The battle was like a duel between two grievously wounded men, each with the blood draining out of him, neither willing to yield. the question was, which would be the first to fall? ⌠[The English] cried out for reinforcements, to which Wellington that there were none - âthey must fight till they dropâ. And at almost the same moment, by a coincidence which illustrates the exhaustion of both armies, Ney was asking Napoleon for infantry and Napoleon was exclaiming: âWhere does he think I can get any? Does he expect me to manufacture them?â
These two passages joined to together do a good job of representing the bulk of the chapter. A true âwar of attritionâ was under way and the cost in terms of human life was extremely high. Though Hugo here reduces the imagery to that of two men in a duel, obviously pointing us to Napoleon and Wellington as those men, we know that the reality was that the actual lives being lost were not theirs - they were the lives of men deemed expendable, men killing each other because they happened to represent different interests.
This whole section of the book does a fairly good job of pointing out the horrors of war, and the fact that much of the fate of thousands of soldiers is in the hands of a few powerful men who arenât actually risking their own lives. Thatâs all there under the surface, and when coupled with the larger context of the novel it is clear that Hugo sees all life as valuable.
The chapter ends with mention of a twinkling line of bayonets coming into view in the distance. We have reached a turning point in this clash on Mont-Saint-Jean.