Page 570 - les-miserables

had, moreover, been very much delayed. He had bivouacked
at Dion-le-Mont, and had set out at daybreak; but the roads
were impassable, and his divisions stuck fast in the mire.
The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, he
had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of
Wavre; the street leading to the bridge had been fired by
the French, so the caissons and ammunition-wagons could
not pass between two rows of burning houses, and had been
obliged to wait until the conflagration was extinguished.
It was mid-day before Bulow’s vanguard had been able to
reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert.
Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would
have been over at four o’clock, and Blucher would have fall-
en on the battle won by Napoleon. Such are these immense
risks proportioned to an infinite which we cannot compre-
hend.
The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to
descry with his field-glass, on the extreme horizon, some-
thing which had attracted his attention. He had said, ‘I see
yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be troops.’ Then he
asked the Duc de Dalmatie, ‘Soult, what do you see in the
direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?’ The marshal, level-
ling his glass, answered, ‘Four or five thousand men, Sire;
evidently Grouchy.’ But it remained motionless in the mist.
All the glasses of the staff had studied ‘the cloud’ pointed
out by the Emperor. Some said: ‘It is trees.’ The truth is, that
the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached Domon’s di-
vision of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter.
Bulow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very

570 Les Miserables