Note 442 — NOTES TO CHAPTER XII.

Heymès, Ney’s aide-de-camp, says (Doc. Inéd., pp. 9, 10) that it was just when Kellermann’s cuirassiers had been routed that Colonel Laurent arrived and told Marshal Ney that he had ordered d’Erlon to turn off the main road in the direction of St. Amand. Baudus came up a little later, evidently, as he met the cuirassiers some distance from the field of battle. But as Baudus saw nothing of the troops of the 1st Corps, we think Heymès must be mistaken, as to Laurent’s having just turned off the head of the column to the right. If so, Baudus must have passed at least half the corps on the road.