. . tout cela n'est plus et se heurte et combat encore; et les ravins
s'empourprent, et les arbres frissonnent, et il y a de la furie jusque
dans les nuees, et, dans les tenebres, toutes ces hauteurs farouches,
Mont-Saint Jean, Hougomont, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit,
apparaissent confusement couronnees de tourbillons de spectres
s'exterminant. (1)
Here is the whole battle scene in "L'Aiglon," with scarcely a gruesome
detail omitted. The vast plain glimmering in phantasmal light; the
ghostly squadrons hurling themselves against one another (seen only
through the eyes of the poor little Duke of Reichstadt); the mangled
shapes lying motionless in various postures of death upon the
blood-stained sward; the moans of the wounded rising up and sweeping by
like vague wailings of the wind--all this might be taken for an artful
appropriation of Victor Hugo's text; but I do not think it was, though
it is possible that a faint reflection of a brilliant page, read in
early youth, still lingered on the retina of M.
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