Waterloo Read online

  To sum up, it is beyond question that the victor at Waterloo, the power behind Wellington which brought to his aid every field-marshal's baton in Europe (including, it is said, that of the Marechal de France), which inspired the building of that mound of earth and bones on which was set the lion triumphant, which urged Blucher on to sabre the fleeing army, and which from the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean hung over France like a bird of prey, this power was the counter-revolution. This was the power that murmured the infamous word 'dismemberment': but then, arrived at Paris, seeing the crater at its feet and realizing its peril, counter-revolution hastily revised its views and fell back upon babble about a charter.

  We must read into Waterloo no more than it truly represented. There was no intention of liberty. The counter-revolution involuntarily turned liberal just as Napoleon, by a parallel phenomenon, involuntarily turned revolutionary. On 18 June 1815, that Robespierre-on-horseback was unseated.

  Revival of divine right

  Dictatorship was ended, and with it a European system collapsed.

  The Napoleonic empire dissolved in a darkness resembling the last days of Rome, and chaos loomed as in the time of the barbarians. But the barbarism of 1815, which must be called by its proper name of counter-revolution, was short-winded and soon stopped for lack of breath. The Empire, be it said, was mourned; tears were shed for it by heroic eyes. If glory be the sword turned sceptre, then the Empire was the embodiment of glory. It had diffused all the light that tyranny can shed, a sombre light, and worse, an obscure light which, compared with the true light of day, is darkness; and the ending of this darkness was like the ending of an eclipse.

  Louis XVIII returned to Paris, and the dancing in the streets on 8 July effaced the enthusiasm of 20 March. The exile was back on the throne, a white banner flew from the Tuileries and the pinewood table from Hartwell was placed in front of the fleur-de-lis-embroidered chair of Louis XIV. Bouvines and Fontenoy were the happenings of yesterday, while Austerlitz had faded from sight. Altar and throne majestically clasped hands, and one of the least contested forms of nineteenth-century social health became established in France and throughout the Continent. Europe adopted the white cockade. The device non pluribus impar, 'not least among the many', reappeared in the stone sunburst decorating the barracks on the Quai d'Orsay. The Arc du Carrousel, with its tale of ill-famed victories, uncomfortable amid so much novelty and perhaps a little ashamed of Marengo and Arcola, saved its face with a statue of the Duc d'Angouleme. The cemetery of the Madeleine, the public graveyard in 1793, was covered over with marble and jasper, since within its dust lay the bones of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. A funeral monument rose amid the ramparts of Vincennes to commemorate the fact that the Duc d'Enghien had died in the month in which Napoleon had been crowned. Pope Pius VII, who had performed the ceremony, blessed the downfall as serenely as he had blessed the coronation. In the Palace of Schonbrunn, outside Vienna, there lingered the shadowy figure of a four-year-old boy whom it was seditious to refer to as the King of Rome. And all this happened - the kings returned to their thrones, the master of Europe was caged, the ancien regime became the new regime, and all the darkness and light in the world changed places - because on a summer afternoon a shepherd had said to a Prussian general in a wood, 'Go this way and not that way.'

  That autumn of 1815 was like a melancholy spring. Old, poisonous realities changed their outward appearance, lies were wedded to the year 1789, divine right hid behind a charter, fictions became legal truths, prejudice, superstition, and moral dishonesty, taking Article 14 to heart, acquired the gloss of liberalism, all snakes sloughed their skins.

  The stature of mankind had been at once heightened and diminished by Napoleon. The ideal, in that reign of splendid materialism, was given the strange name of ideology, a grave miscalculation on the part of the great man, making a mock of the future. But the people, that cannon-fodder that so loved the gunner, sought him everywhere. Where was he and what was he doing? 'Napoleon is dead,' a man shouted to a crippled survivor of Marengo and Waterloo ... 'Him dead!' the soldier shouted back. 'That's how well you know him!' Imagination deified the fallen despot and for a long time after Waterloo the heart of Europe was overcast in the enormous emptiness left by his passing.

  The kings took it upon themselves to fill this vacuum, and Europe used it for its own re-shaping. The Belle Alliance before Waterloo became the Holy Alliance.

