Their clothes, patched as chance allowed during a halt under some hedge, were enamels of many-coloured pieces.  A few more days of such unremitting war, and we should have vied with the glorious tatterdemalions of the armies of Italy and of the Sambre et Meuse, as Raffet paints them.

With their noses in the air, their mouths open, their eyes half shut, my Chasseurs lay stretched out among the legs of their horses and slept heavily.  Poor horses!  Poor, pretty creatures, so delicate, so fiery, in their glossy summer coats!  They had followed their masters’ fortunes.  How many of them had already fallen under the Prussian bullets; how many had been left dying of exhaustion or starvation after our terrible rides!  They seemed to sleep, absorbed in some miserable dream of nothing but burdens to carry, blows to bear, and wounds to suffer.  They were hanging their heads, but had not even the strength to crop the green blades growing here and there among the stalks of corn.

I felt uneasy, wondering whether they would still be equal to an effort for the fight that was always likely and always desired.

Suddenly, from the ridge some 800 yards behind us, coming down like a bolt, I saw a horse, at full gallop.  Its rider was gesticulating wildly.  Strange to say, though not a word had been said, as though awakened by an electric current, every man had got up and had fixed his astonished eyes on the newcomer.  He was an artillery non-commissioned officer; his face was crimson, his hair unkempt, his cap had come off his head and was dangling behind by the chin-strap.  With a violent jerk he pulled up his foaming horse for a second:  “Where is the Colonel—­the Colonel?” With one voice the whole squadron replied:  “There, on the road.  What’s the matter?”

He had already set off again at full speed, had reached the Colonel, and was bending down towards him.  Even at that distance we could hear some of his words:  “Uhlans ... near the woods, ... our guns, our teams....”

Then it was like a miracle.  Without any word of command, without any sign, in a moment the whole regiment was on horseback, sword in hand.  The Colonel alone had remained standing.  With the greatest calmness he asked the sergeant in an undertone for some information; and the man answered him with emphatic gestures.  All eyes were fixed upon the group.  Everybody waited breathlessly for the order which was going to be given and repeated by five hundred voices, by five hundred men drunk with joy.

We believed the glorious hour was at last come, which we had been awaiting with so much impatience since the opening of the campaign.  The charge!  That indescribable thing which is the raison d’etre of the trooper, that sublime act which pierces, rends, and crushes by a furious onslaught—­wild gallop, with uplifted sword, yelling mouth, and frenzied eyes.  The charge!  The charge of our great ancestors, of those demi-gods, Murat, Lasalle, Curely, Kellermann and so many others!  The charge we had been asking for, with all our hearts, ever since the opening of the campaign, and which had always been denied us!