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 brave troops." He then turned to Soult. "How well these English fight! but they must soon give way, don't you think so?" Soult, who had some experience of British courage and firmness, replied, that, "He doubted whether they would ever give way." "Why?" quickly and somewhat indignantly asked Napoleon. "They will suffer themselves to be cut to pieces first," was the answer which terminated the conversation.

The frequency and impetuousness of his attacks were now redoubled, and he began to expose himself to the thickest of the fire. Although no credit is to be given to the accounts of the desperation with which he sought every danger, and his apparently firm determination to die upon the field, yet he evinced much personal courage, and was always collected, and in full possession of the inexhaustable resources of his genius. Seeing the guide frequently flinch at the shower of shot that fell around them, he said, "Do not stir my friend; a ball will kill you equally in the back as the front, and wound you more disgracefully."

An officer now approached with the intelligence that the Prussians were advancing in the rear of his right wing: "Napoleon would not believe the possibility of the fact; but when he heard the first of the Prussian light troops, and saw some of their battalions debouching from the woods, he suddenly turned pale, but said not a word, For a while he mused in silence. He felt the critical situation in which he now was placed, and not believing that the main body of the Prussians could come up for some hours, he hoped that success was yet in his power. He determined to attack the weakest part of the British line with his whole concentrated force, and thus endeavour to beat the Duke