the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all
sides when Blücher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the
emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back
to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of
the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the
last appeal of a burning nation.

Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians
attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we
struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the
inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the
general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had
enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own
countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.

In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the
village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was
safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the
Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left
of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of
the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the
city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians;
for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced
that peace had been made.

We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the
country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and
drive them out.

Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy