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miffy-junot · 9 days ago

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Junot, Laure and Caroline rpf, chapter 5

This is from a 1904 fiction book, please keep in mind that everything here is completely fictional and don't take it too seriously.

'As a surprise to Madame Junot upon her return from Raincy, her husband had had her chamber redecorated and furnished in the grand style of the Empire — mahogany, with bronze ornaments; and the heavy draperies at the windows and around the bed were dark green. But the effect was too heavy and somber — Junot himself admitted that the room looked more like a tomb of a king than the shrine of his love. Every piece of the furnishings, however, had been designed by a Percier or a Fontaine, and had won for its style and elegance the praise of all who had seen the room. Laurette’s little head still nestled quietly on the big lace pillow, though it had long been day. Her cheek rested lightly on her folded hands, while she gazed dreamily at the door. The curtains were still drawn, and upon a black marble column, above the steps leading to the bed, there still burned dimly an antique veilleuse.

Suddenly there was a stir, and the noise of many voices in the salon next the chamber. Laurette listened for an instant, and then she rang vigorously. But at the same instant the folding doors were thrown open, and almost before the valet had time to announce “Son Altesse Imperial et Royale, Madame la Duchesse de Guastalla," Pauline Borghese hurried into the room with her peculiar, irregular walk. "Lie still, little Laurette!” cried her Imperial Highness, climbing on the great bed without much regard to her dignity. ‘‘You see, I have something of great importance to tell you,” she continued, as she settled herself comfortably against the foot-board. But she began with a complaint of her own: “Why don’t you ever come to see me, Laurette? Nor Junot, either? He has evidently forgotten how pretty I was in Italy.* I am just as pretty now — even prettier,” and she surveyed with satisfaction her reflection in a mirror that was opposite; "but he never looks — except at Caroline! always at Caroline! Yes, yes, Laurette, you too may regret some day that you have always preferred Caroline to me..." “But your Highness has something of great importance to tell me,” interposed Madame Junot, trying, with a grimace, to draw up a foot which Princess Pauline was almost crushing beneath her.

“Yes, I have news for you. But first, pray tell me why you have never invited me to any of your entertainments at Raincy? But only Caroline! always Caroline! … I’ll give you just one word of warning, Laurette” — here she bent forward and spoke with the utmost clearness — “Caroline hasn’t the least idea of tact or discretion.” Though Madame Junot felt keenly the suggestion hidden in these words, she could not help laughing to hear the Princess speak of “tact and discretion.” “But, your Highness,” she said, in a consoling voice, “hunting is the only pleasure we have to offer our guests at Raincy. You do not ride, and you dislike to be driven about in a calash;...” “I could be carried around in a palanquin..." proudly suggested the Princess; and then, as they pictured such a scene, both ladies laughed gaily. ‘‘What have you done with your husband this morning, little Laurette? I thought you always shared the same room — you certainly did when you lived in Rue de Verneuil. Where is Junot ? I suppose he will come to bid me good morning, for I am one of his oldest friends. You can’t imagine how deeply he was in love with me when we were at Marseilles, and later too, especially in Italy.” Madame Junot, ringing, inquired for “Monseigneur." He had gone out.

“That looks as though he is in the habit of paying early visits,” said the Princess, opening her eyes and assuming a severe expression. “Really, Laurette, you should not permit such a state of affairs.” “Is there nothing I can do for you, madame?” answered Madame Junot, sharply, in order to cover her distress and the tears that already threatened to fall. “Why, how stupid you look! You know as well as I what great influence he has at the Elysée; and, of course, he has been called to confer with Caroline about our comedy. Haven’t you heard that we shall give a comedy, as well as ‘The Barber of Seville,’ on St. Joseph’s day, the 19th of March?** The comedy is especially in honor of the Empress, and you must take part in it, too. Why, of course you must take part, Laurette!" “But, madame, you forget my condition [pregnancy].” “Your condition! Well, I’ll see to it that Caroline selects a part for you in which your condition will not show. She is to be the heroine, Caroline, and Junot has been cast for the part of the hero, whose name, by the way, is Charles. The story is something about the Emperor’s victories — about Jena and Eylau. It will be something grand!” But I am to be Bosina in ‘The Barber of Seville,’ which will be given first that evening. Don’t you think that my costume will be becoming to me? I am to have a rose-colored hat with large black feathers, and a short skirt of rose silk, and a black lace apron. Oh, I shall look much prettier than the pale Hortense did, when she played that part at Malmaison four or five years ago! You recall that night, don’t you, with Bourrienne and Savary? But what am I thinking of?”

