But panic now reigned supreme.  Adam’s brigade was at hand to support our horsemen; and shortly after nine there knelled from Planchenoit the last stroke of doom, the shouts of Prussians at last victorious over the stubborn defence.  “The Guard dies and does not surrender”—­such are the words attributed by some to Michel, by others to Cambronne before he was stretched senseless on the ground.[525] Whether spoken or not, some such thought prompted whole companies to die for the honour of their flag.  And their chief, why did he not share their glorious fate?  Gourgaud says that Soult forced him from the field.  If so (and Houssaye discredits the story) Soult never served his master worse.  The only dignified course was to act up to his recent proclamation that the time had come for every Frenchman of spirit to conquer or die.  To belie those words by an ignominious flight was to court the worst of sins in French political life, ridicule.

And the flight was ignominious.  Wellington’s weary troops, after several times mistaking friends for foes in the dusk, halted south of Rossomme and handed over the pursuit to the Prussians, many of whom had fought but little and now drank deep the draught of revenge.  By the light of the rising moon Gneisenau led on his horsemen in a pursuit compared with which that of Jena was tame.  At Genappe Napoleon hoped to make a stand:  but the place was packed with wagons and thronged with men struggling to get at the narrow bridge.  At the blare of the Prussian trumpets, the panic became frightful; the Emperor left his carriage and took to horse as the hurrahs drew near.  Seven times did the French form bivouacs, and seven times were they driven out and away.  At Quatre Bras he once more sought to gather a few troops; but ere he could do so the Uhlans came on.  With tears trickling down his pallid cheeks, he resumed his flight over another field of carnage, where ghastly forms glinted on all sides under the pale light of dawn.  After further futile efforts at Charleroi, he hurried on towards Paris, followed at some distance by groups amounting to about 10,000 men, the sorry remnant still under arms of the host that fought at Waterloo:  25,000 lay dead or wounded there:  some thousands were taken prisoners:  the rest were scattering to their homes.  Wellington lost 10,360 killed and wounded, of whom 6,344 were British:  the Prussian loss was about 6,000 men.

The causes of Napoleon’s overthrow are not hard to find.  The lack of timely pursuit of Bluecher and Wellington on the 17th enabled those leaders to secure posts of vantage and to form an incisive plan which he did not fully fathom even at the crisis of the battle.  Full of overweening contempt of Wellington, he began the fight heedlessly and wastefully.  When the Prussians came on, he underrated their strength and believed to the very end that Grouchy would come up and take them between two fires.  But, in the absence of prompt, clear, and detailed instructions,