Page 583 - les-miserables

leon, and only Cambronne remains,— only this earthworm
is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the ap-
propriate word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths,
and the froth is the word. In face of this mean and mighty
victory, in face of this victory which counts none victorious,
this desperate soldier stands erect. He grants its overwhelm-
ing immensity, but he establishes its triviality; and he does
more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superi-
or force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression:
‘Excrement!’ We repeat it,— to use that word, to do thus, to
invent such an expression, is to be the conqueror!
The spirit of mighty days at that portentous moment
made its descent on that unknown man. Cambronne invents
the word for Waterloo as Rouget invents the ‘Marseillaise,’
under the visitation of a breath from on high. An emanation
from the divine whirlwind leaps forth and comes sweeping
over these men, and they shake, and one of them sings the
song supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry.
This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not
only at Europe in the name of the Empire,—that would be a
trifle: he hurls it at the past in the name of the Revolution. It
is heard, and Cambronne is recognized as possessed by the
ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be speaking!
Kleber seems to be bellowing!
At that word from Cambronne, the English voice re-
sponded, ‘Fire!’ The batteries flamed, the hill trembled,
from all those brazen mouths belched a last terrible gush
of grape-shot; a vast volume of smoke, vaguely white in the
light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the smoke

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