Princess Pauline started up and pulled all three of the bell-cords that hung against the wall. "You haven’t yet seen my new Chamberlain, Laurette!” To the lackey and two maids who rushed in at this moment she called: “Show in the gentleman who is waiting in the salon!” The lackey again threw open the door, and in his most solemn tone announeed: “Monsieur de Forbin.” As though he were shot out of a cannon, M. de Forbin came into the room, bowing very seriously to the two ladies on the bed. Princess Pauline smiled, and, with a gracious movement of the hand, she turned to Madame Junot. “There he is, Laurette,” she said, in a voice intended to pass for a whisper. “What do you think of him, little friend?” The Princess’ new Chamberlain heard what she said as well as Madame Junot. He was really a handsome fellow — tall, graceful, and elegant. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been called simply to be exhibited as an example of Princess Pauline’s good taste. He blushed to the roots of his hair and remained standing in the same position, with his head a little bent. Pauline Bonaparte surveyed the handsome fellow closely, smiled graciously, and, beckoning to him, said: “Monsieur de Forbin, will you be so kind as to help me down from here ? Yes, so — thanks!’’ She leaned heavily upon his arm, and bent down once more over Madame Junot. “Well, my pigeon, I shall see you again at the first rehearsal at the Elysée.” She kissed Laurette, and whispered again — this time in Italian : “Look at him! Such a back! — such a carriage! — such a pair of legs...! What do you think, little Laurette?’’

When Junot came home the day of Princess Pauline’s call, he discovered his wife in her room busy arranging some flowers in a tall alabaster vase that adorned the mantel. As he drew near her, he failed to win any welcoming glance from her, and for a time had to content himself with watching her at her task.

‘‘Your old friend Pauline, the Princess Borghese, left her regards for you this morning,” she began, at length. "Yes? — thanks! I am glad they are not from Prince Borghese” — his voice sounded forced and unnatural, and he fixed his gaze sharply upon Laurette’s profile. She shook her head indifferently. “Prince Borghese! Why should you think of him now? Oh, no; he is a sensible fellow, and will wait a few months before he continues his advances. We shall then see what they lead to, when the fort is no longer enceinte." “What sort of language is this ! Must I listen to this from you too, Laurette?” he asked, sharply, knitting his brow. “It is the language that my high-born friends, their Imperial Highnesses, Princess Borghese and the Grand Duchess of Berg and Cleve, teach me,” she answered, in a nonchalant manner, holding one of the rose stems in her teeth. “Besides, since you are the only one who hears these tales of mine, I surely might be allowed to boast a little when I have a royal admirer.” “I don’t catch your meaning.” “I don’t mean anything, my dear. I have just told you that my admirer has, for the present,… I should say, rather, I have no chance with him. Meantime I have nothing else to do but to put on my best visiting costume and drive to the Elysée, where I have been ordered by Princess Caroline — probably to hear a lecture about how I should behave!”

Junot sat down near the window and drummed nervously on the table. “Listen, Laurette” — he clutched her arm as she passed him — “what has Princess Pauline said to anger you so? Now...” He firmly held her by her elbows with both hands, and looked searchingly into her eyes. Laurette laughed — with a clear, taunting laugh. "Nothing! Why should you think that she would say anything to excite me? She is good nature and amiability personified. She was so charming that she even compelled me to take part in a comedy which Caroline and you are arranging. She seemed a little surprised that I did not know anything about it, and came to the conclusion that it was probably to save me that you had kept it so quiet." Junot dropped his wife’s arm. "Certainly!" he said, brusquely. ‘‘And I thank you for your consideration,” continued Madame Juuot, quietly. “It would not be pleasant for me to appear just now side by side with Princess Caroline; but it looks as though her Highness wishes to place me at that disadvantage, because she has sent me a summons that sounds very much like a command.” Madame Junot had now entirely forgotten her assumed satirical coldness, and was becoming very angry. “I will not be the setting for a tableau that shall glorify the touching love of Charles and Caroline," she said, suddenly, full of wrath.

Junot was quite as angry as she, as he paced the floor with rapid steps. "It appears that you think it is I who will force you to take part in this comedy! I can assure you of the opposite, as I have done all...” “You need not assure me of your objection. I can readily understand why you wished to be rid of me at the rehearsals,” she coldly interrupted. Junot turned and looked sternly at her as she stood by the window, her back to the light, with one hand resting on the marble table. She stood there — so small and delicate, with her heavy burden — and he could see that she nervously tried to keep from breaking down and bursting into tears at his glances. He stepped quickly up to her, took her tenderly around her shoulders, and gently laid her head upon his breast.

