Page 578 - les-miserables

fatis. That day the perspective of the human race underwent
a change. Waterloo is the hinge of the nineteenth century.
The disappearance of the great man was necessary to the
advent of the great century. Some one, a person to whom
one replies not, took the responsibility on himself. The pan-
ic of heroes can be explained. In the battle of Waterloo there
is something more than a cloud, there is something of the
meteor. God has passed by.
At nightfall, in a meadow near Genappe, Bernard and
Bertrand seized by the skirt of his coat and detained a man,
haggard, pensive, sinister, gloomy, who, dragged to that
point by the current of the rout, had just dismounted, had
passed the bridle of his horse over his arm, and with wild
eye was returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the
immense somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled,
essaying once more to advance.

578 Les Miserables