by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BATTLE-FIELD BY NIGHT.
We must return, for it is a necessity of the story, to the fatalbattle-field of June 18, 1815. The moon shone brightly, and thisfavored Blücher's ferocious pursuit, pointed out the trail of thefugitives, surrendered this sad crowd to the Prussian cavalry, andassisted the massacre. Such tragical complacency of the night iswitnessed at times in catastrophes. After the last cannon was firedthe plain of Mont St. Jean remained deserted. The English occupied theFrench encampment, for the usual confirmation of victory is to sleepin the beds of the conquered. They established their bivouac a littlebeyond Rossomme, and while the Prussians followed up the fugitives,Wellington proceeded to the village of Waterloo, to draw up his reportfor Lord Bathurst. Were ever the _Sic vos non vobis_ applicable, itis most certainly to this village of Waterloo, which did nothing, andwas half a league away from the action. Mont St. Jean was cannonaded,Hougomont burned, Papelotte burned, Plancenoit burned, La Haye Saintecarried by storm, and La Belle Alliance witnessed the embrace of thetwo victors; but these names are scarce known, and Waterloo, which didnothing during the battle, has all the honor of it.
We are not of those who flatter war, and when the opportunity offers,we tell it the truth. War has frightful beauties which we have notconcealed; but it has also, we must allow, some ugly features. One ofthe most surprising is the rapid stripping of the dead after victory;the dawn that follows a battle always rises on naked corpses. Who doesthis? Who sullies the triumph in this way? Whose is the hideous furtivehand which slips into the pocket of victory? Who are the villainsdealing their stroke behind the glory? Some philosophers, Voltaireamong them, assert that they are the very men who have made the glory;they say that those who keep their feet plunder those lying on theground, and the hero of the day is the vampire of the night. Afterall, a man has the right to strip a corpse of which he is the author.We do not believe it, however; reaping a crop of laurels and stealingthe shoes of a dead man do not seem to us possible from the same hand.One thing is certain, that, as a usual rule, after the conquerors comethe thieves; but we must leave the soldier, especially the soldier ofto-day, out of the question.
Every army has a tail; and it is that which must be accused.Batlike beings, half servants, half brigands, all the species ofthe vespertilio which the twilight called war engenders, wearers ofuniform who do not fight, malingerers, formidable invalids, interlopingsutlers, trotting with their wives in small carts and stealing thingswhich they sell again, beggars offering themselves as guides toofficers, villains, marauders,--all these, armies marching in formertimes (we are not alluding to the present day) had with them, so that,in the special language, they were called "the stragglers." No armyand no nation was responsible for these beings,--they spoke Italian,and followed the Germans; they spoke French, and followed the English.It was by one of these scoundrels, a Spanish camp-follower who spokeFrench, that the Marquis de Fervacques, deceived by his Picardyaccent, and taking him for a Frenchman, was killed and robbed on thebattle-field during the night that followed the victory of Cerisolles.The detestable maxim, "Live on the enemy," produced this leprosy, whichstrict discipline alone could cure. There are some reputations whichdeceive, and we do not always know why certain generals, in otherrespects great, became so popular. Turenne was adored by his troops,because he tolerated plunder; evil permitted is kindness, and Turennewas so kind that he allowed the Palatinate to be destroyed by swordand fire. A larger or a smaller number of marauders followed an army,according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and Morceau hadno camp-followers, and Wellington, we willingly do him the justice ofstating, had but few.
Still, on the night of June 18, the dead were stripped. Wellington wasstrict; he ordered that everybody caught in the act should be shot, butrapine is tenacious, and marauders plundered in one corner of the fieldwhile they were being shot in the other. The moon frowned upon thisplain. About midnight a man was prowling, or rather crawling, aboutthe hollow road of Ohain: he was, according to all appearance, one ofthose whom we have just described, neither English nor French, norpeasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul, attracted by the smellof the dead, whose victory was robbery, and who had come to plunderWaterloo. He was dressed in a blouse, which looked something like agown, was anxious and daring, and looked behind while he went onwards.Who was this man? Night knew probably more about him than did day. Hehad no bag, but evidently capacious pockets under his blouse. From timeto time he stopped, examined the plain around him as if to see whetherhe was watched, bent down quickly, disturbed something lying silent andmotionless on the ground, and then drew himself up again and steppedaway. His attitude, and his rapid mysterious movements, made himresemble those twilight _larvæ_ which haunt ruins, and which the oldNorman legends call "les alleurs;" certain nocturnal fowlers displaythe same outline on the marshes.
Any one who had attentively examined would have seen behind the housewhich stands at the intersection of the Nivelles and Mont St. Jeanroads, a sort of small vivandière's cart with a tilt of tarpaulinstretched over wicker-work, drawn by a hungry-looking, staggeringhorse, which was nibbling the nettles. In this cart, a woman wasseated on chests and bundles, and there was probably some connectionbetween this cart and the prowler. There was not a cloud in the sky,and though the ground may be blood red, the moon remains white; thatis the indifference of nature. In the fields branches of trees brokenby cannon-balls, but still holding on by the bark, waved softly inthe night breeze. A breath shook the brambles, and there was a quiverin the grass that resembled the departure of souls. In the distancecould be confusedly heard the march of the English patrols and rounds.Hougomont and La Haye Sainte continued to burn, making, one in thewest, the other in the east, two large bodies of flames, to which werejoined the English bivouac fires, stretching along the hills on thehorizon, in an immense semicircle. The scene produced the effect of anunfastened ruby necklace, with a carbuncle at either end.