"My poor Laura,” he said, quietly, “you— you don’t know how you pain me...” She sobbed deeply and convulsively for a short time. Then she controlled herself, lifted her head, and looked up at him with her large brown eyes, that so honestly reflected every thought of her soul. "Come," she said, “let us speak frankly with each other. This state of affairs is unbearable and — and — unworthy…” Together they sat down upon a sofa that was placed under a mirror, his arm still resting lightly about her shoulders. “I do not ask you to be sincere,” she continued in a low tone, as she dried her eyes. “I know it isn’t the fashion — that it isn’t knightly to be sincere — that it isn’t good form. And I expect to live up to the demands of the times. I realize that a man must keep silent while he plays the part of cavalier to a lady, even though there is a knife at his throat. I would not have you, for my sake... No, do not speak! It isn’t necessary — I have good eyes. You know that I have suffered much — but the women of my set must suffer. And though it has been harder for me than for some of the rest, I have been able to endure it. I am your wife; and in the depths of my heart I know that, though I have a hundred rivals, your love for me is honest and noble. Just because I am your wife, I do not envy any of my rivals.” She raised her eyes and looked up at him almost archly. “Yet,” she said, “I am the only woman in the world whose life you would take with your own hand. If I were unfaithful to you — if you found me in the arms of another, — you would kill me, although you would treat lightly the unfaithfulness of a lady-love for whose ‘honour’ you would give your life. But just because I am your wife, I do not envy any of my rivals.” He did not answer, but he bent down arid tenderly kissed the little hand which rested lightly on his arm.

"So long as it concerned only my own happiness,” she continued, “I have not complained; I know that in war a man seldom remains true — yes, you cannot say that I have taken this too sentimentally. I have not bothered you with petty jealousies." ‘‘It has not often been necessary, Laurette,” said he, smilingly. “Taking it altogether, you have held me so securely that there have been times that I did not even care to look at other women. Who was like you? Who could enchant and love like you?…” A faint smile flitted over Madame Junot’s face, and she lifted her handkerchief to her lips to conceal it. He saw this, however, and, jubilantly happy over this sign of forgiveness, he tore the lace handkerchief from her hand and lovingly kissed the sweet, telltale lips. “Laurette, my own, you must not be harsh with me. You know yourself that it is only you — you alone — who means anything to me! Without you life would be nothing!” “I know it,” she said, seriously, “but..." “No 'but'” he exclaimed, joyously. “Now you have given me a little bit of pardon, I can begin to live again and to hope.”

She laid her hand over his mouth and looked sternly at him. ‘‘I have not forgiven you — I can never forgive you. But, as I told you, the question does not concern me. Do you really not see that this is a serious matter that concerns you personally and officially?’’ ''What! are you coming back to the same old story?’’ said he, with a shade of disappointment in his tone. “Unfortunately, more people than I have this idea. Think of the consequences, if the Emperor should learn of this intrigue, or even suspect it!” And she looked anxiously into his eyes. “Oh, he knows very well what sort of a woman his sister is — none better!” exclaimed Junot, reassuringly. “You may rest certain that he doesn’t know the important affairs she is rashly meddling with; and if he did, he would see to it that no one else should know about them and her connection with them.’’ “Don’t believe for a moment that the Emperor is the only one in Paris who does not understand his sister Caroline. For, of course,” he continued, in the lofty tone of one whose position with the Emperor was secure, “any suspicion would be about her alone — in this case.'' “Of course!” answered Madame Junot, matching his certainty by her own growing faith. Then, rising, she added: “But I must go to the Elysée to take my lesson in good manners. Will you escort me?" He mumbled something that was unintelligible. “Surely! You are right! I forgot that you had been there once to-day. Aha! after all the trouble her Highness takes with you, you are destined to become a model man!"

*I doubt Junot ever fell out of love with Pauline - he always adored her, he simply adored other women at the same time.

**This detail is true - Junot was a talented amateur actor and often took part in little theatre performances. He enjoyed acting in Shakespearean tragedies but, unfortunately for him, most of these amateur performances were simplistic comedies to accommodate for participants who were not so theatrical. Madame de Remusat records a performance in which Junot played a young soldier in love with two young shepherdesses - played by Pauline and Caroline, of course.

#jean andoche junot #laure junot #caroline bonaparte #caroline murat #pauline bonaparte #napoleonic era #napoleonic rpf

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lesmislettersdaily · 2 years ago

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Hougomont

Volume 2: Cosette; Book 1: Waterloo; Chapter 2: Hougomont

Hougomont,—this was a funereal spot, the beginning of the obstacle, the first resistance, which that great wood-cutter of Europe, called Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo, the first knot under the blows of his axe.

