What vexes me most, however, is the reflection that Arthur Wellington will be as immortal as Napoleon Bonaparte. Has not the name of Pontius Pilate in a similar way become as unforgettable as that of Christ? Wellington and Napoleon! It is a wonderful phenomenon that the human mind can think of both at the same time.
Thus Heinrich Heine, poet and Bonapartist, writing in 1828, on the caprice of History. Events had lent an epic lustre to Waterloo, elevating Wellington to Homeric status, where sober analysis should (he felt) have canonized the emperor only. Still, as Canadians could tell him, both the heroes of 1815 missed a trick, for both survived the battle. One can only wonder what history would have done with a Wellington slain in his hour of triumph, or with a Napoleon overthrown only because Fate, in the form of a cannonball, had intervened.
Jack Mitchell is a poet and novelist. His latest book is D, or 500 Aphorisms, Maxims, & Reflections (2017). He is an associate professor of classics at Dalhousie University.
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