# What Is Met with on the Way from Nivelles explained — Les Misérables

> Chapter companion for Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

## What happens

In 1861, the narrator travels on foot from Nivelles to La Hulpe, passing through the countryside. He stops at a place called Hougomont, where a peasant woman shows him a cannonball hole from the Battle of Waterloo. He then sees a distant lion-shaped monument and realizes he is on the battlefield of Waterloo.

## Themes in this chapter

### The Human Condition and Fate

The narrator's journey to the battlefield of Waterloo evokes the enduring impact of historical events on the landscape and human memory.

## Key lines

> It was a French cannonball which made that.

A French cannonball created that hole.

_The peasant woman explains the origin of the hole in the door at Hougomont._

> He was on the battlefield of Waterloo.

He had arrived at the site of the Battle of Waterloo.

_The narrator recognizes the location as the famous battlefield._

## Links

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