It was a château; it is no longer anything but a farm. For the antiquary, Hougomont is Hugomons. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of Villiers.

The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an ancient calash under the porch, and entered the courtyard.

The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the sixteenth century, which here simulates an arcade, everything else having fallen prostrate around it. A monumental aspect often has its birth in ruin. In a wall near the arcade opens another arched door, of the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard; beside this door, a manure-hole, some pickaxes, some shovels, some carts, an old well, with its flagstone and its iron reel, a chicken jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a small bell-tower, a blossoming pear-tree trained in espalier against the wall of the chapel—behold the court, the conquest of which was one of Napoleon’s dreams. This corner of earth, could he but have seized it, would, perhaps, have given him the world likewise. Chickens are scattering its dust abroad with their beaks. A growl is audible; it is a huge dog, who shows his teeth and replaces the English.

The English behaved admirably there. Cooke’s four companies of guards there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army.

Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising buildings and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun’s length away. Hougomont has two doors,—the southern door, that of the château; and the northern door, belonging to the farm. Napoleon sent his brother Jérôme against Hougomont; the divisions of Foy, Guilleminot, and Bachelu hurled themselves against it; nearly the entire corps of Reille was employed against it, and miscarried; Kellermann’s balls were exhausted on this heroic section of wall. Bauduin’s brigade was not strong enough to force Hougomont on the north, and the brigade of Soye could not do more than effect the beginning of a breach on the south, but without taking it.

The farm buildings border the courtyard on the south. A bit of the north door, broken by the French, hangs suspended to the wall. It consists of four planks nailed to two cross-beams, on which the scars of the attack are visible.

The northern door, which was beaten in by the French, and which has had a piece applied to it to replace the panel suspended on the wall, stands half-open at the bottom of the paddock; it is cut squarely in the wall, built of stone below, of brick above which closes in the courtyard on the north. It is a simple door for carts, such as exist in all farms, with the two large leaves made of rustic planks: beyond lie the meadows. The dispute over this entrance was furious. For a long time, all sorts of imprints of bloody hands were visible on the door-posts. It was there that Bauduin was killed.

The storm of the combat still lingers in this courtyard; its horror is visible there; the confusion of the fray was petrified there; it lives and it dies there; it was only yesterday. The walls are in the death agony, the stones fall; the breaches cry aloud; the holes are wounds; the drooping, quivering trees seem to be making an effort to flee.

This courtyard was more built up in 1815 than it is to-day. Buildings which have since been pulled down then formed redans and angles.

The English barricaded themselves there; the French made their way in, but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the château, the only ruin now remaining of the manor of Hougomont, rises in a crumbling state,—disembowelled, one might say. The château served for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each other. The French, fired on from every point,—from behind the walls, from the summits of the garrets, from the depths of the cellars, through all the casements, through all the air-holes, through every crack in the stones,—fetched fagots and set fire to walls and men; the reply to the grape-shot was a conflagration.

In the ruined wing, through windows garnished with bars of iron, the dismantled chambers of the main building of brick are visible; the English guards were in ambush in these rooms; the spiral of the staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears like the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories; the English, besieged on the staircase, and massed on its upper steps, had cut off the lower steps. These consisted of large slabs of blue stone, which form a heap among the nettles. Half a score of steps still cling to the wall; on the first is cut the figure of a trident. These inaccessible steps are solid in their niches. All the rest resembles a jaw which has been denuded of its teeth. There are two old trees there: one is dead; the other is wounded at its base, and is clothed with verdure in April. Since 1815 it has taken to growing through the staircase.

A massacre took place in the chapel. The interior, which has recovered its calm, is singular. The mass has not been said there since the carnage. Nevertheless, the altar has been left there—an altar of unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows; over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner, an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces—such is the chapel. Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint Anne, of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried off by a large ball. The French, who were masters of the chapel for a moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it. The flames filled this building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen; then it stopped,—a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the neighborhood. The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate than the Christ.

The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of Christ this name is to be read: Henquinez. Then these others: Conde de Rio Maior Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana). There are French names with exclamation points,—a sign of wrath. The wall was freshly whitewashed in 1849. The nations insulted each other there.

It was at the door of this chapel that the corpse was picked up which held an axe in its hand; this corpse was Sub-Lieutenant Legros.

On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left. There are two in this courtyard. One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons.

The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there. On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed themselves in the woods.

The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these unfortunate people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and nights. There are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old boles of burned trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs trembling in the depths of the thickets.

Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, “to guard the château,” and concealed himself in the cellar. The English discovered him there. They tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of their swords. They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water. It was from this well that he drew it. Many drank there their last draught. This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die itself.

After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies. Death has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow glory. The typhus is a concomitant of triumph. This well was deep, and it was turned into a sepulchre. Three hundred dead bodies were cast into it. With too much haste perhaps. Were they all dead? Legend says they were not. It seems that on the night succeeding the interment, feeble voices were heard calling from the well.

This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, part stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded like the leaves of a screen, surround it on all sides. The fourth side is open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom has a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell. This little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The iron supports of the well on the right form a cross. On leaning over, the eye is lost in a deep cylinder of brick which is filled with a heaped-up mass of shadows. The base of the walls all about the well is concealed in a growth of nettles.

This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a cross-beam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of knotty and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer either pail, chain, or pulley; but there is still the stone basin which served the overflow. The rain-water collects there, and from time to time a bird of the neighboring forests comes thither to drink, and then flies away. One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited. The door of this house opens on the courtyard. Upon this door, beside a pretty Gothic lock-plate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed slanting. At the moment when the Hanoverian lieutenant, Wilda, grasped this handle in order to take refuge in the farm, a French sapper hewed off his hand with an axe.

The family who occupy the house had for their grandfather Guillaume van Kylsom, the old gardener, dead long since. A woman with gray hair said to us: “I was there. I was three years old. My sister, who was older, was terrified and wept. They carried us off to the woods. I went there in my mother’s arms. We glued our ears to the earth to hear. I imitated the cannon, and went boum! boum!”

A door opening from the courtyard on the left led into the orchard, so we were told. The orchard is terrible.

It is in three parts; one might almost say, in three acts. The first part is a garden, the second is an orchard, the third is a wood. These three parts have a common enclosure: on the side of the entrance, the buildings of the château and the farm; on the left, a hedge; on the right, a wall; and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut stone, with balustrade with a double curve.

It was a seignorial garden in the first French style which preceded Le Nôtre; to-day it is ruins and briars. The pilasters are surmounted by globes which resemble cannon-balls of stone. Forty-three balusters can still be counted on their sockets; the rest lie prostrate in the grass. Almost all bear scratches of bullets. One broken baluster is placed on the pediment like a fractured leg.

It was in this garden, further down than the orchard, that six light-infantry men of the 1st, having made their way thither, and being unable to escape, hunted down and caught like bears in their dens, accepted the combat with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was armed with carbines. The Hanoverians lined this balustrade and fired from above. The infantry men, replying from below, six against two hundred, intrepid and with no shelter save the currant-bushes, took a quarter of an hour to die.

One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard, properly speaking. There, within the limits of those few square fathoms, fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems ready to renew the combat. Thirty-eight loopholes, pierced by the English at irregular heights, are there still. In front of the sixth are placed two English tombs of granite. There are loopholes only in the south wall, as the principal attack came from that quarter. The wall is hidden on the outside by a tall hedge; the French came up, thinking that they had to deal only with a hedge, crossed it, and found the wall both an obstacle and an ambuscade, with the English guards behind it, the thirty-eight loopholes firing at once a shower of grape-shot and balls, and Soye’s brigade was broken against it. Thus Waterloo began.

Nevertheless, the orchard was taken. As they had no ladders, the French scaled it with their nails. They fought hand to hand amid the trees. All this grass has been soaked in blood. A battalion of Nassau, seven hundred strong, was overwhelmed there. The outside of the wall, against which Kellermann’s two batteries were trained, is gnawed by grape-shot.

This orchard is sentient, like others, in the month of May. It has its buttercups and its daisies; the grass is tall there; the cart-horses browse there; cords of hair, on which linen is drying, traverse the spaces between the trees and force the passer-by to bend his head; one walks over this uncultivated land, and one’s foot dives into mole-holes. In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted tree-bole which lies there all verdant. Major Blackmann leaned against it to die. Beneath a great tree in the neighborhood fell the German general, Duplat, descended from a French family which fled on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. An aged and falling apple-tree leans far over to one side, its wound dressed with a bandage of straw and of clayey loam. Nearly all the apple-trees are falling with age. There is not one which has not had its bullet or its biscayan.6 The skeletons of dead trees abound in this orchard. Crows fly through their branches, and at the end of it is a wood full of violets.

Bauduin killed, Foy wounded, conflagration, massacre, carnage, a rivulet formed of English blood, French blood, German blood mingled in fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the English Guards mutilated, twenty French battalions, besides the forty from Reille’s corps, decimated, three thousand men in that hovel of Hougomont alone cut down, slashed to pieces, shot, burned, with their throats cut,—and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the traveller: Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will explain to you the affair of Waterloo!

#les mis #les mis letters #volume 2: cosette #book 1: waterloo #chapter 2

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