Book One: Waterloo (Part Two: Cosette)
Chapter 1: What is met with on the Way from Nivelles, 20.88-21%
'Last year', May 1861, Hugo was walking from Nivelles to La Hulpe. It's all very picturesque. He stops to look at a hole in the wall, and a peasant woman tells him it's from a French cannon-ball, and that he's at Hougomont. Turns out "He was on the battle-field of Waterloo."
Chapter 2: Hougomont, 21-21.45%
Napoleon tried really really hard to take Hougomont from the English but couldn't (though they came very close). "The storm of the combat still lingers in the courtyard [...] it was only yesterday." There's a well full of skeletons in the courtyard, because lots of bodies were thrown into it after the battle. An old woman there still remembers hiding in the woods during the battle. In the orchard six men were trapped, but managed to hold out against 200 for about quarter of an hour.
Chapter 3: The Eighteenth of June, 1815, 21.45-21.63%
"If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th of June, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been different", because the muddy ground meant the battle wasn't started until 11.30, and so Blucher had time to turn up with reinforcements for the English. Napoleon was a big fan of artillery. Was this loss in part because Napoleon was past it? Hugo says no. His plan was great. This section isn't attempting to be a history of Waterloo by the way.
Chapter 4: A, 21.63-21.76%
To understand the layout of Waterloo, you need to imagine an A, where important locations are different points on the A. The plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean seems to have been where the main fighting happened. The English had a better position to start from.
Chapter 5: The Quid Obscurum of Battles, 21.76-21.97%
The sun never came out to dry the soil, so eventually they gave up waiting. From midday to 4 o'clock no-one actually knows exactly what was happening. People were wearing exciting clothes (inc. some Scots in kilts). "During the action the plans of the two leaders enter into each other and become mutually thrown out of shape." "The historian has, in this case, the evident right to sum up the whole. He cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, and it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be, to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called a battle. This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly applicable to Waterloo."
Chapter 6: Four o'clock in the Afternoon, 21.97-22.17%
At about 4 the English army's in trouble. Lots of people have died, including the Scots. "hold this spot to the last man" says Wellington. At about 4 the English army draws back, and Napoleon takes it for the beginning of retreat.
Chapter 7: Napoleon in a Good Humour, 22.17-22.54%
Napoleon's been in a really good mood all day, and is very confident (dangerously so, I'd say). Apparently he liked teasing and playing pranks on people. He rides around watching the battle, and tells his guide off for being scared of getting shot. The topography of the battlefield has since been totally changed in order to build a monument to the battle. But there used to be a trench there that was hard to see - a sunken road, 12 foot deep in places (you can tell this is going to end badly, can't you)
Chapter 8: The Emperor puts a Question to the Guide Lacoste, 22.54-22.71%
So Napoleon's happy, and rightly so, since he has a good battle plan. Lots of people have died, but he's not really bothered. He examines the battle field, trying to decide what to do next. He asks his guide something, and the man answers with a (probably dishonest) shake of his head. Napoleon sends a message to Paris announcing that the battle's won, then gives orders to charge across the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean.
Chapter 9: The Unexpected, 22.71-22.96%
The whole of the French army starts charging towards the English and it's very impressive. Meanwhile the English infantry form squares so as to resist as best they can. But suddenly this trench appears, and suddenly hundreds of horses and men are falling into it. Napoleon, it seems, had thought there might be some kind of road, though he couldn't see it, and had asked his guide. But the guide had said no. It was impossible for Napoleon to win the battle, because God had decided it was time for him to lose. "Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been decided on."
Chapter 10: The Plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, 22.96-23.29%
Those who made it past the trench began attacking the English. The most exposed infantry square, composed of Highlanders, went almost instantly. Wellington got his cavalry involved. Some very fierce fighting goes on for two hours. The English are gradually weakening (though the French aren't much better off). At 5 o'clock, just as Wellington mutters "Blucher, or night!"...Blucher turns up, because he has excellent dramatic timing. And changes the course of the battle.
