Only when I came close to him did I recognise that it was Marshal
Ney. He howled at the flying troops and his voice was hardly
human. Then he raised the stump of his sword-- it was broken
three inches from the hilt. "Come and see how a Marshal of
France can die!" he cried. Gladly would I have gone with him,
but my duty lay elsewhere.
He did not, as you know, find the death he sought, but he met it
a few weeks later in cold blood at the hands of his enemies.
There is an old proverb that in attack the French are more than
men, in defeat they are less than women. I knew that it was true
that day. But even in that rout I saw things which I can tell
with pride. Through the fields which skirt the road moved
Cambronne's three reserve battalions of the Guard, the cream of
our army.
They walked slowly in square, their colours waving over the
sombre line of the bearskins. All round them raged the English
cavalry and the black Lancers of Brunswick, wave after wave
thundering up, breaking with a crash, and recoiling in ruin.
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