Page 579 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST SQUARE

Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this
stream of the defeat, as rocks in running water, held their
own until night. Night came, death also; they awaited that
double shadow, and, invincible, allowed themselves to be
enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated from the rest,
and having no bond with the army, now shattered in every
part, died alone. They had taken up position for this final
action, some on the heights of Rossomme, others on the
plain of Mont-Saint-Jean. There, abandoned, vanquished,
terrible, those gloomy squares endured their death-throes
in formidable fashion. Ulm, Wagram, Jena, Friedland, died
with them.
At twilight, towards nine o’clock in the evening, one of
them was left at the foot of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. In
that fatal valley, at the foot of that declivity which the cuir-
assiers had ascended, now inundated by the masses of the
English, under the converging fires of the victorious hostile
cavalry, under a frightful density of projectiles, this square
fought on. It was commanded by an obscure officer named
Cambronne. At each discharge, the square diminished and

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