Page 590 - les-miserables

to the English people. If trophy there be, it is to England that
the trophy is due. The column of Waterloo would be more
just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore on high the
statue of a people.
But this great England will be angry at what we are say-
ing here. She still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our
1789, the feudal illusion. She believes in heredity and hier-
archy. This people, surpassed by none in power and glory,
regards itself as a nation, and not as a people. And as a peo-
ple, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its
head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a
soldier, it allows itself to be flogged.
It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a
sergeant who had, it appears, saved the army, could not be
mentioned by Lord Paglan, as the English military hierar-
chy does not permit any hero below the grade of an officer
to be mentioned in the reports.
That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the
nature of Waterloo, is the marvellous cleverness of chance.
A nocturnal rain, the wall of Hougomont, the hollow road
of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, Napoleon’s guide de-
ceiving him, Bulow’s guide enlightening him,— the whole
of this cataclysm is wonderfully conducted.
On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a mas-
sacre than of a battle at Waterloo.
Of all pitched battles, Waterloo is the one which has
the smallest front for such a number of combatants. Napo-
leon three-quarters of a league; Wellington, half a league;
seventy-two thousand combatants on each side. From this

590 Les Miserables