While this desperate fight had been raging on the center and left, fresh columns had advanced from Jerome’s and Foy’s divisions against Hougoumont, and had again, after obstinate fighting, captured the orchard and surrounded the chateau, but were once more repulsed by a fresh battalion of guards who moved down the slope to the assistance of their hardly-pressed comrades.  Then for a while the fighting slackened, but the artillery duel raged as fiercely as ever.  The gunners on both sides had now got the exact range, and the carnage was terrible.  The French shells again set Hougoumont on fire, and all the badly wounded who had been carried inside perished in the flames.

At the end of an hour fresh columns of attack moved against the chateau, while at the same moment forty squadrons of cavalry advanced across the valley toward the English position.

The English batteries played upon them with round shot, and, as they came near, with grape and canister; but the horsemen rode on, and at a steady trot arrived within forty yards of the English squares, when with a shout they galloped forward, and in a moment the whole of the advanced batteries of the allies were in their possession; for Wellington’s orders had been that the artillerymen should stand to their guns till the last moment, and then run for shelter behind the squares.  The French cavalry paused for a moment in astonishment at the sight that met their eyes.  They had believed that the British were broken and disorganized, but no sooner had they passed over the slope than they saw the British and German squares bristling with bayonets and standing calm and immovable.

The artillery on both sides had ceased their fire, and a dead silence had succeeded the terrible din that had raged but a moment before.  Then with a shout the cavalry again charged, but in no case did they dash against the hedges of bayonets, from which a storm of fire was now pouring.  Breaking into squadrons they rode through the intervals between the squares and completely enveloped them; but Lord Uxbridge gathered the remains of the British cavalry together, charged them, and drove them back through the squares and down the hill.  Receiving reinforcements the French again advanced, again enveloped the squares, and were again hurled back.

While this was going on the battle was still raging round Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, against which a portion of Reille’s division had advanced; but the Germans resisted as obstinately as did the guards, and as the French cavalry retired for the second time the infantry fell back, and for a time the slope of the English position was again clear of the enemy.

For a time the battle languished, and then Napoleon brought up thirty-seven fresh squadrons of cavalry, and these, with the remains of those who had before charged, rode up the slope.  But although they swept on and passed the British squares, they could not succeed in shaking them.  A body of horse, however, sweeping down toward the Dutch and Belgians at the end of the line, these at once marched off the field without firing a musket, and the brigade of cavalry with them galloped away at full speed.