With Baudelaire in Brussels, #11
The poet is irritated by the local station master and a tour guide. He sees where the Marquess of Anglesey lost his leg.
To mark the 160th anniversary of Georges Barral’s trip to Brussels and his five-day visit with the poet Charles Baudelaire, I am publishing my translation of the first four days from his memoir on Substack. You can find the previous instalments here.
The station master tells us that Hal is situated a fair distance away from the village of Mont-Saint-Jean and from the plains of Waterloo where we wish to go. But he says there are several coach operators located outside the exit gate who can take us there. He tells us that we will not see many English or Germans here, as it is mostly the French who take this route.
“If you have half an hour to spare, I recommend visiting our little town. Go and see our perfectly Gothic church and the Black Virgin that Mr. Victor Rugo often came to visit with his friends who had been exiled from France. He used to like to count the number of cannonballs that had struck Notre Dame de Hal church while the village was under siege. It saved the inhabitants. No one has ever managed to determine the exact number, but it is assumed to be about thirty-three. Indeed, a miracle occurs every time a foreigner counts the cannonballs. The Black Virgin multiplies them in order to tease and and puzzle the curious. After this little tour of the town, you will be taken promptly to Mont-Saint-Jean and to the Hôtel des Colonnes, where Mr. Victor Rugo lived.”
Baudelaire jumps in and corrects him, saying “Hugo! Hugo!”
“That’s right,” continues the station master, unperturbed. “That is what I said, Mr. Rugo. He wasn’t a proud man. Quite portly, he would speak with all of the villagers in order to acquire details and put their responses down in his big book. He often spoke with me, standing right where you are now, and we would go and drink a glass of our strong beer that we call The Devil. This is because Satan was sent to Hal, but was chased off by the Black Virgin, and he hid himself inside a keg. It will give you the strength to walk to Waterloo, I can tell you!”
Baudelaire grows impatient. He thanks the man coolly and declines the offer of a drink (even if it is a Devil) and, with a slight nod of his head, turns his back.
“There is celebrity for you,” he says to me as we walk away. “You are named Hugo and posterity pronounces it as Rugo! People remember, but they distort. The boy at my hotel never says Napoléon, but Bolleyon!”
We decide to make part of the journey by carriage and part by foot. We climb aboard a small, open topped waggon equipped with wooden benches. We cross the railway tracks and head into the open countryside, carried off at a brisk trot by a Brabant stallion. The fresh air envelopes us. The sky was slightly hazy when we left Brussels, but now it it is a clear blue – not an azure blue, but the milky blue common to northern regions. The sun shines and the warm beams fall upon our shoulders. Baudelaire seems happy. His nostrils flare, and he studies the countryside in silence. After travelling for an hour, we decide to finish the rest of the trip on foot, for the distance is fairly short.
Baudelaire jumps nimbly to the ground, and we walk side by side. My companion continues his internal reverie, loudly breathing in the fields’ heavy fragrance. I respect his quiet mood and use the occasion to observe him. I am struck by his resemblance to Bonaparte. Like the First Consul, he is beardless. His forehead is wide, slightly bulging, and uncovered. His eyes are cold and penetrating, and they glint like steel. His nose is prominent and his nostrils tremble. There are small folds at the corners of his thin, disdainful lips. His pronounced chin juts out. There are deep wrinkles on his olive toned face. His movements are jerky, but determined.
The folds of his long, elegant cloak flap in the wind, and he walks with ease. His entire person is full of distinction, like an English aristocrat but softened by French charm.
We reach Waterloo-Mont-Saint-Jean. A man pesters us, offering to be our guide, and to satisfy him we accept. We do so on the condition that he keep quiet, and especially not speak to us in English, for he mispronounces the language brutally. Baudelaire becomes even more upset when the man offers us a choice of Dutch or German.
An alert and graceful young lady passes us on her way back from Mont-Saint-Jean. She is wearing a tiny sailor’s hat, and carries a Baedeker guide book in her gloved hand. In a pure British accent that delights Baudelaire, she advises us to go up a little way to the left, to Waterloo itself, in order to see the house where Wellington spent the night and drafted his victory communiqué. The girl pays such attention to Baudelaire that she may have taken him for a compatriot (for he speaks English perfectly). We follow the advice that has been given to us.
We soon reach the Grand’Place in Waterloo. From there, our guide takes us to a strange little house. In front of an oval table that furnishes one of the small rooms on the ground floor, he explains that it was here that they operated upon the English Marquess of Anglesey, whose left leg had been injured at the knee in a cavalry charge. The limb had to be cut off immediately in order to prevent gangrene from setting in, and the marquis submitted to the amputation without a complaint while humming Rule Britannia. “Throw it on the dung heap,” he said coolly after the operation had been completed.
In order to commemorate the event, a marble plaque has been affixed to the wall with a pompous epitaph that made us smile. Confronted with this gibberish, Baudelaire says that, despite the poverty of the rhyme, he much prefers the couplets carved on the tomb of Count Rantzau, Marshall of France:
Of great Rantzau’s body you have but partial remains
The other pieces lie buried on battlefield plainsIt is true, he adds, that this old soldier lost an eye, an ear, an arm, and a leg in successive battles during the Thirty Years War.
Nearby, we go to look at the bed where Wellington slept peacefully, and the table upon which he wrote his report of the battle, ate with good appetite, and drank moderately, as was his custom. Having finished our visit, we dismissed our obsequious guide. He left us, saying in English, “Thank you, gentlemen!” Baudelaire lifted his hat to him, a grand and ironic gesture. The guide showed him the route to take and added another three English words: “All right, milord!” He did, in fact, have one of the great lords of French literature before him.
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Well! I had no idea that Baudelaire spoke English perfectly.