ABSTRACT
When Hugo traveled to the site of Waterloo seeking inspiration for the final stages of Les Misérables, he was acutely aware of what it meant to be drawing from this lieu de mémoire. In Les Misérables he transfigures the site of the battle, so that it is haunted not only by the mythology it possessed within France’s collective memory but also by the ghosts of the mythical epic warriors whom Hugo invoked to people his vision. In the summer of 1861 he wrote to his son François-Victor: “And so I have come to study this adventure on the ground and to pit the legend against reality. What I will say will be true. Of course it will only be my sense of what’s true. But each of us can only give his version of reality. Furthermore, I cannot think of anything more moving than wandering through this benighted plain” [“Je suis donc venu étudier cette aventure sur le terrain, et confronter la légende avec la réalité. Ce que je dirai sera vrai. Ce ne sera sans doute que mon vrai à moi. Mais chacun ne peut donner que la réalité qu’il a. Du reste, je ne sache rien de plus émouvant que la flânerie dans ce champ sinistre”; OCM XII, 1117].
