England has been too modest in the matter of Wellington. To make
Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is nothing but
a hero like many another. Those Scotch Grays, those Horse Guards, those
regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt,
that cavalry of Ponsonby and Somerset, those Highlanders playing the
pibroch under the shower of grape-shot, those battalions of Rylandt,
those utterly raw recruits, who hardly knew how to handle a musket
holding their own against Essling's and Rivoli's old troops,--that is
what was grand. Wellington was tenacious; in that lay his merit, and we
are not seeking to lessen it: but the least of his foot-soldiers and of
his cavalry would have been as solid as he. The iron soldier is worth
as much as the Iron Duke. As for us, all our glorification goes to the
English soldier, to the English army, to the English people. If trophy
there be, it is to England that the trophy is due. The column of
Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore
on high the statue of a people.

But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She
still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion.
She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none
in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people. And
as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its
head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier, it
allows itself to be flogged.

It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a sergeant who
had, it appears, saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Paglan,
as the English military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the
grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports.

That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the nature of
Waterloo, is the marvellous cleverness of chance. A nocturnal rain, the
wall of Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon,
Napoleon's guide deceiving him, Bulow's guide enlightening him,--the
whole of this cataclysm is wonderfully conducted.

On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a massacre than of a
battle at Waterloo.

Of all pitched battles, Waterloo is the one which has the smallest front
for such a number of combatants. Napoleon three-quarters of a league;
Wellington, half a league; seventy-two thousand combatants on each side.
From this dens