Les Misérables, page 80
CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815
Let us turn back,--that is one of the story-teller's rights,--and putourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier thanthe epoch when the action narrated in the first part of this book tookplace.
If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th ofJune, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been different. A few dropsof water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All thatProvidence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Austerlitzwas a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of seasonsufficed to make a world crumble.
The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until half-past eleveno'clock, and that gave Blücher time to come up. Why? Because the groundwas wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmerbefore they could manouvre.
Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the effects of this. Thefoundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the reportto the Directory on Aboukir, said: _Such a one of our balls killed sixmen_. All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key tohis victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treatedthe strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breachin it. He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined anddissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooterin his genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to breaklines, to crush and disperse masses,--for him everything lay in this, tostrike, strike, strike incessantly,--and he intrusted this task to thecannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius,rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for thespace of fifteen years.
On the 18th of June, 1815, he relied all the more on his artillery,because he had numbers on his side. Wellington had only one hundred andfifty-nine mouths of fire; Napoleon had two hundred and forty.
Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the actionwould have begun at six o'clock in the morning. The battle would havebeen won and ended at two o'clock, three hours before the change offortune in favor of the Prussians. What amount of blame attaches toNapoleon for the loss of this battle? Is the shipwreck due to the pilot?
Was it the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated thisepoch by an inward diminution of force? Had the twenty years of war wornout the blade as it had worn the scabbard, the soul as well as the body?Did the veteran make himself disastrously felt in the leader? In a word,was this genius, as many historians of note have thought, suffering froman eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in order to disguise his weakenedpowers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the delusion ofa breath of adventure? Had he become--a grave matter in ageneral--unconscious of peril? Is there an age, in this class ofmaterial great men, who may be called the giants of action, when geniusgrows short-sighted? Old age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal;for the Dantes and Michael Angelos to grow old is to grow in greatness;is it to grow less for the Hannibals and the Bonapartes? Had Napoleonlost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where hecould no longer recognize the reef, could no longer divine the snare, nolonger discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power ofscenting out catastrophes? He who had in former days known all theroads to triumph, and who, from the summit of his chariot of lightning,pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached thatstate of sinister amazement when he could lead his tumultuous legionsharnessed to it, to the precipice? Was he seized at the age of forty-sixwith a supreme madness? Was that titanic charioteer of destiny no longeranything more than an immense dare-devil?
We do not think so.
His plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a masterpiece. Togo straight to the centre of the Allies' line, to make a breach in theenemy, to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on Hal,and the Prussian half on Tongres, to make two shattered fragments ofWellington and Blücher, to carry Mont-Saint-Jean, to seize Brussels,to hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. Allthis was contained in that battle, according to Napoleon. Afterwardspeople would see.
Of course, we do not here pretend to furnish a history of the battle ofWaterloo; one of the scenes of the foundation of the story which weare relating is connected with this battle, but this history is not oursubject; this history, moreover, has been finished, and finished in amasterly manner, from one point of view by Napoleon, and from anotherpoint of view by a whole pleiad of historians.7
As for us, we leave the historians at loggerheads; we are but a distantwitness, a passer-by on the plain, a seeker bending over that soil allmade of human flesh, taking appearances for realities, perchance; wehave no right to oppose, in the name of science, a collection of factswhich contain illusions, no doubt; we possess neither military practicenor strategic ability which authorize a system; in our opinion, a chainof accidents dominated the two leaders at Waterloo; and when it becomesa question of destiny, that mysterious culprit, we judge like thatingenious judge, the populace.
