It was at Waterloo that General Cambronne, when called on to surrender, was supposed to have said, "The Old Guard dies but never surrenders!"

What Cambronne actually said was, "Merde!" which the French, when they do not wish to pronounce it, still refer to as, "the word of Cambronne." It corresponds to one four letter word for manure. All the difference between the noble and the earthy accounts of war is contained in the variance between these two quotations. -- Ernest Hemingway, Men at War