Chapter 11: A Bad Guide to Napoleon; a Good Guide to Bulow, 23.29-23.40%
If the shepherd guiding Blucher's lieutenant hadn't him the way he did, the reinforcements probably wouldn't have got there in time to win the battle. Blucher had been delayed a lot. If the battle had started two hours earlier, he would have arrived to find the battle won by Napoleon.
Chapter 12: The Guard, 23.40-23.51%
"Every one knows the rest," we're told. People fought. The French army were very impressive but nevertheless they were losing ground. People fought bravely to the death. A French guy called Ney tried really hard to get himself killed but didn't manage it.
Chapter 13: The Catastrophe, 23.51-23.68%
"The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once". Very chaotic dispersal. Napoleon (and Ney) try to stop people, make them keep fighting, but they just continue running away. In a few places people do attempt to stand their ground, but they just get killed. This was a day of destiny. "The disappearance of the great man was necessary to the advent of the great century."
Chapter 14: The Last Square, 23.68-23.77%
"Several squares of the Guard...held their own until night" but were eventually killed, each isolated and alone. Towards 9pm there was one such square at the foot of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, commanded by an officer named Cambronne. They were very close to defeat when the English artillery stopped for breath, impressed by "those men dying so sublimely". An English general shouted to them "Surrender, brave Frenchmen!" and Cambronne replied "Merde!"
Chapter 15: Cambronne, 23.77-23.93%
This was "perhaps the finest reply a Frenchman ever made." Cambronne was the true victor at Waterloo. Seriously, this was the best thing anyone's ever said ever. "At that word from Cambronne, the English voice responded, "Fire!"". And they pretty much all got killed.
Chapter 16: Quot Libras in Duce?, 23.93-42.26%
No-one's really sure what exactly even happened at Waterloo. "the part played by men amounts to nothing" but luckily for England and Germany it's not their military successes that make them great. Napoleon and Wellington are opposites. Wellington does it by the book; Napoleon goes by instinct, intuition. "Wellington is classic war taking its revenge." However, "all our glorification goes to the English soldier, to the English army, to the English people." England wouldn't want to hear that though, because "She still cherishes...the feudal illusion." Lots of people died: about 41% of the 144,000 combatants. At night it can seem as if you can still see the battle going on.
Chapter 17: Is Waterloo to be considered Good?, 24.26-24.39%
"There exists a very liberal school which does not hate Waterloo. We do not belong to it." Waterloo was all the other countries joining up to deal with "that vast people which had been in eruption for twenty-six years". However, because the Empire had been despotic, "the Kingdom...was forced to be liberal". This "is because revolution cannot be really conquered". Revolution is progress, but it always reaches its goal strangely. But there was no intentional liberty in Waterloo. "On the 18th of June, 1815, the mounted Robespierre was hurled from his saddle."
Chapter 18: A Recrudescence of Divine Right, 24.39-24.57%
The monarchy returned with a vengeance. Everyone tried to act like the Revolution and the Empire had never been. But people were "at one and the same time, in love with the future, Liberty, and the past, Napoleon. Defeat had rendered the vanquished greater. Bonaparte fallen seemed more lofty than Napoleon erect. Those who had triumphed were alarmed... This terror was the result of the quantity of revolution which was contained in him. That is what explains and excuses Bonapartist liberalism."
Chapter 19: The Battle-Field at Night, 24.57-24.98%
On the night of the 19th of June, the moon was full. One of the hideous features of war is the looting of corpses. Some say this is done by soldiers of the winning army, but Hugo doesn't believe it. Every army has its hangers-on, who follow but do not belong. It's them who strip the dead bodies. Towards midnight one such man was moving about near the hollow road of Ohain - now no longer hollow because of being filled with bodies. He saw a gold ring on a hand, and removed it. Before he could move away, the hand grabbed his coat. He pulled the not-actually-dead body out of the pile. It was an officer, and the prowler promptly stole his Legion of Honour cross, his watch and his purse. The officer woke up and thanked the prowler for saving him. He asked his name and rank: Thenardier, sergeant. ""I shall not forget that name," said the officer; "and do you remember mine. My name is Pontmercy."