as it was, the news in no way alarmed the Emperor.  As Buelow was about to march against the French flank, Grouchy must march on his flank and take his corps en flagrant delit.  That is the purport of the postscript added to a rather belated reply that was about to be sent off to Grouchy at 1 p.m.  It did not reach him till 5 p.m., too late to influence the result, even had he desisted from his attack on Wavre, which he did not.[512]

We return to the Emperor’s actions at half-past one.  Dumont’s and Subervie’s light horsemen were sent out towards Frischermont to observe the Prussians; the great battery of eighty guns, placed on the intermediate rise, now opened fire; and under cover of its deadly blasts D’Erlon’s four divisions dipped down into the valley.  They were ranged in closely packed battalions spread out in a front of some two hundred men, a formation that Napoleon had not suggested, but did not countermand.  The left column, that of Alix, was supported by cavalry on its flank.  Part of this division gained the orchard of La Haye Sainte, and attacked the farm buildings on all sides.  From his position hard by a great elm above the farm, Wellington had marked this onset, and now sent down a Hanoverian battalion to succour their compatriots; but in the cutting of the main road it was charged and routed by Milhaud’s cuirassiers, who pursued them up the slope until the rally sounded.  Farther to the east, the French seemed still surer of victory.  Bylandt’s Dutch-Belgians, some 3,000 strong, after suffering heavily in their cruelly exposed position, wavered at the approach of Donzelot’s column, and finally broke into utter rout, pelted in their flight with undeserved gibes from the British in their rear.  These consisted of Picton’s division, the heroes of Quatre Bras.  Here they had as yet sustained little loss, thanks to the shelter of the hollow cross-road and a hedge.

The French columns now topped the ridge, uttering shouts of triumph, and began to deploy into line for the final charge.  This was the time, as Picton well knew, to pour in a volley and dash on with the cold steel; but as he cheered on his men, a bullet struck him in the temple and cut short his brilliant career.  His tactics were successful at some points while at others our thin lines barely held up against the masses.  Certainly no decisive result could have been gained but for the timely onset of Ponsonby’s Union Brigade—­the 1st Royal Dragoons, the Scots Greys, and the Inniskillings.

At the time when Lord Uxbridge gave the order, “Royals and Inniskillings charge, the Greys support,” Alix’s division was passing the cross-road.  But as the Royals dashed in, “the head of the column was seized with a panic, gave us a fire which brought down about twenty men, then went instantly about and endeavoured to regain the opposite side of the hedges; but we were upon and amongst them, and had nothing to do but press them down the slope.”  So wrote Captain Clark Kennedy, who sabred the French