Page 563 - les-miserables

shock. lt was formed of the 75th regiment of Highlanders.
The bagpipe-player in the centre dropped his melancholy
eyes, filled with the reflections of the forests and the lakes,
in profound inattention, while men were being extermi-
nated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch
under his arm, played the Highland airs. These Scotchmen
died thinking of Ben Lothian, as did the Greeks recalling
Argos. The sword of a cuirassier, which hewed down the
bagpipes and the arm which bore it, put an end to the song
by killing the singer.
The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, and still fur-
ther diminished by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost
the whole English army against them, but they multiplied
themselves so that each man of them was equal to ten. Nev-
ertheless, some Hanoverian battalions yielded. Wellington
perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at
that same moment thought of his infantry, he would have
won the battle. This forgetfulness was his great and fatal
mistake.
All at once, the cuirassiers, who had been the assailants,
found themselves assailed. The English cavalry was at their
back. Before them two squares, behind them Somerset;
Somerset meant fourteen hundred dragoons of the guard.
On the right, Somerset had Dornberg with the German
light-horse, and on his left, Trip with the Belgian carabi-
neers; the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front,
before and in the rear, by infantry and cavalry, had to face
all sides. What mattered it to them? They were a whirlwind.
Their valor was something indescribable.

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