corps would provide further to the west.  He now felt assured of victory; for the corps of Lobau was nearing Fleurus to take the place of the Imperial Guard; and the Prussians had no supports.  “They have no reserve,” he remarked, as he swept the hostile position with his glass.  This was true:  their centre consisted of troops that for four hours had been either torn by artillery or exhausted by the fiendish strife in Ligny.

And now, as if the pent-up powers of Nature sought to cow rebellious man into awe and penitence, the artillery of the sky pealed forth.  Crash after crash shook the ground; flash upon flash rent the sulphur-laden rack; darkness as of night stole over the scene; and a deluge of rain washed the blood-stained earth.  The storm served but to aid the assailants in their last and fiercest efforts.  Amidst the gloom the columns of the Imperial Guard crept swiftly down the slope towards Ligny, gave new strength to Gerard’s men, and together with them broke through the defence.  A little higher up the stream, Milhaud’s cuirassiers struggled across, and, animated by the Emperor’s presence, poured upon the shattered Prussian centre.  No timely help could it now receive either from Bluecher or Thielmann; for the darkness of the storm had shrouded from view the beginnings of the onset, and Thielmann had just suffered from a heedless assault on Grouchy’s wing.

As the thunder-clouds rolled by, the gleams of the setting sun lit up the field and revealed to Bluecher the full extent of his error.[491] His army was cut in twain.  In vain did he call in his troops from St. Amand:  in vain did he gallop back to his squadrons between Bry and Sombref and lead them forward.  Their dashing charge was suddenly checked at the brink of a hollow way; steady volleys tore away their front; and the cuirassiers completed their discomfiture.  Bluecher’s charger was struck by a bullet, and in his fall badly bruised the Field-Marshal; but his trusty adjutant, Nostitz, managed to hide him in the twilight, while the cuirassiers swept onwards up the hill.  Other Prussian squadrons, struggling to save the day, now charged home and drove back the steel-clad ranks.  Some Uhlans and mounted Landwehr reached the place where the hero lay; and Nostitz was able to save that precious life.  Sorely battered, but still defiant like their chief, the Prussian cavalry covered the retreat at the centre; the wings fell back in good order, the right holding on to the village of Bry till past midnight; but several battalions of disaffected troops broke up and did not rejoin their comrades.  About 14,000 Prussians and 11,000 French lay dead or wounded on that fatal field.[492]

Napoleon, as he rode back to Fleurus after nightfall, could claim that he had won a great victory.  Yet he had not achieved the results portrayed in Soult’s despatch of 3.15 to Ney.  This was due partly to Ney’s failure to fulfil his part of the programme, and partly to the apparition of D’Erlon’s corps, which led to the postponement of Napoleon’s grand attack on Ligny.