Let us return—it is a necessity in this book—to that fatal battle-field. On the 18th of June the moon was full.
Its light favored Blücher’s ferocious pursuit, betrayed the traces of the fugitives, delivered up that disastrous mass to the eager Prussian cavalry, and aided the massacre. Such tragic favors of the night do occur sometimes during catastrophes.
After the last cannon-shot had been fired, the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean remained deserted. The English occupied the encampment of the French; it is the usual sign of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished. They established their bivouac beyond Rossomme.
The Prussians, let loose on the retreating rout, pushed forward. Wellington went to the village of Waterloo to draw up his report to Lord Bathurst. If ever the sic vos non vobis was applicable, it certainly is to that village of Waterloo.
Waterloo took no part, and lay half a league from the scene of action.
Mont-Saint-Jean was cannonaded, Hougomont was burned, La Haie-Sainte was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned, Plancenoit was burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked not in the battle, bears off all the honor.
We are not of the number of those who flatter war; when the occasion presents itself, we tell the truth about it. War has frightful beauties which we have not concealed; it has also, we acknowledge, some hideous features.
One of the most surprising is the prompt stripping of the bodies of the dead after the victory. The dawn which follows a battle always rises on naked corpses. Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph?
What hideous, furtive hand is that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets are they who ply their trade in