3. Ruins of Chapel at Hougoumont, Waterloo - 11 Sept 1900 | Glass Plates
Having travelled to Waterloo in September 1900, the unknown photographer made his pilgrimage to the solemn memorials commemorating the deeds and deaths that occurred during the battle that raged here a little over eighty-five years previous.
These memorials are pictured in the first two glass plates. The first displays the regal Lion’s Mound that dominates the landscape; the construction of which altered the terrain to such a degree as to make it difficult to picture what the battlefield looked like on 18th June 1815. The second glass plate shows the Hanoverian and Gordon monuments, which flank the main road and commemorate the back-and-forth contest that took place at La Haye Sainte farm between the Seventh Coalition and Napoleon’s forces.
Moving away from formal memorials, this third glass plate shows the ruins of the chapel at Hougoumont. This stout stone sanctuary is the last surviving remnant of the original château that was consumed by the flames of battle.
The photographer labelled the image: “3. Ruins of Chapel at Hougomont, Waterloo – 11 Sept 1900”. It is the first portrait photograph of the collection. Within the frame it captures the ruins of the chapel with its exposed brickwork. Piled up beside the surviving sanctuary, on the left of the frame, there is the rubble of the once commanding château.
In front of the door to the chapel is a farmworker. As Robert Pocock has noted, this inclusion of a rural figure in photographs of Hougoumont is common in many postcards of the era. Although I do not know the motive behind this pictographic choice, it seems to me that the contrast between the ruined château and the contemporary working farm suggests the transience of the battle. There was a Hougoumont before the battle, there was the Hougoumont of the battle, and there is a Hougoumont today. By including a farmworker in this way, the image represents Hougoumont as not merely a historic former battlefield, but a place of life that survived it.
Nevertheless, when such a historic turning point occurs in a location, visitors and scholars alike wish to know primarily of a single day’s dramatic events – not those centuries of life before and after. I shall not claim to be any less exclusive in this article as I now move on to detailing a little about the chapel of Hougoumont’s role at the Battle of Waterloo.
Inferno at the Chapel of Hougoumont
As a defensible walled compound on Wellesley’s right flank, the Château d'Hougoumont had the misfortune, on that 18th June 1815, of being of singular importance to the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo. If the French captured Hougoumont as they did La Haye Sainte – albeit late in the day – then victory could have been theirs. Seeing this opportunity, Napoleon sought to draw the British to redirect troops to the farm’s defence, and then the French would sweep across the diminished left flank to win the day.
The Emperor threw scores of men at the farm in the morning, focused a notable portion of his artillery to bombarding it in the afternoon, and directed increasing resources towards its capture throughout the day. Many have observed that, with its relatively few British defenders, the farm served to drain the French forces rather than distract the British as Napoleon had planned.
The chapel was at the heart of this inferno.
As the fires ignited by Napoleon’s artillery consumed the château, the British used the attached chapel as a sanctuary for their wounded to shield them from the flames. During the battle, as the oft repeated tale goes, a miracle occurred on this consecrated ground. The flames, which destroyed the main structure, spared the chapel with fire only licking at the feet of Christ on the crucifix above the doorway. The chapel was spared from burning with the rest of the château, and this miracle protected those sheltering within.
Of course, it is not entirely surprising that a solid brick and stone structure that is only minimally furnished was left untouched by fire while the more ornate château burned. Nevertheless, to see the chapel still standing within Hougoumont gives the sense that it is an enduring survivor of the ravages of the battle. Whether one wishes to attribute its survival to luck or providence is up to them.
The story of this miracle within the chapel found a place in Victor Hugo imagination and was turned into this passage of Les Misérables:
“The flames filled this building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen; then it stopped,—a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the neighborhood.”
Hugo’s inclusion of the miracle suggests its lasting power amongst the ruins of Château d'Hougoumont.
As it so happens, the crucifix with its singed feet that attests to the halting of the flames has a tale of its own long after both the battle and this 1900 photograph of the exterior of the chapel.
The Chapel from 1900 to Now
Hougoumont remained in private hands until 2003. What structures the battle had spared, time had decayed. It was clear that it needed restoration, but to commit to such would be an endeavour that would require specialists ranging from builders and architects to archaeologists and sculptors. In 2012 a collective that included the current Duke of Wellington, historical fiction author Bernard Cornwell, and historian Richard Holmes took up this challenge.
In the intervening centuries, the crucifix had had its right leg plucked away by a souvenir hunter, and its troubles did not end there. In 2011 – a year before restoration was committed to – the crucifix itself was stolen. There was little expectation that it would return, and it was troubling to think of the restored Hougoumont being deprived of one of its most story laden artefacts.
It is a relief to say that this story has a happy ending because, in 2015, it was recovered and returned to its position above the chapel door. If one has a flare for the dramatic – which I often do – one could say that the crucifix had performed a second miracle nearly two centuries after its first.
Hougoumont was restored and opened as a heritage centre on the bicentenary of the battle on 18th June 2015. The chapel that one sees in the glass plate no longer sits beside a pile of rubble, and the fading whitewash that had revealed bare brick has been reapplied.
The final two glass plates that were taken at Hougoumont, Waterloo will be the subject of the next entry, and from there we can move further on the journey of the unknown photographer…
References
‘Crucifix from Hougoumont’, Age of Revolution <https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/crucifix-from-hougoumont/>
‘Hougoumont: A History in Postcards’ by Robert Pocock, G Troop Royal Horse Artillery (2016) <https://www.gtrooprha.co.uk/851>
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862), translation by Isabel F. Hapgood, Gutenberg (1994) <https://gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm>
1900 Glass Plates: This project explores a series of glass plates from the year 1900 with the eventual goal of travelling the same route as the photographer. It will be a varied journey that will stretch from simple blog posts examining each photo to videos and more. This project is in collaboration with photographer Aleksandar Nenad Zecevic, who’ll be restoring the photographs to bring out details dimmed by time. More to follow.
Read Another:
