Dalquier, of the battalion of Bearn.  A bullet in the body could not stop him.  The light infantry were overwhelmed; and such of them as were left alive were driven back in confusion upon the battalions behind them, along the front of which they remained dispersed for some minutes, preventing the troops from firing on the advancing French, whothus had time to reform their ranks.  At length the light infantrygot themselves out of the way and retired to the rear, where, having lost nearly all their officers, they remained during the rest of the fight.  Another struggle followed for the house and mill of Dumont, of which the French again got possession, to be again driven out; and it remained, as if by mutual consent, unoccupied for some time by either party.  For above an hour more the fight was hot and fierce.  “We drove them back as long as we had ammunition for our cannon,” says Sergeant Johnson; but now it failed, and no more was to be had, because, in the eccentric phrase of the sergeant, the tumbrils were “bogged in deep pits of snow.”

While this was passing on the English right, it fared still worse with them on the left.  The advance of the line was no less disastrous here than there.  It brought the troops close to the woods which circled round to this point from the French rear, and from which the Canadians, covered by the trees, now poured on them a deadly fire.  Here, as on the right, Levis had ordered his troops to fall back for a time; but when the fire of the English cannon ceased, they advanced again, and their artillery, though consisting of only three pieces, played its part with good effect.  Hazen’s rangers and MacDonald’s volunteers attacked and took the two adjacent blockhouses, but could not hold them.  Hazen was wounded, MacDonald killed, and their party overpowered.  The British battalions held their ground till the French, whose superior numbers enabled them to extend themselves on both sides beyond the English line, made a furious attack on the left wing, in front and flank.  The reserves were ordered up, and the troops stood for a time in sullen desperation under the storm of bullets; but they were dropping fast in the blood-stained snow, and the order came at length to fall back.  They obeyed with curses:  “Damn it, what is falling back but retreating?"[830] The right wing, also outflanked, followed the example of the left.  Some of the corps tried to drag off their cannon; but being prevented by the deep mud and snow they spiked the pieces and abandoned them.  The French followed close, hoping to cut off the fugitives from the gates of Quebec; till Levis, seeing that the retreat, though precipitate, was not entirely without order, thought best to stop the pursuit.

[Footnote 830:  Knox, II. 295.]