Memory of Flames

That little battle had lasted barely a minute.

General Langeron organised all his troops in two columns. The eight thousand men of St-Priest’s VIII Corps on one side and the five thousand of Kapzevich’s X Corps on the other. Then he launched them straight at Montmartre and its handful of defenders.

The French at the front of the defence were firing and firing ... The Russians fell on all sides but were not firing much so as not to slow their progress. Those who did not bolt in the face of the Russian advance were skewered by bayonets and then trampled over. The last cavalry of Belliard - the cavalry brigade of Dautencourt’s Imperial Guard, which was made up of chasseurs, lancers and General Sparre’s dragoons - charged the enemy in the hope of pushing them back. Any cavalrymen who managed to get through the Russian dragoons blocking them found themselves surrounded by assorted hordes slashing and skewering; they were engulfed and disappeared.

Saber, who was everywhere at once, gesticulated with his sword. ‘Fire away!’

Lefine had grabbed a rifle from one of the dead - there were not enough to go round and the NCOs of the National Guard had not been given any - and adjusted his sights onto Russian officers, easily recognisable by their bicornes or plumed shakos.

Margont shouted orders. But he could not take his eyes from the

tidal wave that was sweeping towards them, engulfing everything in its way. As the Russians charged he felt the earth tremble beneath his feet.

The defenders were rammed by the masses of attacking forces. The guardsmen were riddled with balls at point-blank range; blows from rifle butts and bayonets rained down on those at the front. Margont found himself on the slope of Montmartre - he ran forward and took cover behind a palisade. The Russians were mad with fervour. They had been waiting for this day for so long! They were trampling the corpses of their comrades that were filling the ditches. They were trying to scale the parapets, digging under the stakes to try to destabilise them. Margont noticed Lefine and Piquebois, who were defending the entrance of an entrenchment along with firemen from the Imperial Guard, National Guardsmen and soldiers of the line. There was smoke everywhere. The ca

The Russians were falling, slipping, tripping over one another and killing each other. Their corpses littered the slope. But they were

persevering. Their sappers were attacking the palisades with axes, their infantry giving their comrades a leg up over the sides. All that separated them from Margont were some posts and earth bulwarks. He could not believe his eyes. The enemy were blithely approaching the mouths of the French ca

He spotted Saber addressing his soldiers. There were Lefine and Piquebois too. He hurried towards his friend. ‘We’ll have to fall back ... But where to?’ he demanded.

Saber looked at him, not seeming to recognise him, and retorted: ‘I will never give up! If there’s only one man left standing it will be me! I will be the last Parisian!’

He brandished his sabre in the direction of Paris.

‘Counterattack with bayonets!’

‘You’re mad, Irenee! We’re surrounded! We’ve lost! Look around you! There is no one left, everyone is dead!’

‘The dead are coming with me!’ he yelled.

And he dashed forward, straight at the Russians, who were cutting off their escape route. He ran down the slope towards Paris, followed by about forty defenders, charging with their bayonets at the ready. Piquebois was amongst them, brandishing his sabre that seemed to promise death to anyone who tried to stand in his way. ‘Counterattack!’ yelled Margont in his turn, throwing himself into the turmoil, followed by Lefine. It was impossible to stay still; either they had to move up the hill or go down and Margont had just had a kind of premonition. Up there at the foot of one of the Montmartre windmills - maybe even at the same spot where he had lain daydreaming the other day - his tomb awaited him. He preferred to throw himself into the jaws of death rather than to wait for it to catch him.

The rank and file had no idea what to do in the midst of the collapse. Whenever they saw a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a captain or other foot soldiers attacking the Russians they imitated them, hoping that those officers would guide them to their salvation.

Up until that point, the Russians had been the assailants, and they were very surprised to see the French charging desperately down the slope straight at them and slicing down anyone in their path. The Russians behind those felled in this way were flung backwards. They retreated, not because they wanted to, but because they were being shoved back by this group of mad Frenchmen, who were swept along on a wave of incredible determination. They were slipping and losing their footing, stumbling and rolling over, but nevertheless these men knocked into the enemy, destabilising them in their turn. The slope was so steep it was very difficult to stay upright. This was not so much a counterattack as the frenetic