Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER IX THE UNEXPECTED

Description

There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a quarter of a
league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses. There were six and twenty
squadrons of them; and they had behind them to support them Lefebvre-Desnouettes's
division,--the one hundred and six picked gendarmes, the light cavalry of the Guard,
eleven hundred and ninety-seven men, and the lancers of the guard of eight hundred and
eighty lances. They wore casques without horse-tails, and cuirasses of beaten iron, with
horse-pistols in their holsters, and long sabre-swords. That morning the whole army had
admired them, when, at nine o'clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing
"Let us watch o'er the Safety of the Empire," they had come in a solid column,
with one of their batteries on their flank, another in their centre, and deployed in two
ranks between the roads to Genappe and Frischemont, and taken up their position for battle
in that powerful second line, so cleverly arranged by Napoleon, which, having on its
extreme left Kellermann's cuirassiers and on its extreme right Milhaud's cuirassiers, had,
so to speak, two wings of iron.
Aide-de-camp Bernard carried them the Emperor's orders. Ney drew his sword and placed
himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set in motion.
Then a formidable spectacle was seen.
All their cavalry, with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung to the breeze,
formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a simultaneous movement and like one man,
with the precision of a brazen battering-ram which is effecting a breach, the hill of La
Belle Alliance, plunged into the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen,
disappeared there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the other
side of the valley, still compact and in close ranks, mounting at a full trot, through a
storm of grape-shot which burst upon them, the terrible muddy slope of the table-land of
Mont-Saint-Jean. They ascended, grave, threatening, imperturbable; in the intervals
between the musketry and the artillery, their colossal trampling was audible. Being two
divisions, there were two columns of them; Wathier's division held the right, Delort's
division was on the left. It seemed as though two immense adders of steel were to be seen
crawling towards the crest of the table-land. It traversed the battle like a prodigy.
Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of the Muskowa by
the heavy cavalry; Murat was lacking here, but Ney was again present. It seemed as though
that mass had become a monster and had but one soul. Each column undulated and swelled
like the ring of a polyp. They could be seen through a vast cloud of smoke which was rent
here and there. A confusion of helmets, of cries, of sabres, a stormy heaving of the
cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of trumpets, a terrible and
disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses like the scales on the hydra.
These narrations seemed to belong to another age. Something parallel to this vision
appeared, no doubt, in the ancient Orphic epics, which told of the centaurs, the old
hippanthropes, those Titans with human heads and equestrian chests who scaled Olympus at a
gallop, horrible, invulnerable, sublime--gods and beasts.
Odd numerical coincidence,--twenty-six battalions rode to meet twenty-six battalions.
Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of the masked battery, the English
infantry, formed into thirteen squares, two battalions to the square, in two lines, with
seven in the first line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders,
taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, mute, motionless.
They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers did not see them. They listened to
the rise of this flood of men. They heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the
alternate and symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the
cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand and savage breathing. There ensued
a most terrible silence; then, all at once, a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing
sabres, appeared above the crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand
heads with gray mustaches, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" All this cavalry
debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance of an earthquake.
All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the head of the
column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On arriving at the culminating
point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly given over to fury and their course of
extermination of the squares and cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a
trench,-- a trench between them and the English. It was the hollow road of Ohain.
It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected, yawning, directly under the
horses' feet, two fathoms deep between its double slopes; the second file pushed the first
into it, and the third pushed on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed
on their haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and overwhelming the
riders; and there being no means of retreat,-- the whole column being no longer anything
more than a projectile,-- the force which had been acquired to crush the English crushed
the French; the inexorable ravine could only yield when filled; horses and riders rolled
there pell-mell, grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf: when
this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on. Almost a
third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss.
This began the loss of the battle.
A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates matters, says that two thousand horses
and fifteen hundred men were buried in the hollow road of Ohain. This figure probably
comprises all the other corpses which were flung into this ravine the day after the
combat.
Let us note in passing that it was Dubois's sorely tried brigade which, an hour
previously, making a charge to one side, had captured the flag of the Lunenburg battalion.
Napoleon, before giving the order for this charge of Milhaud's cuirassiers, had
scrutinized the ground, but had not been able to see that hollow road, which did not even
form a wrinkle on the surface of the plateau. Warned, nevertheless, and put on the alert
by the little white chapel which marks its angle of junction with the Nivelles highway, he
had probably put a question as to the possibility of an obstacle, to the guide Lacoste.
The guide had answered No. We might almost affirm that Napoleon's catastrophe originated
in that sign of a peasant's head.
Other fatalities were destined to arise.
Was it possible that Napoleon should have won that battle? We answer No. Why? Because
of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Because of God.
Bonaparte victor at Waterloo; that does not come within the law of the nineteenth
century. Another series of facts was in preparation, in which there was no longer any room
for Napoleon. The ill will of events had declared itself long before.
It was time that this vast man should fall.
The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. This
individual alone counted for more than a universal group. These plethoras of all human
vitality concentrated in a single head; the world mounting to the brain of one man,--this
would be mortal to civilization were it to last. The moment had arrived for the
incorruptible and supreme equity to alter its plan. Probably the principles and the
elements, on which the regular gravitations of the moral, as of the material, world
depend, had complained. Smoking blood, over-filled cemeteries, mothers in tears,-- these
are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there are
mysterious groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear.
Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been decided on.
He embarrassed God.
Waterloo is not a battle; it is a change of front on the part of the Universe.

Copyright Disclaimer:
Contents of this page are indexed from the Internet. All actions are under your responsability. Email us to report illegal contents or external links and we'll remove them immediately.

Please check the description for download links if any or do a search to find alternative books.

Can't Download?
Please search mirrors if you can't find download links for "Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER IX THE UNEXPECTED" in "Description" and someone else may update the links. Check the comments when back to find any updates.

Search Mirrors
Maybe some mirror pages will be helpful, search this book at top of this page or click here to find more info.

1. Ebooks list page : 13
2. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XIX THE BATTLE FIELD AT NIGHT
3. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XVIII A RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT
4. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XVII IS WATERLOO TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD
5. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XVI QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE
6. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XV CAMBRONNE
7. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XIV THE LAST SQUARE
8. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XIII THE CATASTROPHE
9. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XII THE GUARD
10. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER XI A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON A GOOD GUIDE TO BULOW
11. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER X THE PLATEAU OF MONT SAINT JEAN
12. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER IX THE UNEXPECTED
13. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER VIII THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE
14. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER VII NAPOLEON IN A GOOD HUMOR
15. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER VI FOUR O CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
16. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER V THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES
17. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER IV A
18. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER III THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE 1815
19. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER II HOUGOMONT
20. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIRST WATERLOO CHAPTER I WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES
21. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK THIRD ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN CHAPTER IX THENARDIER AND HIS MANOEUVRES
22. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK FIFTH FOR A BLACK HUNT A MUTE PACK CHAPTER IX THE MAN WITH THE BELL
23. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SIXTH LE PETIT PICPUS CHAPTER IX A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMPE
24. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER VIII FAITH LAW
25. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER VII PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN BLAME
26. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER VI THE ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRAYER
27. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER V PRAYER
28. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER IV THE CONVENT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRINCIPLES
29. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER III ON WHAT CONDITIONS ONE CAN RESPECT THE PAST
30. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER II THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT
31. Les Miserables Volume 2 Cosette BOOK SEVENTH PARENTHESIS CHAPTER I THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA