Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it up into three changes; Charras 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.
[10] "A battle terminated, a day finished, false measures repaired, greater successes assured for the morrow,--all was lost by a moment of panic, terror."--Napoleon, Dictees de Sainte Helene.
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 Blucher, 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 nineteenth 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 which 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?