CHAPTER XV--CAMBRONNE

  If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, onewould have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhapsthe finest reply that a Frenchman ever made. This would enjoin us fromconsigning something sublime to History.

  At our own risk and peril, let us violate this injunction.

  Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan,--Cambronne.

  To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For beingwilling to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man's fault ifhe survived after he was shot.

  The winner of the battle of Waterloo was not Napoleon, who was put toflight; nor Wellington, giving way at four o'clock, in despair at five;nor Blücher, who took no part in the engagement. The winner of Waterloowas Cambronne.

  To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you isto conquer!

  Thus to answer the Catastrophe, thus to speak to Fate, to give thispedestal to the future lion, to hurl such a challenge to the midnightrainstorm, to the treacherous wall of Hougomont, to the sunken road ofOhain, to Grouchy's delay, to Blücher's arrival, to be Irony itself inthe tomb, to act so as to stand upright though fallen, to drown intwo syllables the European coalition, to offer kings privies whichthe Cæsars once knew, to make the lowest of words the most lofty byentwining with it the glory of France, insolently to end Waterloo withMardigras, to finish Leonidas with Rabellais, to set the crown on thisvictory by a word impossible to speak, to lose the field and preservehistory, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,--this isimmense!

  It was an insult such as a thunder-cloud might hurl! It reaches thegrandeur of Æschylus!

  Cambronne's reply produces the effect of a violent break. 'Tis like thebreaking of a heart under a weight of scorn. 'Tis the overflow of agonybursting forth. Who conquered? Wellington? No! Had it not been forBlücher, he was lost. Was it Blücher? No! If Wellington had not begun,Blücher could not have finished. This Cambronne, this man spending hislast hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizesthat here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doublyagonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because ofit, he is offered this mockery,--life! How could he restrain himself?Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory,the Jupiter's darting thunderbolts; they have a hundred thousandvictorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; theircannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted; they grind downunder their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army; they havejust crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,--only this earthwormis left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriateword as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is theword. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victorywhich counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. Hegrants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality;and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, bysuperior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression:_"Excrément!"_ We repeat it,--to use that word, to do thus, to inventsuch an expression, is to be the conqueror!

  The spirit of mighty days at that portentous moment made its descenton that unknown man. Cambronne invents the word for Waterloo as Rougetinvents the "Marseillaise," under the visitation of a breath from onhigh. An emanation from the divine whirlwind leaps forth and comessweeping over these men, and they shake, and one of them sings the songsupreme, and the other utters the frightful cry.

  This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not only at Europe inthe name of the Empire,--that would be a trifle: he hurls it at the pastin the name of the Revolution. It is heard, and Cambronne is recognizedas possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to bespeaking! Kléber seems to be bellowing!

  At that word from Cambronne, the English voice responded, "Fire!"The batteries flamed, the hill trembled, from all those brazen mouthsbelched a last terrible gush of grape-shot; a vast volume of smoke,vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when thesmoke dispersed, there was no longer anything there. That formidableremnant had been annihilated; the Guard was dead. The four walls of theliving redoubt lay prone, and hardly was there discernible, here andthere, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French legions,greater than the Roman legions, expired on Mont-Saint-Jean, on the soilwatered with rain and blood, amid the gloomy grain, on the spot wherenowadays Joseph, who drives the post-wagon from Nivelles, passeswhistling, and cheerfully whipping up his horse at four o'clock in themorning.