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Updated: June 14, 2025
Adam's brigade was at hand to support our horsemen; and shortly after nine there knelled from Planchenoit the last stroke of doom, the shouts of Prussians at last victorious over the stubborn defence. "The Guard dies and does not surrender" such are the words attributed by some to Michel, by others to Cambronne before he was stretched senseless on the ground.
A battalion of the Old Guard, with Cambronne at their head, alone obeyed the summons; forming into square, they stood between the pursuers and their prey, offering themselves a sacrifice to the tarnished honor of their arms.
There is a double echo in the Lincolnian saying, "No surrender, though at the end of one or a hundred defeats," from General-President Taylor's reply at Buena Vista: "General Taylor never surrenders," to its antecedent, not so well authenticated, of General Cambronne at Waterloo: "The Old Guard dies, but does not surrender."
The Russians and the Prussians, who now controlled the suburbs of Pirna, were attempting to break down the Freyberg gate when on the Emperor's orders it swung open to allow the emergence of a column of infantry of the Imperial Guard, the leading brigade of which was commanded by General Cambronne...It was as if the head of Medusa had appeared... The enemy recoiled horrified, their guns were captured at the double and the gunners killed on their mountings.
A parody on the "tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and consistent creed La femme se rend, mais ne meurt pas. "I hold him but a fool, that would endanger His body for a girl that loves him not." Fallowfield left us the next morning, the Bellasys later in the same day. They were to pay divers visits, and then return to Kerton.
It was because Davoust so needed him that Drouot remained with the army. Stilt Drouot was selected for death, but the evidence of his position was too strong to enable the Court to condemn him. Cambronne, another selection, had also gone with Napoleon to Elba.
Quite appropriately his dying word was le mot de Cambronne. It was the last victory of an organ over an organism. And he was a gay old pagan who never called a sin a sin when it was a pleasure. "Jules Laforgue: Quelle joie!" All victories are alike; defeat alone displays an individual profile. And the case of Jules Laforgue wears this special aspect.
"Why will you not give me the information I look for? I seek for no breach of faith. The campaign is all but over. The Prussians were beaten at Ligny, their army routed, their artillery captured, ten thousand prisoners taken. Your troops and the Dutch were conquered yesterday, and they are in full retreat on Brussels. By to-morrow evening I shall date my bulletin from the palace at Laeken. Antwerp will be in my possession within twenty-four hours. Namur is already mine. Cambronne, Lefebvre," cried he, "cet homme-l
The winner of Waterloo was Cambronne. To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you is to conquer!
No one can tell you more than this he was the man at Waterloo who would not surrender. "The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders." "Among those giants then," says Hugo, "there was one Titan Cambronne. The man who won the battle of Waterloo was not Napoleon, put to rout; not Wellington, giving way at four o'clock, desperate at five; not Blücher, who did not fight.
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