by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CATASTROPHE.
The rout in the rear of the guard was mournful; the army suddenlygave way on all sides simultaneously,--at Hougomont, La Haye Sainte,Papelotte, and Plancenoit. The cry of "Treachery!" was followed by thatof "Sauve qui peut!" An army which disbands is like a thaw,--all givesway, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, comes into collision, and dashesforward. Ney borrows a horse, leaps on it, and without hat, stock, orsword, dashes across the Brussels road, stopping at once English andFrench. He tries to hold back the army, he recalls it, he insults it,he clings wildly to the rout to hold it back. The soldiers fly fromhim, shouting, "Long live Marshal Ney!" Two regiments of Durutte'smove backward and forward in terror, and as it were tossed between thesabres of the Hussars and the musketry fire of Kempt's, Best's, andPack's brigades. A rout is the highest of all confusions, for friendskill one another in order to escape, and squadrons and battalions dashagainst and destroy one another. Lobau at one extremity and Reilleat the other are carried away by the torrent. In vain does Napoleonbuild a wall of what is left of the Guard; in vain does he expend hisown special squadrons in a final effort. Quiot retires before Vivian,Kellermann before Vandeleur, Lobau before Bülow, Moraud before Pirch,and Domor and Subervie before Prince William of Prussia. Guyot, wholed the Emperor's squadrons to the charge, falls beneath the horsesof English Dragoons. Napoleon gallops along the line of fugitives,harangues, urges, threatens, and implores them; all the mouths thatshouted "Long live the Emperor!" in the morning, remained wide open;they hardly knew him. The Prussian cavalry, who had come up fresh, dashforward, cut down, kill, and exterminate. The artillery horses dashforward with the guns; the train soldiers unharness the horses fromthe caissons and escape on them; wagons overthrown, and with theirfour wheels in the air, block up the road and supply opportunities formassacre. Men crush one another and trample over the dead and over theliving. A multitude wild with terror fill the roads, the paths, thebridges, the plains, the hills, the valleys, and the woods, which arethronged by this flight of forty thousand men. Cries, desperation;knapsacks and muskets cast into the wheat; passages cut with the edgeof the sabres; no comrades, no officers, no generals recognized,--anindescribable terror. Ziethen sabring France at his ease. The lionsbecome kids. Such was this fight.
At Genappe an effort was made to turn and rally; Lobau collected threehundred men; the entrance of the village was barricaded, but at thefirst round of Prussian canister all began flying again, and Lobau wasmade prisoner. This volley of shot may still be seen, buried in thegable of an old brick house on the right of the road, just before youreach Genappe. The Prussians dashed into Genappe, doubtless furious atbeing such small victors, and the pursuit was monstrous, for Blüchercommanded extermination. Roguet had given the mournful example ofthreatening with death any French Grenadier who brought in a Prussianprisoner, and Blücher surpassed Roguet Duchesme, general of theyoung guard, who was pursued into the doorway of an inn in Genappe,surrendered his sword to an Hussar of death, who took the sword andkilled the prisoner. The victory was completed by the assassination ofthe vanquished. Let us punish, as we are writing history,--old Blücherdishonored himself. This ferocity set the seal on the disaster; thedesperate rout passed through Genappe, passed through Quatre Bras,passed through Sombreffe, passed through Frasnes, passed through Thuin,passed through Charleroi, and only stopped at the frontier. Alas! andwho was it flying in this way? The grand army.
Did this vertigo, this terror, this overthrow of the greatest braverythat ever astonished history, take place without a cause? No. Theshadow of a mighty right hand is cast over Waterloo; it is the day ofdestiny, and the force which is above man produced that day. Hencethe terror, hence all those great souls laying down their swords.Those who had conquered Europe, fell crushed, having nothing more tosay or do, and feeling a terrible presence in the shadow. _Hoc eratin fatis._ On that day the perspective of the human race was changed,and Waterloo is the hinge of the 19th century. The disappearance ofthe great man was necessary for the advent of the great age, and Hewho cannot be answered undertook the task. The panic of the heroesadmits of explanation: in the battle of Waterloo there is more than astorm,--there is a meteor.
At nightfall, Bernard and Bertrand seized by the skirt of his coat, ina field near Genappe, a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who, carriedso far by the current of the rout, had just dismounted, passed thebridle over his arm, and was now, with wandering eye, returning aloneto Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of the shattereddream, still striving to advance.
