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Updated: May 14, 2025
Their uniform was bright and attractive; white buckskin pantaloons, three-quarter boots, scarlet shakos set off with lace, mustachios waxed to a needle point; and above all, those richly ornamented blue jackets mantled with the historic pelisse that fascination to women, and encumbrance to the wearers themselves. ''Tis the York Hussars! said Simon Burden, brightening like a dying ember fanned.
There were there chasseurs, cuirassiers, lancers, hussars, infantry of the line and of the guard, all mingled together, with torn uniforms, broken shakos, and plumeless helmets, and all seemingly famished. Two or three dragoons stood on the wall near a pot of burning pitch, their arms crossed on their long white cloaks, covered from head to foot with blood, like butchers.
At the words "Let us swear to be faithful to Charles!" all heads were uncovered, and the soldiers waving their helmets and shakos in the air, cried over and again, "Long live the King!" On May 24th, the King left Paris with the Dauphin. Before going to Rheims he stopped at the Chateau of Compiegne, where he remained until the 27th, amid receptions and fetes and hunts.
The men raised their shakos on their bayonets and shouted: "Forward! Vive l'Empereur!" Many of the old soldiers wept, and over all that great plain there was one immense shout; when one regiment had ceased another took it up. The cannon thundered incessantly. We quickened our steps. We had been marching on Charleroi since seven o'clock, when an order reached us by an orderly to support the right.
We find him in one letter asking Ney if he has duly received the muskets which have been sent him; in another he gives directions to Prince Jerome as to the shirts, greatcoats, clothes, shoes, shakos, and arms, to be served out to the Wurtemburg regiments; again he presses Cambaceres to forward to the army a double stock of corn "The IFS and the BUTS," said he, "are at present out of season, and above all it must be done with speed."
At the sight of that splendid army, and the beauty and majesty of its appearance, I could contain myself no longer, but, rising in my stirrups, I waved my busby and cried, "Vive l'Empereur!" a shout which growled and roared and clattered from one end of the line to the other, while the horsemen waved their swords and the footmen held up their shakos upon their bayonets.
Fatia Negra, alone and surrounded, fought single-handed in the midst of the hostile band. His light sword flashing in his hand like lightning, never stayed to parry but attacked incessantly. Handless swords and headless shakos flew around him in the air and whithersoever his horse turned its head, an empty space gaped before him, every antagonist retreating before him.
I shall see all my life long the pale-faced, long-mustached hussars, the straps of their shakos tight under their jaws, whose horses reared and neighed as they dashed over the heaps of dead and wounded. I remember the cries, French and German in a horrid mixture, that arose; how they called us "Schweinpelz" and how old Pinto never ceased to cry, "Strike bravely, my boys; strike bravely!"
In a second the order was obeyed; the crimson shakos with their grim death-heads were donned, and the troop dashed forward upon the escort accompanying the coach. The astonished cuirassiers, who were wholly unprepared for the assault, were soon overpowered by the Volons, who also outnumbered them.
And so, instead of fighting, we wheeled our half squadrons round and moved in two little columns down the valley, the shakos and the helmets turned inwards, and the men looking their neighbours up and down, like old fighting dogs with tattered ears who have learned to respect each other's teeth.
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