Page 537 - les-miserables

CHAPTER VI

FOUR O’CLOCK IN

THE AFTERNOON

Towards four o’clock the condition of the English army
was serious. The Prince of Orange was in command of the
centre, Hill of the right wing, Picton of the left wing. The
Prince of Orange, desperate and intrepid, shouted to the
Hollando-Belgians: ‘Nassau! Brunswick! Never retreat!’
Hill, having been weakened, had come up to the support of
Wellington; Picton was dead. At the very moment when the
English had captured from the French the flag of the 105th
of the line, the French had killed the English general, Picton,
with a bullet through the head. The battle had, for Welling-
ton, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte;
Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte
was taken. Of the German battalion which defended it,
only forty-two men survived; all the officers, except five,
were either dead or captured. Three thousand combatants
had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English
Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulner-
able by his companions, had been killed there by a little

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