Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the seventy-third 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 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 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

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>> Brie Carlisle: If youd also like to hear what.

>> Brie Carlisle: Inspired your favorite classic authors to write their

novels and what was going on in the world at the

time, check out the bite at a time books behind the story

podcast. Wherever you listen to

podcasts, please note, while we

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les miserable by Victor Hugo

chapter three the 18 June

1815 let

us turn back that is one of

the storytellers rites and put ourselves

once more in the year 1815,

and even a little earlier than the epic, when the

action narrated in the first part of this book took place.

If it had not rained in the night between the 17th

and the 18 June 1815, the

fate of Europe would have been different. A few

drops of water more or less decided the

downfall of Napoleon. All that

providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of

Austerlitz was a little more rain and a

cloud traversing the sky out of season sufficed to make a

world crumble. The battle of

Waterloo could not be begun until 11:30

o'clock, and that gave Blucher time to come

up. Why? because the

ground was wet. The artillery had to wait until it

became a little firmer before they could maneuver.

Napoleon was an artillery officer and felt the effects

of this, the foundation of this wonderful

captain was the man who, in the report to the directory

on Abacure said, such a one of our balls

killed six men. All his plans of

battle were arranged for projectiles. The key

to his victory was to make the artillery converge. On one

point. He treated the strategy of the

hostile general like a citadel and made a breach in

it. He overwhelmed the weak point with

grapeshot. He joined and dissolved battles with

canon. There was something of the

sharpshooter in his genius, to beat in

squares, to pulverize regiments, to break

lines, to crush and disperse masses.

For him, everything lay in

this to strike,

strike, strike incessantly.

And he entrusted this task to the cannonball.

A redoubtable method and one

which, united with genius, rendered this

gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for

the space of 15 years. On the

18 June 1815, he relied all the more on

his artillery because he had numbers on his side.

Wellington had only 159 mouths of

fire, Napoleon had

240. Suppose the

soil dry and the artillery capable of

moving. The action would have begun at 06:00 in the

morning. The battle would have been won and ended at

00, 3 hours before the change of

fortune in favor of the Prussians. What amount

of blame attaches to Napoleon for the loss of this

battle? Is the shipwreck due to the

pilot? Was it the evident physical decline of

Napoleon complicated this epoch by an inward

diminution of force? Had the 20

years of war worn out the blade as it had won the

scabbard, the soul as well as the

body? Did the veteran make himself

disastrously felt in the leader? In a

word, was this genius, as

many historians of note have thought, suffering from an

eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in

order to disguise his weakened powers from himself?

Did he begin to waver under the delusion of a breath of

adventure? Had he become a

grave matter in a general unconscious of peril?

Is there an age in this class of

material, great men who may be called the giants of

action? When genius grows short sighted?

Old age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal.

For the Dantes and Michelangelos to grow old is to

grow in greatness. Is it to grow less

for the Hannibals? In the Bonapartes,

had Napoleon lost the direct sense of victory?

Had he reached the point where he could no longer recognize the

reef, could no longer divine the snare,

no longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses?

Had he lost his power of sending out

catastrophes? He who had in former

days known all the roads to triumph? And who,

from the summit of his chariot of lightning, pointed them out

with a sovereign finger? Had he now

reached that state of sinister amazement when he could lead his

tumultuous legions harnessed to it to the

precipice? Was he seized at the age

of 46 with a supreme madness?

Was that Titanic terrier tear of destiny

no longer anything more than an immense daredevil?

We do not think so. His

plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a

masterpiece. To go straight to the center of the

allies line, to make a breach in the enemy,

to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on

hell and the prussian half on Congress,

to make two shattered fragments of Wellington in

Blueshire, to carry mont Saint Jean, to seize

Brussels, to hurl the Germans into the Rhine and the

Englishmen into the sea. All

this was contained in that battle, according

to Napoleon. Afterwards, people would

see, of course, we do

not here pretend to furnish a history of the battle of

Waterloo. One of the scenes of the foundation of the story

which we are relating is connected with this battle.

But this history is not our subject. This

history, moreover, has been finished and finished

in a masterly manner, from one point of view by

Napoleon, and from another point of view, by

a whole pleiad of historians. As

for us, we leave the historians as

loggerheads. We are but a distant

witness, a passerby on the plane,

a seeker bending over that soil, all made of human

flesh, taking appearances for realities.

Perchance we have no right to oppose,

in the name of science, a collection of facts which contain

illusions. No doubt we possess neither

military practice nor strategic ability which authorize

a system. In our opinion, a chain

of accidents dominated the two leaders at

Waterloo. And when it becomes a question of

destiny, that, mysterious culprit,

we judge like that ingenious judge the

populace.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today, while we wrote 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.

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

newsletter@biteadatimebooks.com and

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

or our website, biteadatatimebooks.com,

for the rest of the links for our show. wed love to hear from you

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