Les Misérables, Chapter 17 summary

What happens

1. The narrator rejects the liberal view that Waterloo deserves acceptance and describes the battle as a blow against liberty.
2. He identifies the victory with European monarchies seeking to suppress France’s revolutionary movement.
3. He argues that revolution survives through both Bonaparte’s attacks on old thrones and Louis XVIII’s constitutional concessions.
4. Foy’s movement from soldier to orator illustrates how progress turns military defeat toward political expression.
5. The counterrevolution threatens France with dismemberment but retreats toward a charter when it encounters revolutionary strength in Paris.
6. The narrator concludes that Waterloo contains no intentional support for liberty, despite its unintended liberal effects.

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