  Confronted by this reorganization of ancient Europe, the outlines of a new France began to emerge. The future which the Emperor had mocked made its appearance, bearing on its forehead the star of Liberty. Young eyes looked ardently towards it, but, a strange paradox, they were in love both with the future, which was Liberty, and with the past, which was Napoleon. The defeated gained stature in defeat and Bonaparte fallen appeared greater than Napoleon erect. England placed him in the charge of Hudston Lowe and France appointed Montchenu to keep an eye on him. His folded arms were the terror of thrones, and Alexander called him, 'My sleepless nights.' This fear was due to the force of revolution that was in him, and it explains and justifies Bonapartist liberalism. The exiled spirit still shook the old world and the kings reigned uneasily, seeing the rock of St Helena on the skyline.

  That was Waterloo.

  But in the eye of eternity what did it amount to? Tempest and thunder-cloud, the war and then the peace, not all that turmoil could for an instant trouble the gaze of the immense all-seeing eye wherein a grasshopper jumping from one blade of grass to the next equals the flight of an eagle between the towers of Notre-Dame.

  The battlefield at night

  Our story requires us to return to the battlefield.

  The 18th of June 1815 was a night of full moon. The light favoured Blucher's savage pursuit of the routed army, disclosing the paths of its flight, putting the demoralized troops at the mercy of the ferocious Prussian cavalry and assisting the massacre; thus does night sometimes lend its countenance to disaster.

  With the firing of the last shot the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean became deserted. The English moved into the French encampments, it being by custom an assertion of victory to sleep in the bed of the defeated. They set up their bivouacs beyond Rossomme. The Prussians careered onward on the heels of the retreat. Wellington sat down in the village of Waterloo to write his report to Lord Bathurst.

  Never has the Virgilian sic vos non vobis* been more applicable than it is to that village of Waterloo, which was a couple of miles distant from the scene of operations. Mont-Saint-Jean was bombarded; Hougomont, Papelotte, and Planchenoit were set afire; La-Haie-Sainte was carried by assault and La-Belle-Alliance was the meeting place of the victorious armies. Those names are scarcely remembered, whereas Waterloo, which played no part in the battle, has reaped all the glory.

  We are not among those who sing the praises of war; we tell the truth about it when the need arises. War has tragic splendours which we have not sought to conceal, but it also has its especial squalors, among which is the prompt stripping of the bodies of the dead. The day following a battle always dawns on naked corpses.

  Who are the despoilers, the tarnishers of victory, the furtive hands ransacking the pockets of glory? Certain philosophers, Voltaire among them, maintain that they are precisely the men who created the glory. The same men. The living rob the fallen; the hero of the day becomes the scavenger of the night; and surely he is entitled to do so, since he is responsible for the corpse he robs.

  For our part, we do not believe it. We find it inconceivable that the same hands can gather laurels and drag the boots off the feet of the dead. True though it is that the victor is normally followed by the ghoul, we acquit the soldier, and especially the present-day, soldier, of this charge.

  Every army has its camp-followers and it is to these that we must look, to the bat-like creatures, half-ruffian, half-servant, engendered by the twilight of war, wearers of uniform who do no fighting, malingerers, venomous cripples, sutlers riding in small carts, sometimes with their women, who s
teal what later they sell, beggars offering their services as guides, rogues and vagabonds of all kinds. These were what every army in the past - we do not speak of the present day - dragged in its train. No army and no country owned them; they spoke Italian and followed the Germans, or French and followed the English. Looting was born of looting. The abominable maxim 'live on the enemy' fostered the disease, which only strict discipline could quell. Certain military reputations are misleading; there are generals, even great ones, whose popularity it is not easy to account for. Turenne was adored by his men because he tolerated looting; evil condoned wears the mask of benevolence. The number of pillagers following in the wake of an army varied according to the severity of the commander. Hoche and Marceau had none; Wellington - we gladly do him that justice - had very few.

  Nevertheless, the bodies of the dead were robbed during that night of 18-19 June. Wellington was uncompromising: any person caught in the act was to be shot forthwith. The looters preyed on one end of the battlefield while they were being executed at the other.

  The moon shed a sinister light over the plain.

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  PU SONGLING * Wailing Ghosts

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  WALT WHITMAN * On the Beach at Night Alone

  KENKO * A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees

  BALTASAR GRACIAN * How to Use Your Enemies

  JOHN KEATS * The Eve of St Agnes

  THOMAS HARDY * Woman much missed

  GUY DE MAUPASSANT * Femme Fatale

  MARCO POLO * Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls

  SUETONIUS * Caligula

  APOLLONIUS OF RHODES * Jason and Medea

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON * Olalla

  KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS * The Communist Manifesto

  PETRONIUS * Trimalchio's Feast

  JOHANN PETER HEBEL * How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher's Dog

  HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN * The Tinder Box

  RUDYARD KIPLING * The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows

  DANTE * Circles of Hell

  HENRY MAYHEW * Of Street Piemen

  HAFEZ * The nightingales are drunk

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER * The Wife of Bath

  MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE * How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing

  THOMAS NASHE * The Terrors of the Night

  EDGAR ALLAN POE * The Tell-Tale Heart

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  ANTON CHEKHOV * Gooseberries

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  C. P. CAVAFY * Remember, Body ...

  FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY * The Meek One

  GUSTAVE FLAUBERT * A Simple Heart

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  EDITH WHARTON * The Reckoning

  HENRY JAMES * The Figure in the Carpet

  WILFRED OWEN * Anthem For Doomed Youth

  WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART * My Dearest Father

  PLATO * Socrates' Defence

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI * Goblin Market

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  SOPHOCLES * Antigone

  RYUNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA * The Life of a Stupid Man

  LEO TOLSTOY * How Much Land Does A Man Need?

  GIORGIO VASARI * Leonardo da Vinci

  OSCAR WILDE * Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

  SHEN FU * The Old Man of the Moon

  AESOP * The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon

  MATSUO BASHO * Lips too Chilled

  EMILY BRONTE * The Night is Darkening Round Me

  JOSEPH CONRAD * To-morrow

  RICHARD HAKLUYT * The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe

  KATE CHOPIN * A Pair of Silk Stockings

  CHARLES DARWIN * It was snowing butterflies

  BROTHERS GRIMM * The Robber Bridegroom

  CATULLUS * I Hate and I Love

  HOMER * Circe and the Cyclops

  D. H. LAWRENCE * Il Duro

  KATHERINE MANSFIELD * Miss Brill

  OVID * The Fall of Icarus

  SAPPHO * Come Close

  IVAN TURGENEV * Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands

  VIRGIL * O Cruel Alexis

  H. G. WELLS * A Slip under the Microscope

  HERODOTUS * The Madness of Cambyses

  Speaking of Siva

  The Dhammapada

  JANE AUSTEN * Lady Susan

  JEAN-JACQUES ROSSEAU * The Body Politic

  JEAN DE LA FONTAINE * The World is Full of Foolish Men

  H. G. WELLS * The Sea Raiders

  LIVY * Hannibal

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  LEO TOLSTOY * The Death of Ivan Ilyich

  MARK TWAIN * The Stolen White Elephant

  WILLIAM BLAKE * Tyger, Tyger

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  The Suffragettes

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  GIACOMO CASANOVA * The Nun of Murano

  W. B. YEATS * A terrible beauty is born

  THOMAS HARDY * The Withered Arm

  EDWARD LEAR * Nonsense

  ARISTOPHANES * The Frogs

  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE * Why I Am so Clever

  RAINER MARIA RILKE * Letters to a Young Poet

  LEONID ANDREYEV * Seven Hanged

  APHRA BEHN * Oroonoko

  LEWIS CARROLL * O frabjous day!

  JOHN GAY * Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London

  E. T. A. HOFFMANN * The Sandman

  DANTE * Love that moves the sun and other stars

  ALEXANDER PUSHKIN * The Queen of Spades

  ANTON CHEKHOV * A Nervous Breakdown

  KAKUZO OKAKURA * The Book of Tea

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE * Is this a dagger which I see before me?

  EMILY DICKINSON * My life had stood a loaded gun

  LONGUS * Daphnis and Chloe

  MARY SHELLEY * Matilda

  GEORGE ELIOT * The Lifted Veil

  FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY * White Nights

  OSCAR WILDE * Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast

  VIRGINIA WOOLF * Flush

  ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE * Lot No. 249

  The Rule of Benedict

  WASHINGTON IRVING * Rip Van Winkle

  Anecdotes of the Cynics

  VICTOR HUGO * Waterloo

  CHARLOTTE BRONTE * Stancliffe's Hotel

  littleblackclassics.com

  THE BEGINNING

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in Classics is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  This selection first published in Penguin Classics 2016

  Translation copyright (c) Norman Denny, 1976

  The moral right of the translator has been asserted ISBN: 978-0-241-25184-3

  * This has been questioned. It seems that Grouchy may have misread Napoleon's dispatch.

  * These words have been authenticated. Ney was executed on 7 October 1815, having been condemned to death by the French Chamber.

  * Taken from the tenth Satire of Juvenal, referring specifically to Hannibal. Lit. 'How much does the General weigh?'

  * Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes - thus do you make honey, but not for yourselves, O bees.