ABSTRACT
Wounded at Ligny on 16 June 1815, Cambronne remained with the colours, insisting on fighting at Waterloo two days later. His command, consisting of two battalions, was perhaps 1,200-strong, and held in reserve at Napoleon’s command post at the farm of Le Caillou the whole day. Legend has it that at battle’s close, Cambronne’s command – reduced to a single battalion – was arranged in a triangle, two ranks deep, and commenced a fighting
retreat, while the rest of the army fled. Invited to surrender by the British, Cambronne allegedly replied: ‘La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas!’ (The Guard dies but does not surrender!) He was then apparently shot down but miraculously survived. This version is endorsed by Victor Hugo in Les Misérables (1862): ‘Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan: Cambronne. To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man’s fault if he survived after he was shot.’
