The regiment of Gatinais rushed forward. They faced the hardest resistance of the siege. This redoubt was powerfully garrisoned and fortified.
Baron de Viomenil led his heroes into the fire, and his men fought like ancient heroes, to whom honor was more than life. In the midst of the struggle an aide came to him from Lafayette.
“I am in the redoubt,” said the message. “Where are you?”
“I will be in my redoubt in five minutes.”
Strongly fortified as that redoubt was, it could not withstand the men of Gatinais. They entered it with a force that nothing could withstand, but one third of them fell.
“Royal Auvergne,” said Rochambeau, “your survivors shall have your own name again.”
He reported the action to the French King, and the latter gave back to the heroes their regimental name of old Auvergne sans tache.
These men are worthy of a monument under that noble motto. We repeat, the words should be used on decorative ensigns of the Sons of the Revolution; nothing nobler in war ever saw the light.