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AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP
Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:--
"Here's the street in its low-necked dress!
How well it looks!"
Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent,
sought to console the widowed proprietress.
"Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other
day because you had had a notice served on you for infringing
the law, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of your window?"
"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac.
Ah! good Heavens, are you going to put that table of mine
in your horror, too?
And it was for the counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers
which fell from the attic window into the street, that the government
collected a fine of a hundred francs.
If that isn't an abomination, what is!"
"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you."
Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly
the benefit which she was to derive from these reprisals made
on her account.
She was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who,
having received a box on the ear from her husband, went to complain
to her father, and cried for vengeance, saying: "Father,
you owe my husband affront for affront."
The father asked: "On which cheek did you receive the
blow?"
"On the left cheek." The father slapped her right
cheek and said:
"Now you are satisfied. Go tell your husband that he
boxed my daughter's ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his
wife's."
The rain had ceased.
Recruits had arrived.
Workmen had brought under their blouses a barrel of powder,
a basket containing bottles of vitriol, two or three carnival
torches, and a basket filled with fire-pots, "left over from
the King's festival." This festival was very recent, having
taken place on the 1st of May. It was said that these munitions
came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pepin.
They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie,
the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all
the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondetour, du Cygne,
des Precheurs, and de la Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie.
Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything.
Two barricades were now in process of construction at once,
both of them resting on the Corinthe house and forming a right
angle; the larger shut off the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the other
closed the Rue Mondetour, on the side of the Rue de Cygne.
This last barricade, which was very narrow, was constructed
only of casks and paving-stones. There were about fifty workers
on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their way, they had
effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop.
Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley
than this troop.
One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holster-pistols,
another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat, and a powder-horn
slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray
paper and was armed with a saddler's awl. There was one who was
shouting:
"Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at the
point of our bayonet."
This man had no bayonet. Another spread out over his coat
the cross-belt and cartridge-box of a National Guardsman, the
cover of the cartridge-box being ornamented with this inscription
in red worsted:
Public Order. There were a great many guns bearing the numbers
of the legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes.
Add to this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young
men, and bronzed longshoremen.
All were in haste; and as they helped each other, they discussed
the possible chances.
That they would receive
succor about three o'clock in the morning--that they were sure
of one regiment, that Paris would rise.
Terrible sayings with which was mingled a sort of cordial
joviality.
One would have pronounced them brothers, but they did not
know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic,
that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
A fire had been lighted in the kitchen, and there they were
engaged in moulding into bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks,
and all the brass table-ware of the establishment. In the midst
of it all, they drank.
Caps and buckshot were mixed pell-mell on the tables with
glasses of wine.
In the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte,
variously modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered
another breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old
dish-cloths and making lint; three insurgents were assisting them,
three bushy-haired, jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who
plucked away at the linen with the fingers of seamstresses and
who made them tremble.
The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and
Enjolras had observed at the moment when he joined the mob at
the corner of the Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller
barricade and was making himself useful there.
Gavroche was working on the larger one.
As for the young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at
his lodgings, and who had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared
at about the time when the omnibus had been overturned.
Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken
to get everything in readiness.
He went, came, mounted, descended, re-mounted, whistled, and
sparkled.
He seemed to be there for the encouragement of all.
Had he any incentive?
Yes, certainly, his poverty; had he wings? yes, certainly,
his joy.
Gavroche was a whirlwind.
He was constantly visible, he was incessantly audible. He
filled the air, as he was everywhere at once.
He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity; no halt was possible
with him. The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches.
He troubled the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated
the weary, he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired
gayety in some, and breath in others, wrath in others, movement
in all, now pricking a student, now biting an artisan; he alighted,
paused, flew off again, hovered over the tumult, and the effort,
sprang from one party to another, murmuring and humming, and harassed
the whole company; a fly on the immense revolutionary coach.
Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor
in his little lungs.
"Courage! more paving-stones! more casks! more machines!
Where are you now?
A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with! Your barricade
is very small.
It must be carried up.
Put everything on it, fling everything there, stick it all
in.
Break down the house. A barricade is Mother Gibou's tea.
Hullo, here's a glass door."
This elicited an exclamation from the workers.
"A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass
door, tubercle?"
"Hercules yourselves!" retorted Gavroche.
"A glass door is an excellent thing in a barricade.
It does not prevent an attack, but it prevents the enemy taking
it.
So you've never prigged apples over a wall where there were
broken bottles?
A glass door cuts the corns of the National Guard when they
try to mount on the barricade. Pardi! glass is a treacherous thing.
Well, you haven't a very wildly lively imagination, comrades."
However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol.
He went from one to another, demanding:
"A gun, I want a gun!
Why don't you give me a gun?"
"Give you a gun!" said Combeferre.
"Come now!" said Gavroche, "why not?
I had one in 1830 when we had a dispute with Charles X."
Enjolras shrugged his shoulders.
"When there are enough for the men, we will give some
to the children."
Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered:--
"If you are killed before me, I shall take yours."
"Gamin!" said Enjolras.
"Greenhorn!" said Gavroche.
A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end
of the street created a diversion!
Gavroche shouted to him:--
"Come with us, young fellow! well now, don't we do anything
for this old country of ours?"
The dandy fled.
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