He could not help laughing at the way we ran on the guns. General Sunham cried:
"Things go bravely on!"
He replied:
"Yes, yes; but in blood! in blood!"
The battalion remained there until the next day. We were lodged with the citizens, who were afraid of us and gave us all we asked. The Twenty-seventh returned in the evening and was quartered in the old chateau. We were very tired. After smoking two or three pipes together, chatting about our glory, Zébédé', Klipfel, and I went together to the shop of a joiner on a heap of shavings, and remained there until midnight, when they beat the reveille. We rose; the joiner gave us some brandy, and we went out. The rain was falling in torrents. That night the battalion went to bivouac before the village of Clépen, two hours march from Weissenfels.
Other detachments came and rejoined us. The emperor had arrived at Weissenfels, and all the third corps were to follow us. We talked only of this all the day; but the day after, at five in the morning, we set off again in the advance.
Before us rolled a river called the Rippach. Instead of turning aside to take the bridge, we forded it where we were. The water reached our waists; and I thought how terrible this would have seemed to me when I was so much afraid of taking cold at Monsieur Goulden's.
As we passed down the other bank of the river in the rushes, we discovered a band of Cossacks observing us from the heights to the left. They followed slowly, without daring to attack us, and so we kept on until it was broad day, when suddenly a terrific fusilade and the thunder of heavy guns made us turn our heads toward Clépen. The commandant, on horseback, looked at us over the reeds.
The sounds of conflict lasted a considerable time, and Sergeant Pinto said: