Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the eighty-sixth chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Speaker A: Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

to give word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome.

>> Brie Carlisle: To bite at a time books, where we read you your favorite

classics, one byte at a time. my name is Bre

Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to share

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing. Les Miserable by Victor

Hugo chapter

16 quat libras

induse.

The battle of Waterloo is an enigma.

It is as obscure to those who won it as, to those

who lost it. For Napoleon, it was a

panic. Blucher sees nothing in it but

fire. Wellington understands nothing in

regard to it. Look at the reports.

The bulletins are confused. The

commentaries involved some stammer,

others Lisp. Jomini divides the battle

of Waterloo into four moments.

Muffling cuts it up into three.

Taris alone, though we hold another judgment

than his on some points, seized with his haughty

glance, the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe of

human genius in conflict with divine chance.

All the other historians suffer from being somewhat

dazzled, and in this dazzled

state they fumble about. It

was a day of lightning, brilliancy, in

fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy, which

to the vast stupefaction of kings,

drew all the kingdoms after it. The fall of

force, the defeat of war.

In this event stamped with superhuman necessity,

the part played by men amounts to nothing

if we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blucher, do

we thereby deprive England and Germany of anything?

No. Neither that illustrious

England nor that August Germany enter into the problem of

Waterloo thank heaven nations are

great independently of the lugubrious feats of

the sword neither England

nor Germany, nor France is contained in a

scabbard at this epoch when

Waterloo is only a clashing of swords above

blue shirt, Germany has Schiller. Above

Wellington, England has Byron.

A vast dawn of ideas is the peculiarity of our

century and in that, Aurora, England

and Germany have a magnificent radiance

they are majestic because they think

the elevation of level which they contribute to

civilization is intrinsic with them, it

proceeds from themselves and not from an accident

the aggrandizement which they have brought to the 19th

century has not Waterloo as its source

it is only barbarous peoples who undergo rapid growth

after a victory that is the

temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm.

Civilized people, especially in our day, are neither

elevated nor abased by the good or bad fortune of a

captain their specific gravity in the

human species results from something more than a

combat their honor, thank

God their dignity, their intelligence, their

genius are not numbers with those gamblers,

heroes and conquerors can put in the lottery of

battles often a battle is

lost and progress is conquered

there is less glory and more liberty

the drum holds its peace reason

takes the word it is a game in which

he who loses wins let

us therefore, speak of Waterloo coldly from both

sides let us render to chance

that which is due to chance and to God that

which is due to God what is

Waterloo? A victory?

No. The winning number in the

lottery the coin ₩11 by

Europe, paid by France it was not

worthwhile to place a lion there

waterloom, moreover, is the strangest encounter in

history.

Napoleon and Wellington they are

not enemies they are opposites never

did God, who is fond of antitheses, make a more

striking contrast a more extraordinary

comparison on one

side, precision, foresight,

geometry, prudence, an assured retreat

reserves spared with an obstinate coolness,

imperturbable method strategy, which

takes advantage of the ground tactics which

preserve the equilibrium of battalions carnage

executed according to rule, war

regulated, watch in hand, nothing voluntarily left a

chance the ancient classic courage,

absolute regularity on the

other, intuition,

divination, military oddity,

superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an

indescribable something which gazes like an eagle

and which strikes like the lightning a

prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity

all the mysteries of a profound soul associated with

destiny. A stream, the

plain, the forest, the hill summoned and in

a manner forced to obey. A despot going

even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle.

Faith in a star mingled with strategic science,

elevating but perturbing it.

Wellington was the brim of war.

Napoleon was its Michelangelo.

And on this occasion, genius was vanquished by

calculation. On both

sides, someone was awaited. It was the

exact calculator who succeeded.

Napoleon was waiting for grouchy.

He did not come. Wellington expected

blucher. He came.

Wellington is a classic war taking its

revenge. Bonaparte, at his

dawning, had encountered him in Italy and beaten him

superbly. The old owl had fled

before the young vulture. The old tactics

had been not only struck as by lightning, but

disgraced. Who was that

corsican of six and 20, what signified

that splendid ignoramus who, with everything against

him, nothing in his favor, without

provisions, without ammunition, without cannon, without

shoes, almost without an army, with a mere

handful of men against masses, hurled

himself on Europe combined and absurdly won

victories in the impossible.

Wentz had issued that fulminating convict

who, almost without taking breath and with the same set of

combatants in hand, pulverized

one after the other, the five armies of the

emperor of Germany, upsetting blow. A novice in

war with the effantry of a luminary,

the academical military school excommunicated

him and as it lost its

footing. Hence the implacable

rancor of the old caesarism against the new, of the

regular sword against the flaming sword, and of the

Escheror against genius. On

the 18 June 1815, that

rancor had the last word. And beneath Loti,

Montebello, Montgott, Mantois,

Arcola, it wrote Waterloo,

a triumph of the mediocres, which is sweet to the

majority. Destiny consented to this

irony. In his decline, Napoleon

found Wormser the younger again in front of

him. In fact, to get Wormser

it sufficed to blanch the hair of Wellington.

Waterloo is a battle of the first order, won by a captain

of the second. That which must be

admired in the battle of Waterloo is England.

The english firmness, the english

resolution, the english blood. The

superb thing about England there, no offense to

her, was herself. It was not her

captain, it was her army.

Wellington, oddly ungrateful, declares in a letter to Lord

Bathurst that his army, the

army which fought on the 18 June 1815,

was a detestable army. What does

that somber intermingling of bones buried beneath the furrows of

Waterloo. Think of that. England has

been too modest in the matter of Wellington

to make Wellington so great as to belittle

England. Wellington is nothing but a

hero like many another. Those

scotch greys, those horse guards,

those regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell,

that infantry of pack and Kempt, that

cavalry of Ponsonby and Somerset,

those highlanders playing the pibroch under the shower of

grapeshot, those battalions of

Ryland, those utterly raw recruits

who hardly knew how to handle a musket holding their own against

esslings and Revoli's old troops.

That is what was

granddaddez. Wellington was

tenacious in that lay his

merit and we are not seeking to lessen it. But

the least of his foot soldiers and of his cavalry would have been as

solid as he. The iron

soldier is worth as much as the Iron Duke.

As for us all our

glorification goes to the english soldier. To

the english army. To the english people.

If trophy there be, it is to England that the trophy

is due. The column of Waterloo

would be more.

>> Brie Carlisle: Just if instead of the figure of.

>> Brie Carlisle: A man it bore on high the statue of a people.

But this great England will be angry at what we are saying

here. She still cherishes after her

own 1688 and our

1789 the feudal illusion.

She believes in heredity and hierarchy.

This people surpassed by none in

power and glory. It regards itself as a nation and not

as a people. And as a people it

willingly subordinates itself and takes the lord for its

head. As a workman it allows itself to

be disdained. As a soldier, it allows itself

to be flogged. It will be

remembered that at the battle of Inkerman a sergeant

who had, it appears, saved the army

could not be mentioned by Lord Paglen. As the

english military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the grade

of an officer to be mentioned in the reports.

That which we admire above all in an encounter

of the nature of Waterloo is the marvelous cleverness of

chance. A nocturnal reign. The,

wall of Hougoumonthe hollow road of

Ohain. grouchy, deaf to the cannon.

Napoleons guide deceiving him. Meulos

guide enlightening him. The whole of this

cataclysm is wonderfully conducted.

On the whole, let us say it plainly,

it was more of a massacre than of a battle at

Waterloo. Of all pitched

battles, Waterloo is the one which has the smallest front for such

a number of Napoleon. Three

quarters of a league. Wellington half a

league. 72,000 combatants on each

side. From this denseness the carnage

arose. The following calculation

has been made and the following proportion established

loss of Mendez at Austerlitz. French,

14%. Russians,

30%. Austrians,

44%. At,

13%. 14

at, ah, the Muskawa, 37%.

44 at, ah, Botzen. French,

13%. Russians and Prussians,

14 at, Waterloo. French,

56%. The allies,

31. Total for Waterloo, 41%.

144,000

combatants. 60,000

dead today. The field of Waterloo

has the calm which belongs to the earth, the

impassive support of man. And it resembles all

planes at night,

moreover, a sort of visionary mist

arises from it. And if a traveler strolls

there, if he listens,

if he watches, if he dreams like

Virgil in the fatal plains of Philippi, the

hallucination of the catastrophe takes possession of him.

The frightful 18 June lives again.

The false, monumental hillock disappears.

The lion vanishes in air. The battlefield resumes

its reality. Lines of infantry

undulate over the plain. Furious gallops

traverse the horizon. The frightened

dreamer beholds the flash of sabers, the

gleam of bayonets, the flare of bombs, the tremendous

interchange of thunders. He

hears, as it were, the

death rattle in the depths of a tomb, the vague

clamor of the battle phantom.

No shadows or grenadiers, those lights

or cuirasses. That skeleton,

Napoleon, that other skeleton is

Wellington. All this no longer

exists, and yet it clashes together in combat

still. And the ravines are empurpled,

and the trees quiver. And there is fury

even in the clouds and in the shadows,

all those terrible heights.

Ogoman Mont Saint Jean

Frischemont, habilat

plancenoire appear confusedly crowned with

whirlwinds of specters engaged in exterminating each

other. Thank you for joining bite at a

time books today while we read a bite of one of your

favorite classics. Again, my name is

Brie Carlisle, and I hope you come back tomorrow,

for the next bite of Le Miserable M.

>> Brie Carlisle: Dont Forget to sign up for our

newsletter@biteoutimebooks.com comma. And

check out the shop. You can check out the show notes

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>> Speaker D: Take a look and look and let's

see what we can find

take it chapter by chapter,

one at a time.

So many adventures and

mountains we can climb.

>> Speaker A: line by line, one bite at a time.