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WHAT YOU MEET IN COMING FROM NIVELLES

Hugo describes himself revisiting the Battlefield of Waterloo, in Belgium, in 1861. There the English had defeated Napoleon for the last time, forcing him to surrender. Hugo recalls the details of the battle. He admires the bravery and gallantry of both sides. Napoleon was a great general facing Wellington, a mediocre one, but Providence wanted Napoleon’s tyranny to end so that democracy could progress throughout Europe. Many minor circumstances and unexpected setbacks led to the Emperor’s defeat.

Hugo recalls the daring cavalry charge in which Marius’s father, Baron and Colonel Pontmercy, fell into a concealed sunken road with his horse, to be buried beneath other horses and men. Their bodies arched over him, preventing him from being crushed. The robber Thenardier inadvertently revived him and thus saved his life while stripping his body of all valuables.