Page 576 - les-miserables

Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of his Guard;
in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable
squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann be-
fore Vandeleur, Lobau before Bulow, Morand before Pirch,
Domon and Subervic before Prince William of Prussia;
Guyot, who led the Emperor’s squadrons to the charge, falls
beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon gal-
lops past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens,
entreats them. All the mouths which in the morning had
shouted, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ remain gaping; they hardly
recognize him. The Prussian cavalry, newly arrived, dash-
es forwards, flies, hews, slashes, kills, exterminates. Horses
lash out, the cannons flee; the soldiers of the artillery-train
unharness the caissons and use the horses to make their
escape; transports overturned, with all four wheels in the
air, clog the road and occasion massacres. Men are crushed,
trampled down, others walk over the dead and the living.
Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the roads, the paths,
the bridges, the plains, the hills, the valleys, the woods, en-
cumbered by this invasion of forty thousand men. Shouts
despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye, passag-
es forced at the point of the sword, no more comrades, no
more officers, no more generals, an inexpressible terror.
Zieten putting France to the sword at its leisure. Lions con-
verted into goats. Such was the flight.
At Genappe, an effort was made to wheel about, to pres-
ent a battle front, to draw up in line. Lobau rallied three
hundred men. The entrance to the village was barricaded,
but at the first volley of Prussian canister, all took to flight

576 Les Miserables