Thus the tension of hope long deferred, which renders Waterloo unique among battles, rose to its climax.  Each side had striven furiously for eight hours in the belief that the Prussians, or Grouchy, must come; and now, at the last agony, came the assurance that final triumph was at hand.  The troops of D’Erlon and Reille once more clutched at victory on the crest behind La Haye Sainte or beneath the walls of Hougoumont, while the squares of the Guard struck obliquely across the vale in the track of the great cavalry charges.  On the rise south-west of La Haye Sainte, Napoleon halted one battalion and handed over to Ney the command of the remaining eight, that hailed him as they passed with enthusiastic shouts.  Two aides-de-camp just then galloped up from the right to tell him of the Prussian advance, but he refused to listen to them and bent his eyes on the Guards.[521]

Under cover of a whirlwind of shot the veterans pressed on.  Having suffered very little at Ligny, they numbered fully 4,000, and formed at first one column, some seventy men in width.  The front battalions headed for a point a little to the west of the present Belgian monument, while for some unexplained reason the rear portion diverged to the left, and breasted the slope later than the others and nearer Hougoumont.  Flanked by light guns that opened a brisk fire, and most gallantly supported by Donzelot’s division close on their right, the leading column struggled on, despite the grape and canister which poured from the batteries of Bolton and Bean, making it wave “like corn blown by the wind.”  Friant, the Commander of the Old Guard, was severely wounded; Ney’s horse fell under him, but the gallant fighter rose undaunted, and waved on his men anew.  And now they streamed over the ridge and through the British guns in full assurance of triumph.  Few troops seemed to be before them; for Maitland’s men (2nd and 3rd battalions of the 1st Foot Guards) had lain down behind the bank of the cross-road to get some shelter from the awful cannonade.  “Stand up, Guards, and make ready,” exclaimed the Duke when the French were but sixty paces away.  The volley that flashed from their lengthy front staggered the column, and seemed to force it bodily back.  In vain did the French officers wave their swords and attempt to deploy into line.  Mangled in front by Maitland’s brigade, on its flank by our 33rd and 69th Regiments drawn up in square, and by the deadly salvos of Chasse’s Dutch-Belgians,[522] that stately array shrank and shrivelled up.  “Now’s the time, my boys,” shouted Lord Saltoun; and the thin red line, closing with the mass, drove it pell-mell down the slope.