While it was going on Ney led twenty thousand men against the center and left of the British position, advancing as usual in heavy column.  Just as they were setting out at one o’clock Napoleon discovered the Prussians advancing.

He sent off a despatch to Grouchy ordering him to move straight upon the field of battle; but that general did not receive it until seven in the evening, when the fight was nearly over.  It was just two when the columns poured down the hill, their attack heralded by a terrific fire upon the British line opposed to them.  The slaughter among Picton’s division was great; but although the Dutch and Hanoverians were shaken by the iron hail, they stood their ground.  When the columns reached the dip of the valley and began to ascend the slopes toward the British division they threw out clouds of skirmishers and between these and the light troops of the allies firing at once began, and increased in volume as the French neared the advanced posts of La Haye Sainte, Papelotte, and La Haye.

The division of Durette drove out the Nassau troops from Papelotte; but reinforcements arrived from the British line, and the French in turn were expelled.  The other three French columns advanced steadily, with thirty light guns in the intervals between them.  Donzelat’s brigade attacked La Haye Sainte, and, in spite of a gallant resistance by the Germans, made its way into the orchard and surrounded the inclosures.  Another brigade, pushing along on the other side of the Charleroi road, were met by the fire of two companies of the rifle brigade who occupied a sandpit there, and by their heavy and accurate fire checked the French advance.  The other two divisions moved straight against that part of the crest held by Picton’s division.

The men of the Dutch-Belgian brigade, as soon as fire was opened upon them, lost all order and took to their heels, amid the yells and execrations of the brigades of Kempt and Pack behind them, and it was with difficulty that the British soldiers were kept from firing into the fugitives.  The Dutch artillery behind them tried to arrest the mob; but nothing could stop them—­they fairly ran over guns, men, and horses, rushed down the valley and through the village of Mount St. Jean, and were not seen again in the field during the rest of the day.  Picton’s division was now left alone to bear the brunt of the Frenoh attack.  The battle at Quatre Bras had terribly thinned its ranks, and the two brigades together did not muster more than three thousand men.  Picton formed the whole in line, and prepared to resist the charge of thirteen thousand infantry, beside heavy masses of cavalry, who were pressing forward, having in spite of a stout resistance driven in the riflemen from the sandpit and the road above it.  As the columns neared the British line the fire from the French batteries suddenly ceased, their own troops now serving as a screen to the British.  The heads of the columns halted and began to deploy into line; Picton seized the moment, and shouted “A volley, and then charge!”