaded with canister. In spite of the enormous losses they had suffered, the Mexicans were still more than six hundred combatants, resolved to defend themselves to the death. The count sent Don Cornelio to Captain de Laville with orders to charge and sabre the last defenders of the city, while he made a flank movement with the infantry. The captain started immediately at a gallop, overthrowing with his horse's chest all obstacles. His pace was so hurried that he arrived alone in front of the enemy.
The Mexicans, terrified at the extraordinary audacity of this man, hesitated for a moment; but at the repeated orders of their chiefs they opened their fire on de Laville, who seemed to mock them, and the balls began whistling like hail past the ears of the intrepid Frenchman, who remained calm and motionless in the midst of this shower of lead. Valentine, frightened by the captain's boldness, doubled his speed, and brought up all the cavalry.
"Hang it, de Laville!" he exclaimed with admiration, "what are you doing there?"
"You see, my friend," the latter answered with charming simplicity, "I am waiting for you."[3]
Electrified by these noble words, the French dashed on the Alameda, and charged to the other end with shouts of "Long live France!" a shout to which the count's infantry responded from the other side of the Alameda, while attacking the Mexicans at the bayonet's point.
There were a few moments of deadly struggling and a horrible carnage. The count, in the height of the medley, fought like the meanest of his soldiers, exciting them incessantly, and urging them forward. At last, in spite of their desperate resistance, the Mexicans, pitilessly sabred by the French, no longer able to organise any effectual defence, and frightened by the ardour and invincible courage of their adversaries, whom they regarded as demons, began to break and fly in every direction. In spite of the fatigue of the horses, de Laville started in pursuit with his cavalry.
Hermosillo was taken—the Count de Prébois Crancé was victorious. Stopping in the midst of the pile of corpses which surrounded him, he drew his watch coldly, and consulted it. It was eleven o'clock, as the count had told the envoys in the morning: he had become master of the city at eleven o'clock exactly. The battle had lasted an hour.
"Now, brothers," the count said, as he returned his sabre to the scabbard, "the city is ours! Enough blood has been shed: let us think of aiding the wounded. Long live France!"