#hougomont

[lesmisscraper]

What is met with on the Way from Nivelles. Volume 2, Book 1, Chapter 1.

[narrativesketches]

Hugo: Les Miserables

Hougomont - a well:

On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left.  There are two in this courtyard.  One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley to this?  It is because water is no longer drawn there.  Why is water not drawn there?  Because it is full of skeletons.

The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van Kylsom.  He remained at Hougomont, "to guard the chateau," and concealed himself in the cellar.  The English discovered him there.  They tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of their swords.  They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water.  It was from this well that he drew it.  Many drank there their last draught.  This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die itself.

After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies.  Death has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow glory.  The typhus is a concomitant of triumph.  This well was deep, and it was turned into a sepulchre.  Three hundred dead bodies were cast into it.  With too much haste perhaps.  Were they all dead?  Legend says they were not.  It seems that on the night succeeding the interment, feeble voices were heard calling from the well.

[mescontemplations]

Cosette: Book 1: Chapter 5

Napoleon likes his artillery to move freely so he can point it as he likes. This freedom of movement is hindered by the rain, and therefore muddy battleground, so he waits for the ground to be dryer. 

Hougomont, which I talked about earlier, was to distract Wellington's attention, but the companies fought well there and the plan didn't work as well as hoped. Napoleon meant for it to make Wellington shift to the left ever so slightly, but instead he backed it up with very few numbers. 

The right side of the battle was going good, the left side, not so good. On the left, Hougomont was becoming a slaughter. On the right, Napoleon's plans succeeded with few difficulties. 

In the English army, there were many new recruits that though inexperienced, were bold. And ironically, in a way, demonstrated "French invention and French fury" (314). Wellington was not pleased. 

From noon to four, battle is "hazy" and lots of men and battalions are being poured in, but nothing really changes. Hugo says the historian has a right to abridge, and thank goodness he does, because everything before took place in only 25 minutes. 

[mescontemplations]

Cosette: Book 1: Chapter 1-2

Hugo speaks about himself in the third person. Again. He is travelling and passes and inn. He stops to examine a large hole in the wall when a peasant woman appears and tells him that a cannonball created it. He is at Waterloo. 

And then we fade back into a depiction of history at the battle of Hougomont. Jerome, brother of Napoleon was sent to fight. To me, it was confusing; neither side seemed to be doing well, although, in war, there is losses all around. 1500 men in one hour. The battle took place among a chateau, (now farmhouse). Since the battle, life in the village has not been as it was before. A well is there, although it is no longer in use because it was filled with skeletons from the battle. 300 corpses were thrown in post-battle; "Were they all dead? Tradition says no. It appears that on the night after the burial, feeble voices were heard calling out from the well" (306). Only one house remains inhabited (I'm assuming the one Hugo conversed with).

"Three thousand men, in this one ruin of Hougomont, sabered, slashed, slaughtered, shot, burned; and all so that today a peasant can say to a traveller, "Monsieur, give me three francs and I'll describe the Battle of Waterloo!'" (309). 

[xmcuallerdrake]

Brick!Club: 2.1.2 "Hougomont"

There are going to be two posts tonight; this is for yesterday, because I was a fail and didn't read.

Probably for the best, because yesterday I was a massive mess of barricade!feelings, and holy shit the barricade feelings that this chapter gave me, I can't even describe properly.

They start for me with:

This courtyard was more built up in 1815 than it is to-day.  Buildings which have since been pulled down, then formed redans and angles.

The English barricaded themselves there; the French made their way in, but could not stand their ground.

Because (a) the word barricade, and (b) the fact that there's a similar sort of difference between Paris-of-1832 and Paris-of-1861, because in '52, the streets of Paris were widened in order to make it easier to navigate armies through and therefore make it harder for armed insurrections to succeed (which also becomes a deterrent from them even happening).

Then there's the story of the six light-infantrymen who stood against 200 Hanoverians: "intrepid and with no shelter save the currant bushes, [they] took a quarter of an hour to die."  This is sounding more and more familiar on both sides of the battle, and I know I'm going to be a mess of feelings in the coming months.

And then the final fucking paragraph and its description of the horrors, and then:

-- and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the traveller: Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will explain to you the affair of Waterloo!

There's a tone here of the ultimate futility of violence, and how in the end it doesn't matter that these men died so, because all that we really care about is how the story of their suffering can benefit us -- not how we can even use it to stop such horrors from happening again -- monetarily.

Ouch, Hugo.  Ouch.

Next post will be coming shortly.