Chapter 61 the giant

one I finally came to Waterloo.On the afternoon of June 18, 1815, a male lion fell here.The European royal family breathed a sigh of relief, and lifted their proud steps from here again. A hill is piled up on the ruins of the ancient battlefield, and on the top of the hill is a mighty iron lion.But this iron lion does not commemorate the male lion, but rather, commemorates his uniform. The soil on the hills was all taken from the battlefield, and this small two kilometers was crowded with hundreds of thousands of people fighting, and every inch was soaked in blood.General Wellington, who had just won at that time, sighed and said: Victory is the greatest tragedy besides failure!

The hill was built by the women of Liege because they supported Napoleon, which is punishing labor. Why should women be the only ones to undertake this labor?The men who said it was them were receiving a greater punishment.But it seems to me that it is out of the remaining jealousy of the winners for the loser.Jealousy among men is often related to women, so they will inevitably let them who have supported him and admired him confirm his failure, which may be the greatest humiliation to him. The women hold up the soil with their soft hands, how can they tell the winner and loser?I only know that this is a man's blood, this is not dry soil.Add a few drops of our tears and mix it in, we know what this hill means.

two The site of the Waterloo battlefield was naturally preserved and restored by the victors of the year, but it is strange that almost all the tourists worship in their hearts the loser on the white horse.The memorial hill has more than two hundred high steps, and even children are climbing there step by step.A group of Belgian elementary school students all climbed to the top. When asked, they only knew Napoleon, but not Wellington.They are children, and they are not French.Therefore, the intention to build this hill back then has all failed. In the past, we were used to dividing wars into just and unjust. It is easy to say, but things are actually much more complicated than this division.It is easier to manage wars with a clear distinction between right and wrong like World War II, but it is a little troublesome to divide them in World War I.If you can't tell the difference, say it's a dog biting a dog, then most of the ancient battlefields will become a bark of dogs, with few traces of people to be found.

If the two sides in the war do not cross the bottom line of human justice, then as time goes by, only the comparison of wills, the competition of ingenuity, and the confrontation of personalities will be left, which will become the eternal theme of speech and writing. The horseshoe gunpowder in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is so long remembered by Su Dongpo, and Luo Guanzhong narrates it so eloquently, only because it is already a battle in the aesthetic sense. The reason why the Battle of Waterloo is different from the Dunkirk retreat and the Normandy landing is that neither side has surpassed human axioms, so both have become aesthetic objects for future generations.Once the aesthetics begins, victory or defeat immediately takes a backseat. People pay attention to the vision of personality. Even the setting sun of a horse and the roar of the wilderness alone will be shrouded in tragic beauty.Therefore, Napoleon has a huge advantage over Wellington, which is just the opposite of winning or losing.

The aesthetic psychological curve is a long parabola, starting with a singular strength worthy of attention.People have been paying attention to Napoleon for a long time, especially the legend that he went straight from the exiled island to Paris to regain the throne. Even those who don't like him will be amazed.Waterloo was just one end of that beautiful itinerary.Poor Wellington, although victorious, there are only points and no lines.Who has such good eyesight to focus on a solitary point, so it is no wonder that the Belgian elementary school students do not know him, but instead climb the high slope of his victory to miss his defeated opponent.

In fact, it’s not just today’s elementary school students. Even if the war is not long, even if they are not French, when everyone talks about Waterloo, it has already been used as a word representing failure.It can be seen that people regard Napoleon as the main body and unconsciously stand on his side. Aristotle said that poetry is more real and more universal than history.The poetry he refers to generally refers to aesthetic behavior.Primary school students have not yet had time to learn history, but they have already accepted social aesthetic inheritance. It can be seen that Waterloo in history and Waterloo in poetry belong to two categories. When the two categories are added together, they complement each other and make this place a permanent tourist attraction.

There is a house in the Waterloo site where Hugo conceived "Les Miserables", so Waterloo in the poem also has a command front of its own. When Hugo mentioned Napoleon, he always chanted that giant, that giant over and over again. In fact, the one who made this voice was also a giant.That giant didn't know that there would be a cultural giant behind him who would pay so much attention to him, and this attention would send him grandly into another history, with generations of viewers flocking to him.