Most had fired their muskets as they closed on the wall, and now went in with the cold steel of the bayonet, or used their weapons like clubs as they fought at brutal close quarters with the Austrians. The same fate befell the defenders of the flanking redoubts as the French fought their way in through the gun embrasures and fell on the enemy gunners within. After the death wreaked by their cannon, Napoleon knew that none of the artillery crews would be spared the vengeful wrath of the attackers.

As more men climbed over the walls there was a cheer from those still outside the town as the gates began to open. For an instant Napoleon tensed, wondering if the enemy were about to launch a counter-attack, but as the gates swung back a hatless figure in an elaborate gold-laced uniform emerged from within the town.

‘That’s Lannes!’ Berthier cried out.

‘Yes.’ Napoleon grinned in relief, and nudged his horse forward towards the ditch. As the horse cautiously stepped down the slope Napoleon saw for the first time the bodies heaped along the bottom of the ditch, some badly torn up by the heavy iron balls of case shot. The horse whinnied until Napoleon leaned forward to pat its flank soothingly and urge it up the far side. Lannes was waving his men through the gate and bellowing encouragement as Napoleon and Berthier rode up to him. Napoleon noted the tear in the marshal’s uniform jacket, and the smear of blood on his neck.

‘It seems that you are the reckless one now, my dear Jean.’

Lannes looked up, then touched a gloved hand to his neck. It came away with a smear of fresh blood. ‘A scratch, sire. Nothing more.’

Napoleon glanced back over the ditch and out across the approaches to the town. He estimated that nearly a thousand Frenchmen had fallen before the walls of Ratisbon. He turned back to Lannes. ‘It would seem that you lead something of a charmed life.’

‘As do we all, sire, until the day we die.’

They shared a laugh, and Berthier joined in a little uncertainly. Then Napoleon leaned forward to give his marshal fresh instructions.‘Pass the order for your men to clear the town. Meanwhile I want you, and every other grenadier that you can find, to make directly for the bridge. We must capture it intact. Stop for nothing, and having taken it, hold on at all costs. Clear?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Then go.’

As Lannes trotted back into the city and called his staff officers to him, Napoleon and Berthier remained by the gate and the Emperor acknowledged the greetings of the soldiers of the follow-up regiments of the division as they marched into Ratisbon. Many, particularly the young recruits, had only ever seen their Emperor from afar, if at all, and now regarded him with excited curiosity and not a little awe. Some of the older men, with campaign stripes on their sleeves, shouted out informal greetings to Napoleon in order to impress their younger comrades. Napoleon knew that they would be holding court over the camp fires that night, telling tales about the times they had fought at the side of the Emperor when he had still been a young officer.