Les misyrables, p.82
Les Misérables, page 82
CHAPTER V--THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES
Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a beginningwhich was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both armies, butstill more so for the English than for the French.
It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, thewater had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as ifin casks; at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buriedup to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquidmud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transportson the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath thewheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction ofPapelotte would have been impossible.
The affair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was inthe habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol,aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it hadbeen his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallopfreely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should comeout and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It wasno longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired,the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that itwas thirty-five minutes past eleven.
The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than theEmperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting onHougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurlingQuiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the rightwing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested onPapelotte.
The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to drawWellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left. This plan wouldhave succeeded if the four companies of the English guards and the braveBelgians of Perponcher's division had not held the position solidly, andWellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himselfto despatching thither, as reinforcements, only four more companies ofguards and one battalion from Brunswick.
The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was calculated,in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to Brussels,to bar the passage against possible Prussians, to force Mont-Saint-Jean,to turn Wellington back on Hougomont, thence on Braine-l'Alleud, thenceon Hal; nothing easier. With the exception of a few incidents thisattack succeeded Papelotte was taken; La Haie-Sainte was carried.
A detail to be noted. There was in the English infantry, particularlyin Kempt's brigade, a great many raw recruits. These young soldiers werevaliant in the presence of our redoubtable infantry; their inexperienceextricated them intrepidly from the dilemma; they performed particularlyexcellent service as skirmishers: the soldier skirmisher, left somewhatto himself, becomes, so to speak, his own general. These recruitsdisplayed some of the French ingenuity and fury. This novice of aninfantry had dash. This displeased Wellington.
After the taking of La Haie-Sainte the battle wavered.
There is in this day an obscure interval, from mid-day to four o'clock;the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct, and participatesin the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict. Twilight reigns over it.We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy mirage, paraphernaliaof war almost unknown to-day, pendant colbacks, floating sabre-taches,cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades, hussar dolmans, red bootswith a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos garlanded with torsades, thealmost black infantry of Brunswick mingled with the scarlet infantryof England, the English soldiers with great, white circular pads on theslopes of their shoulders for epaulets, the Hanoverian light-horse withtheir oblong casques of leather, with brass hands and red horse-tails,the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaitersof our grenadiers; pictures, not strategic lines--what Salvator Rosarequires, not what is suited to the needs of Gribeauval.
A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. _Quidobscurum, quid divinum_. Each historian traces, to some extent, theparticular feature which pleases him amid this pell-mell. Whatever maybe the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has anincalculable ebb. During the action the plans of the two leaders enterinto each other and become mutually thrown out of shape. Such a point ofthe field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just asmore or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water whichis poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers thanone would like; a series of expenditures which are the unforeseen. Theline of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the trails of bloodgush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regimentsform capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw; all these reefs arecontinually moving in front of each other. Where the infantry stood theartillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, thebattalions are like smoke. There was something there; seek it. It hasdisappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance andretreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes forward, hurls back,distends, and disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a fray? anoscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute,not a day. In order to depict a battle, there is required one of thosepowerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is betterthan Vandermeulen; Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at three o'clock.Geometry is deceptive; the hurricane alone is trustworthy. That is whatconfers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, thatthere is a certain instant when the battle degenerates into a combat,becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats,which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, "belong rather tothe biography of the regiments than to the history of the army." Thehistorian has, in this case, the evident right to sum up the whole. Hecannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, andit is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be,to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called abattle.
This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularlyapplicable to Waterloo.
Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle came to apoint.