We have described the catastrophe of the Ohain road; the heart ischilled by the thought of what this death had been for so many bravemen. If there be anything frightful, if there exist a reality whichsurpasses dreaming, it is this,--to live; to see the sun; to be in fullpossession of manly vigor; to have health and joy; to laugh valiantly;to run toward a glory glittering before you; to feel in your chestlungs that breathe, a heart that beats, and a will that reasons; tospeak, to think, to hope, to love; to have a mother, a wife, andchildren; to have light, and then suddenly, before there is time for acry, to be hurled into an abyss; to fall, roll, crush, and be crushed;to see corn-stalks, flowers, leaves, and branches, and to be unableto hold on to anything; to feel your sabre useless, men under you andhorses over you; to struggle in vain; to have your ribs fractured bysome kick in the gloom; to feel a heel on your eyes; to bite with ragethe horses' bits; to stifle, to yell, to writhe; to be underneath, andto say to yourself, "A moment ago I was a living man!"
At the spot where this lamentable disaster occurred, all was nowsilence. The hollow way was filled with an inextricable pile of horsesand their riders. There was no slope now, for the corpses levelledthe road with the plain, and came up flush to the top, like a fairlymeasured bushel of barley. A pile of dead atop, a stream of blood atbottom,--such was the road on the night of June 18, 1815. The blood ranas far as the Nivelles road, and extravasated there in a wide pool, infront of the barricade, at a spot which is still pointed out. It willbe remembered that the destruction of the cuirassiers took place at theopposite point, near the Genappe road. The depth of the corpses wasproportionate to that of the hollow way; toward the middle, at the spotwhere Delord's division passed, the layer of dead was thinner.
The nocturnal prowler, at whom we have allowed the reader a glance,proceeded in that direction, searching this immense tomb. He lookedaround and held a hideous review of the dead; he walked with his feetin the blood. All at once he stopped. A few paces before him in thehollow way, at the point where the pile of dead ended, an open hand,illumined by the moon, emerge
d from a heap of men and horses. Thishand had on one finger something that glittered, and was a gold ring.The man bent down, and when he rose again there was no longer a ringon this finger. He did not exactly rise; he remained in a savage andshy attitude, turning his back to the pile of dead, investigating thehorizon, supporting himself on his two forefingers, and his head spyingover the edge of the hollow way. The four paws of the jackal are suitedfor certain actions. Then, making up his mind, he rose, but at the samemoment he started, for he felt that some one was holding him behind. Heturned and found that it was the open hand, which had closed and seizedthe skirt of his coat. An honest man would have been frightened, butthis one began laughing.
"Hilloh!" he said, "it is only the dead man. I prefer a ghost to agendarme."
The hand, however, soon relaxed its hold, for efforts are quicklyexhausted in the tomb.
"Can this dead man be alive?" the marauder continued; "let me have alook."
He bent down again, removed all the obstacles, seized the hand,liberated the head, pulled out the body, and a few minutes laterdragged an inanimate or at least fainting man into the shadow of thehollow way. He was an officer of cuirassiers of a certain rank, for aheavy gold epaulette peeped out from under his cuirass. This officerhad lost his helmet, and a furious sabre-cut crossed his face, whichwas covered with blood. He did not appear, however, to have any bonesbroken, and through some fortunate accident,--if such a word bepossible here,--the dead had formed an arch over him so as to save himfrom being crushed. His eyes were closed. He had on his cuirass thesilver cross of the Legion of Honor, and the prowler tore away thiscross, which disappeared in one of the gulfs he had under his blouse.After this he felt the officer's fob, found a watch, and took it; thenhe felt in his pockets and drew from them a purse. When he was at thisstage of the assistance he was rendering the dying man, the officeropened his eyes.
"Thanks," he said feebly.
The roughness of the man's movements, the freshness of the night, andthe freely inhaled air had aroused him from his lethargy. The prowlerdid not answer, but raised his head. A sound of footsteps could beheard on the plain; it was probably some patrol approaching. Theofficer murmured, for there was still the agony of death in his voice,--
"Who won the battle?"
"The English," the marauder answered.
The officer continued,--
"Feel in my pockets; you will find a purse and a watch, which you cantake."
Though this was already done, the prowler did what was requested, andsaid,--
"There is nothing in them."
"I have been robbed," the officer continued; "I am sorry for it, as Imeant the things for you."
The footsteps of the patrol became more and more distinct.
"Some one is coming," the marauder said, preparing to go away.
The officer, raising his arm with difficulty, stopped him.
"You have saved my life; who are you?"
The prowler answered rapidly and in a low voice.
"I belong, like yourself, to the French army; but I must leave you, forif I were caught I should be shot. I have saved your life, so now getout of the scrape as you can."
"What is your rank?"
"Sergeant."
"Your name?"
"Thénardier."
"I shall not forget that name," the officer said; "and do you remembermine; it is Pontmercy."
BOOK II
THE SHIP ORION.
