Maybe I wrote my praise for Cambronne a chapter early! I should have looked ahead and seen where Hugo was going. Rather than rehash what I wrote in the precious post I’ll share some highlights from the chapter and close with a quick thought.
The real victor of Waterloo was not the defeated Napoleon, or Wellington, who was so nearly defeated, or Blücher, who scarcely fought; it was Cambronne. Thus to defy the lightnings is to be victorious.
…[to] compress this victory in a single word that may not be spoken, losing the field but gaining history and at the end of carnage winning to one’s side the hosts of laughter - this is sublime.
… and now there was only Cambronne, the earthworm who still outfaced them, searching for a word as one may reach for a sword. The word was spat out of his mouth. He hurled his scorn at that prodigious, mediocre victory, that victory without victors, feeling its impact but knowing its hollowness. He did more than spit: borne down by the weight of numbers and material circumstance, he expressed in a word the spirit that transcends those things, and the word meant excrement. Let us repeat it, to do this was to conquer.
Cambronne’s expression of giant contempt was hurled not merely at Europe in the name of the Empire, which would have been little enough: it was hurled at the past in the name of the Revolution; it was Danton speaking, Klebér bellowing defiance.
Danton, orator of the revolution. Kléber, military general of the revolution. Both brought together here with one word by the last stand of Cambronne. ‘Merdre!’
Merdre? Merdre. Merdre!
Shit? Shit. Shit!