Les Misérables, v. 5. Victor Hugo

every man chooses his place, as at the theatre. They crowd, elbow, and shoulder one another, and some make stalls of paving-stones. Here an angle of the wall is in the way, and it is avoided; there is a redan which may offer protection, and they seek shelter in it. Left-handed men are precious, for they take places inconvenient for others. Many arrange so as to fight seated, for they wish to be at their ease to kill, and comfortable in dying. In the fatal war of June, 1848, an insurgent, who was a wonderful marksman, and who fought from a terraced roof, had a Voltaire easy-chair carried there, and was knocked over in it by a volley of grape-shot. So soon as the chief has given the signal for action all disorderly movements cease; there is no longer any sharp-shooting, any conversations or asides: all that minds contain converges, and is changed into the expectation of the assailant. A barricade before danger is a chaos, in danger discipline, for peril produces order. So soon as Enjolras had taken his double-barrelled gun, and placed himself at a species of parapet which he reserved for himself, all were silent; a quick, sharp crackling ran confusedly along the wall of paving-stones; it was the muskets being cocked. However, the attitudes were haughtier and more confident than ever, for an excess of sacrifice is a consolidation, and though they no longer had hope, they had despair, – despair, that last weapon, which at times gives victory, as Virgil tells us. Supreme resources issue from extreme resolutions. To embark on death is at times the means of escaping the shipwreck, and the cover of the coffin becomes a plank of salvation. As on the previous evening, all their attention was turned upon the end of the street, which was now lighted up and visible. They had not long to wait ere the movement began again, distinctly in the direction of St. Leu, but it did not resemble the sound of the first attack. A rattling of chains, the alarming rolling of a heavy weight, a clang of bronze leaping on the pavement, and a species of solemn noise, announced that a sinister engine was approaching; there was a tremor in the entrails of these old peaceful streets, pierced and built for the fruitful circulation of interests and ideas, and which are not made for the monstrous rolling of the wheels of war. The fixity of the eyes turned toward the end of the street became stern, as a cannon appeared. The gunners pushed the gun on; the limber was detached, and two men supported the carriage, while four were at the wheels; others followed with the tumbril, and the lighted match could be seen smoking.

      "Fire!" shouted Enjolras.

      The whole barricade burst into a flame, and the detonation was frightful; an avalanche of smoke covered and concealed the gun and the men. A few seconds after the cloud was dispersed, and the gun and the men reappeared; the gunners were bringing it up to the front of the barricade, slowly, correctly, and without hurry; not one had been wounded. Then the captain of the gun, hanging with his whole weight on the breech to elevate the muzzle, began pointing the gun with the gravity of an astronomer setting a telescope.

      "Bravo for the artillery!" cried Bossuet.

      And all the men at the barricade clapped their hands. A moment after the gun, standing in the very centre of the street across the gutter, was in position, and a formidable mouth yawned at the barricade.

      "Come, we are going to be gay," said Courfeyrac. "Here is the brutality; after the fillip the blow with the fist The army is extending its heavy paw toward us, and the barricade is going to be seriously shaken. The musketry-fire feels, and the cannon takes."

      "It is an eight-pounder of the new pattern in bronze," Combeferre added. "Those guns, if the proportion of ten parts of tin to one hundred of copper is exceeded, are liable to burst, for the excess of tin renders them too soft. It thus happens that have holes and cavities in the vent, and in order to obviate this danger and be able to load, it would perhaps be advisable to revert to the process of the 14th century, circling and reinforcing the gun with a series of steel rings, without any welding from the breech to the trunnions. In the mean while they remedy the defect as well as they can, and they manage to discover where the holes are in the vent of the gun by means of a searcher; but there is a better method in Gribeauval's movable star."

      "In the 16th century," Bossuet observed, "guns were rifled."

      "Yes," Combeferre replied; "that augments the ballistic force, but lessens the correctness of aim. At short distances the trajectory has not all the desirable rigidness, the parabola is exaggerated, the path of the projectile is not sufficiently rectilinear for it to hit intermediate objects, though that is a condition of fighting whose importance grows with the proximity of the enemy and the precipitation of the firing. This defective tension of the curve of the projectile in rifled cannon of the 16th century emanated from the weakness of the charge; weak charges for such engines are imposed by the ballistic necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation of the carriage. After all, the cannon, that despot, cannot do all that it wishes, and strength is a great weakness. A cannon-ball goes only six hundred leagues an hour, while light covers seventy thousand leagues per second. This is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."

      "Reload your guns," said Enjolras.

      In what manner would the revetment of the barricade behave against a cannon-ball? Would a breach be formed? That was the question. While the insurgents were reloading their guns the artillerymen loaded the cannon. The anxiety within the redoubt was profound; the shot was fired, and the detonation burst forth.

      "Present!" a joyous voice cried.

      And at the same time as the cannon-ball struck the barricade, Gavroche bounded inside it. He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne, and actively clambered over the accessory barricade which fronted the labyrinth of the Little Truanderie. Gavroche produced greater effect at the barricade than the cannon-ball did; for the latter was lost in the heap of rubbish. It had broken a wheel of the omnibus, and finished the old truck, on seeing which the insurgents burst into a laugh.

      "Persevere!" cried Bossuet to the gunners.

      CHAPTER VIII

      THE ARTILLERY SETS TO WORK IN EARNEST

      Gavroche was surrounded, but he had no time to report anything, as Marius, shuddering, drew him on one side.

      "What have you come to do here?"

      "What a question?" the boy said; "and you, pray?"

      And he gazed fixedly at Marius with his epic effrontery: his eyes were dilated by the proud brightness which they contained. It was with a stern accent that Marius continued, —

      "Who told you to return? I only trust that you have delivered my letter at its address."

      Gavroche felt some degree of remorse in the matter of the letter; for, in his hurry to return to the barricade, he had got rid of it rather than delivered it. He was forced to confess to himself that he had confided somewhat too lightly in this stranger, whose face he had not even been able to distinguish. It is true that this man was bareheaded, but that was not enough. In short, he reproached himself quietly for his conduct, and feared Marius's reproaches. He took the simplest process to get out of the scrape, – he told an abominable falsehood.

      "Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep, and she will have the letter when she wakes."

      Marius had two objects in sending the letter, – to bid Cosette farewell and save Gavroche. He was obliged to satisfy himself with one half of what he wanted. The connection between the Bending of the letter and M. Fauchelevent's presence at the barricade occurred to his mind, and he pointed him out to Gavroche.

      "Do you know that man?"

      "No," said Gavroche.

      Gavroche, in truth, as we know, had only seen Jean Valjean by night. The troubled and sickly conjectures formed in Marius's mind were dissipated. Did he know M. Fauchelevent's opinions? Perhaps he was a republican; hence his presence in the action would be perfectly simple. In the mean while Gavroche had run to the other end of the barricade, crying, "My gun!" and Courfeyrac ordered it to be given to him. Gavroche warned "his comrades," as he called them, that the barricade was invested, and he had found great difficulty in reaching it. A battalion of the line, with their arms piled in the Little Truanderie, was observing on the side of the Rue du Petit Cygne; on the opposite side the Municipal Guard occupied the Rue des Prêcheurs; while in front of them they had the main body of the army. This information given, Gavroche added, —

      "I authorize you to give them a famous pill."

      Enjolras