Page 601 - les-miserables

was cannonaded, Hougomont was burned, La Haie-Sainte
was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned, Plancenoit was
burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two
conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo,
which worked not in the battle, bears off all the honor.
We are not of the number of those who flatter war; when
the occasion presents itself, we tell the truth about it. War
has frightful beauties which we have not concealed; it has
also, we acknowledge, some hideous features. One of the
most surprising is the prompt stripping of the bodies of the
dead after the victory. The dawn which follows a battle al-
ways rises on naked corpses.
Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hid-
eous, furtive hand is that which is slipped into the pocket
of victory? What pickpockets are they who ply their trade
in the rear of glory? Some philosophers—Voltaire among
the number—affirm that it is precisely those persons have
made the glory. It is the same men, they say; there is no re-
lief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone
on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night.
One has assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit
when one is the author of that corpse. For our own part,
we do not think so; it seems to us impossible that the same
hand should pluck laurels and purloin the shoes from a
dead man.
One thing is certain, which is, that generally after con-
querors follow thieves. But let us leave the soldier, especially
the contemporary soldier, out of the question.
Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must

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