#2.1.13

The French are routed--and slaughtered: “Lions turned into hunted deer.”

Neither side is taking prisoners:

“The Prussians fell on Genappe, no doubt infuriated at having so little proved themselves victors. Their pursuit was monstrous. Blücher gave the orders for slaughter. Roguet had set a macabre example by threatening with death any French grenadier who brought him a Prussian prisoner.”

More shadows of the barricade: The National Guard will take no prisoners--as, once the barricade was subdued, they ought to have--but exterminate everyone still alive. The insurgents will have already--as they believe--executed their one prisoner.

Shades of Petit-Gervais and Valjean’s dream in the capture of Napoleon, alone at nightfall, wild-eyed and dissociating, in the middle of an empty field.

The soldiers flee before the Prussians. There is no more order: only terror. “Lions converted into goats.”

Lobau tries to rally the men. He and three hundred barricade the entrance to the village, but as soon as the Prussians arrive, they all scatter once again.

“That day the perspective of the human race underwent a change. Waterloo is the hinge of the nineteenth century. The disappearance of the great man was necessary to the advent of the great century. Some one, a person to whom one replies not, took the responsibility on himself. The panic of heroes can be explained. In the battle of Waterloo there is something more than a cloud, there is something of the meteor. God has passed by.”

I love the short sentences and the urgency they convey in this chapter and the terrifying picture that Hugo sketches. The army starts collapsing on all sides, people rush around trying to save themselves. Ney tries to rally the army, but they simultaneously shout ‘Long Live Marshal Ney’ while also fleeing from him. It is chaos, friends kill each other, people desert in large numbers.  Even Napoleon’s cries of trying to form the battle lines fall on deaf ears, the people who had shouted ‘Long Live the Emperor’ only a few hours ago, now cannot say a word. His own army does not want to listen to their leader’s words and are trying everything in their power to escape.

For all the similarities between Waterloo and barricades, this is so different from the last stand of the revolutionaries and I think that may be the point.

Hugo does not blame the army running away but the hand of Providence and destiny which caused them to surrender, it’s a very French perspective of the battle as @melle93 pointed out, but also a perspective Hugo wants to emphasise throughout the book, that the century of ‘Great Men’ like Napoleon is past. I love the imagery that Hugo has used here, with the ‘lions turned into hunted deer’ and the picture of terror on the battlefield he has sketched.

All this had to happen because Napoleon’s demise was essential for the century to flourish, he was a somnambulist trying to keep alive a desperate dream. I cannot say that I disagree with Hugo’s point of view that Napoleon had to go, his time was done. This is why Hugo keeps emphasising the people in his army, the farmers, the peasants, the woman telling the story about the battle, Les Miserables is their story and in these pages, Napoleon becomes just another general, another ordinary man who had grand dreams and fought and lost, not someone Great to emulate, which is the point of Waterloo.

2.1.14

The last remaining Guards in the battle are still noble and heroic and they die magnificently because of that. There is one last square that is still causing a discomfort to Wellington’s army. This square itself is commanded by Cambronne, an unknown soldier. This heroic column of an odd few soldiers is the one countering the Anglo-Dutch army to the last.

It makes sense that everyone is tired, it is the end of the battle, but this column of brave French soldiers keeps replying grapeshot to grapeshot. This group also commands the highest respect from the Anglo-Dutch army and from Hugo himself (I can’t help it, but their defiant stand is so similar to the stand of 1832 revolutionaries towards the end and Enjolras’ defiance before being shot).  

They know they are going to die and are surrounded by the cannons on all sides, like 'tigers’ eyes in the dark’ but they still resist. It’s brave and desperate, but it makes us care for these soldiers in their last moments. It’s their last act of defiance, the view around them, that of corpses also lends pathos to this moment. The English army has to pause, because they too are moved by the scene, they too feel some respect and compassion for their enemy in their last moments.

In the lull of the moment, these brave men are asked to surrender. Cambronne utters a word, ‘Merde’ in response.

It is interesting that the chapter ends on this word and then we learn more about the significance of an unknown soldier like Cambronne, and the word that he utters in the next chapter, but I love the fact that Hugo situates the word and an unknown soldier as the most important part of this chapter and the battle too.

They know they are going to die, it is a hopeless battle, but he says 'Merde' regardless of the impossible circumstances they have found themselves in. It is the little acts that do matter, that do count and this is something that feels very relevant in the present times, unfortunately.

“Let us punish, since history is ours: old Blücher brought dishonour on himself."

Hugo continues to claim the author’s privilege for himself -- the privilege to dictate how we view the events he is recounting. He is setting up his particular framing of the events, one which allows for glory in defeat. The flipside of that framework, then, is indignity in victory, and here Blucher is bringing shame upon that victory. The future upon which Waterloo forms the hinge is not a future for Blucher or Wellington any more than it is for Napoleon, it’s a future for the French soldiers running away in blind panic. Their panic is less dishonorable than Blucher’s conduct.

And further, the cause of that panic was not the threat of defeat or the cruelty of the Prussians, it was the eye of God. The French troops are not afraid of death or defeat, they are afraid of Providence turning its back on them. Hugo is very deliberately changing the framing of the defeat in such a way that the very men who were defeated can actually claim to have won after all.

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The battle has become a terrible rout. Things are going badly for the French army at Waterloo, but Hugo gets some kickass lines from it.

Like his (recurring) thesis on great men:

"Waterloo is the hinge of the 19th century. This disappearance of the great man was necessary for the advent of the great century."

And the final description of a man returning to the field as night falls:

"It was Napoleon endeavouring to advance again, mighty somnambulist of a vanquished dream."