On the allied left, the 95th Rifles (now the Rifle Brigade) and Brunswickers kept a clutch on the Namur road which nothing could loosen.  But our danger was mainly at the centre.  Under cover of the farmhouse, French columns began to drive in our infantry, whose ammunition was already running low.  Wellington determined to crush this onset by a counter-attack in line of Picton’s division, the “fighting division” of the Peninsula.  With threatening shouts they advanced to the charge; and before that moving wall the foe fell back in confusion beyond the rivulet.

Still, the French drove back the Dutch in the wood, and the Brunswickers on its eastern fringe, killing the brave young Duke of Brunswick as he attempted to rally his raw recruits.  Into the gap thus left the French horsemen pushed forward, making little impression upon our footmen, but compelling them to keep in a close formation, which exposed them in the intervals between the charges to heavy losses from the French cannon.

So the afternoon wore on.  Between 5 and 6 o’clock our weary troops were reinforced by Alten’s division.  A little later, a brigade of Kellermann’s heavy cavalry came up from the rear and renewed Ney’s striking power—­but again too late.  Already he was maddened by the tidings that D’Erlon’s corps had been ordered off towards Ligny, and next by Napoleon’s urgent despatch of 3.15 p.m. bidding him envelop Bluecher’s right.  Blind with indignation at this seeming injustice, he at once sent an imperative summons to D’Erlon to return towards Quatre Bras, and launched a brigade of Kellermann’s cuirassiers at those stubborn squares.

The attack nearly succeeded.  The horsemen rushed upon our 69th Regiment just when the Prince of Orange had foolishly ordered it back into line, caught it in confusion, and cut it up badly.  Another regiment, the 33rd, fled into the wood, but afterwards re-formed; the other squares beat off the onset.  The torrent, however, only swerved aside:  on it rushed almost to the cross-roads, there to be stopped by a flanking fire from the wood and from the 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders lining the roadway in front.—­“Ninety-second, don’t fire till I tell you,” exclaimed the Duke.  The volley rang out when the horsemen were but thirty paces off.  The effect was magical.  Their front was torn asunder, and the survivors made off in a panic that spread to Foy’s battalions of foot and disordered the whole array.[494]

Ney still persisted in his isolated assaults; but reinforcements were now at hand that brought up Wellington’s total to 31,000 men, while the French were less than 21,000.  At nightfall the Marshal drew back to Frasnes; and there D’Erlon’s errant corps at last appeared.  Thanks to conflicting orders, it had oscillated between two battles and taken part in neither of them.