Page 595 - les-miserables

In short, and incontestably, that which triumphed at Wa-
terloo; that which smiled in Wellington’s rear; that which
brought him all the marshals’ staffs of Europe, including,
it is said, the staff of a marshal of France; that which joy-
ously trundled the barrows full of bones to erect the knoll of
the lion; that which triumphantly inscribed on that pedes-
tal the date ‘June 18, 1815”; that which encouraged Blucher,
as he put the flying army to the sword; that which, from
the heights of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, hovered over
France as over its prey, was the counter-revolution. It was
the counter-revolution which murmured that infamous
word ‘dismemberment.’ On arriving in Paris, it beheld the
crater close at hand; it felt those ashes which scorched its
feet, and it changed its mind; it returned to the stammer of
a charter.
Let us behold in Waterloo only that which is in Waterloo.
Of intentional liberty there is none. The counter-revolu-
tion was involuntarily liberal, in the same manner as, by
a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was involuntari-
ly revolutionary. On the 18th of June, 1815, the mounted
Robespierre was hurled from his saddle.

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