The spirit of the great past entered into this unknown man at this fatal moment. Cambronne finds the word of Waterloo just as Rouget de l'Isle finds the Marseillaise--by an inspiration from above. A magnetic current from the divine whirlwind passes through these men and they vibrate, and one sings the grand song, the other utters the terrible cry. This word of superhuman scorn Cambronne hurls not alone at Europe in the name of the Empire,--that would be little; he hurls it at the past in the name of the Revolution. In Cambronne is heard and is recognized the old soul of the giants. It seems as if it were Danton speaking or Kleber roaring. To this word of Cambronne's, the English voice replied, "Fire!" The batteries blazed, the hill trembled, from all these brazen mouths leaped a last fearful belching of grape, a dense cloud of smoke rolled forth silvered in waves by the rising moon, and when the smoke cleared away, there was nothing left there. This dreaded remnant was annihilated. The four walls of the living redoubt lay low, there being hardly perceptible here and there a quivering among the corpses; and thus the French legions, greater than those of Rome, died at Mont St. Jean, on the earth drenched with rain and blood, in the gloomy wheat-fields, at the spot where now there passes at four o'clock in the morning, whistling and gayly flicking his horse with the whip, Joseph, who drives the Nivelles mail-cart. CHAPTER XVI. QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE. The Battle of Waterloo is an enigma as obscure for those who gained it as for him who lost it. To Napoleon it is a panic; Blücher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington does not understand it at all. Look at the reports: the bulletins are confused; the commentaries are entangled; the latter stammer, the former stutter. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it into three acts; Charras, although we do not entirely agree with him in all his appreciations, has alone caught with his haughty eye the characteristic lineaments of this catastrophe of human genius contending with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from a certain bedazzlement in which they grope about. It was a flashing day; in truth, the overthrow of the military monarchy which, to the great stupor of the kings, has dragged down all kingdoms,--the downfall of strength and the rout of war.