A half hour later a detachment of cavalry suddenly rounded the corner and charged straight for the barricade. The seventy-five were ready for them. Some of them got half way across the bridge and then tumbled into the river. Not one got back around the corner of the road to Lunéville.
There was another half hour of quiet, and then from the Lunéville road a battery of artillery got into action. Their range was bad, so far as any achievement against the seventy-five was concerned, so they turned their attention to the château, which they could easily see from their position across the river. The first shell struck the majestic tower of the building and shattered it. The next smashed the roof, the third hit the chapel--and so continued the bombardment until flames broke out to complete the destruction.
Of course the Germans could not know that the château was empty, that its owner was in Paris and both her sons fighting in the French Army. But they had secured the military advantage of demolishing one of the finest country houses in France, with its priceless tapestries, ancient marbles and heirlooms of the Bourbons. A howl of German glee was heard by the seventy-five chasseurs crouching behind their barricades. So pleased were the invaders with their achievement, that next they bravely swung out a battery into the road leading to the bridge, intending to shell the barricades. The Captain of chasseurs again waved his hand. Every man of the battery was killed before the guns were in position. It took an entire company of infantry--half of them being killed in the action--to haul those guns back into the Lunéville road, thus to clear the way for another advance.
From then on until 1 o'clock in the afternoon there were three more infantry attacks, all failing as lamentably as the first. The seventy-five were holding off the 12,000. At the last attack they let the Germans advance to the entrance of the bridge. They invited them with taunts to "avancez." Then they poured in their deadly fire, and as the Germans broke and fled they permitted themselves a cheer. Up to this time not one chasseur was killed. Only four were wounded.
Shortly after 1 o'clock the German artillery wasted a few more shells on the ruined château and the chasseurs could see a detachment crawling along the river bank in the direction of the narrow footbridge that crossed through the château park a half mile below. The Captain of the chasseurs sent one man with a mitrailleuse to hold the bridge. He posted himself in the shelter of a large tree at one end. In a few minutes about fifty Germans appeared. They advanced cautiously on the bridge. The chasseur let them get half way over before he raked them with his fire. The water below ran red with blood.