seven o'clock
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 . I remember that in all the villages through which we passed , the doors and windows were full of eager friendly faces , waving their hands and shouting , `` The French , the French ! '' We could see that they were friendly to us , and that they were of the same blood as ourselves ; and in the two halts that we made , they came out with their loaves of excellent home-made bread , with a knife stuck in the crust , and great jugs of black beer , and offered them to us without asking any return . We had come to deliver them without knowing it , and nobody in their country knew it either , which shows the sagacity of the Emperor , for there were already in that corner of the Sambre et Meuse , more than one hundred thousand men , and not the slightest hint of it had reached the enemy .