While Napoleon was watching their several charges, General Guyot's division of heavy cavalry was seen following the cuirassiers of Kellerman. This latter movement was without the Emperor's orders, and seems to have been the result of ungovernable excitement on the part of the officers and men, who thought they could finish the battle by a coup de main.
The Emperor instantly sent Count Bertrand to recall them; but it was too late! The cavalry, once started, nothing could arrest its rush—they were in action before the order could reach them; and to recall them now would have been dangerous, even if possible. This division was the reserve, and ought by all means to have been held back. Thus was the Emperor deprived of his reserve of cavalry as early as 5 o'clock.
From an old Drawing by F. Grenier
Preparations for the Advance of the Old Guard at Waterloo
It is said that during the preparation of this grand charge of 12,000 French cavalry,—the finest in the world,—the Duke of Wellington ran forward with his glass in front of the lines, amidst the hot fire which preceded the charge. He was reminded that he was exposing himself too much. "Yes," said the Duke, "I know I am,—but I must see what they are doing." To an officer who asked for instructions in case he should be slain, he answered; "I have no instructions to give; there is only one thing to be done—to fight to the last man and the last moment!"
Some years later the Duke said, "I have never seen anything more admirable in war than those ten or twelve reiterated charges of the French cuirassiers upon our troops of all arms."
It was obvious to the English commander, as he viewed this splendid spectacle, that unless this last and decisive onset should drive him from the post which he had continued to hold during nearly seven hours of intermitting battle, his allies would come fully into the field and give him a vast superiority of numbers wherewith to close the work of the day. The Duke now decided to sacrifice the remainder of his cavalry, and he moved them forward to meet the shock of the advancing foe.
The matchless body of French cavalry continued to dash forward towards the hostile lines, in successive masses, and with all the triumphant fury of a charge upon a retreating enemy. Breaking through many squares of infantry, overthrowing the opposing cavalry, and overwhelming the artillery in front of the lines, they were received by the squares of British infantry, first with a volley of musket-balls, and then upon the immovable array of bristling bayonets. Men and horses, struggling in the agonies of violent death, bestrewed the ground. In his extremity Wellington determined on employing Cumberland's one thousand hussars, who had not yet been engaged; but at sight of this scene of slaughter the hussars fell back in disorder.
The resistance of the Duke was most stubborn but Ney still hoped to destroy the English army at the point of the sword by keeping up a continued charge, having been reinforced by the heavy cavalry of the Guard whose advance had been made apparently without orders.