This did not prevent the mountaineers from keeping up their fire, but it could no longer be heard. All the mountain-side was wrapped in a bluish smoke which made it difficult to take aim.
At the end of about ten minutes, the roll of the drum was heard, and all that mass of men began to charge at the abattis, officers as well as others, shouting "_Forvertz!_"
Materne, drawing himself up to his full height, by the side of the trench, with a voice terrible in its emotion, cried, "Up! Up!"
It was time, for a good number of those Germans, almost all of them students of philosophy, law, or medicine, scarred in skirmishes at Munich, Jena, and elsewhere, and who fought against us because they had been promised that their liberties should be granted them after the downfall of Napoleon; all these intrepid young fellows began to crawl on all-fours over the ice, and attempted to leap into the entrenchments.
But as fast as they climbed up the sides of the mountains, they were stunned with the butt-ends of the guns, and fell back among their ranks like hail.
It was at this juncture that there was witnessed an act of bravery on the part of the old wood-cutter, Rochart. Singlehanded he overthrew more than ten of those sons of old Germany. Seizing them under the arms, he flung them back upon the road. Old Materne had his bayonet reeking with blood. And the little tailor Riffi kept incessantly reloading his great gun, and firing energetically upon the heaving, struggling crowd below; and Joseph Larnette, who unfortunately received a shot in the eye; Hans Baumgarten, who had his shoulder fractured; Daniel Spitz, who lost two fingers by a sword-thrust; and a crowd of others whose names will be honoured and revered from generation to generation, never ceased for one second to load and discharge their guns.
Below, nothing was heard but fearful shouts and cries; and above, nothing was to be seen but bristling bayonets, and men on horseback.
This state of things lasted a good quarter of an hour; no one knew what the Germans intended to do, since they could not clear a passage. Nearly all the students had fallen, and the others, old campaigners, used to honourable retreats, did not throw themselves into the fray with the same ardour.