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THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED
The daylight was increasing rapidly.
Not a window was opened, not a door stood ajar; it was the
dawn but not the awaking. The end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie,
opposite the barricade, had been evacuated by the troops, as we
have stated it seemed to be free, and presented itself to passers-by
with a sinister tranquillity. The Rue Saint-Denis was as dumb
as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being in the
cross-roads, which gleamed white in the light of the sun.
Nothing is so mournful as this light in deserted streets.
Nothing was to be seen, but there was something to be heard. A
mysterious movement was going on at a certain distance. It was
evident that the critical moment was approaching.
As on the previous evening, the sentinels had come in; but
this time all had come.
The barricade was stronger than on the occasion of the first
attack. Since the departure of the five, they had increased its
height still further.
On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region
of the Halles, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came
to a serious decision.
He had the small gut of the Mondetour lane, which had been
left open up to that time, barricaded.
For this purpose, they tore up the pavement for the length
of several houses more. In this manner, the barricade, walled
on three streets, in front on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, to the
left on the Rues du Cygne and de la Petite Truanderie, to the
right on the Rue Mondetour, was really almost impregnable; it
is true that they were fatally hemmed in there. It had three fronts,
but no exit.--"A fortress but a rat hole too," said
Courfeyrac with a laugh.
Enjolras had about thirty paving-stones "torn up in excess,"
said Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wine-shop.
The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the
attack must needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his
post of battle.
An allowance of brandy was doled out to each.
Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an
assault. Each man selects his place as though at the theatre.
They jostle, and elbow and crowd each other.
There are some who make stalls of paving-stones. Here is a
corner of the wall which is in the way, it is removed; here is
a redan which may afford protection, they take shelter behind
it.
Left-handed men are precious; they take the places that are
inconvenient to the rest.
Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture.
They wish to be at ease to kill, and to die comfortably.
In the sad war of June, 1848, an insurgent who was a formidable
marksman, and who was firing from the top of a terrace upon a
roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for his use; a charge
of grape-shot found him out there.
As soon as the leader has given the order to clear the decks
for action, all disorderly movements cease; there is no more pulling
from one another; there are no more coteries; no more asides,
there is no more holding aloof; everything in their spirits converges
in, and changes into, a waiting for the assailants.
A barricade before the arrival of danger is chaos; in danger,
it is discipline itself. Peril produces order.
As soon as Enjolras had seized his double-barrelled rifle,
and had placed himself in a sort of embrasure which he had reserved
for himself, all the rest held their peace.
A series of faint, sharp noises resounded confusedly along
the wall of paving-stones. It was the men cocking their guns.
Moreover, their attitudes were prouder, more confident than
ever; the excess of sacrifice strengthens; they no longer cherished
any hope, but they had despair, despair,--the last weapon, which
sometimes gives victory; Virgil has said so.
Supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions.
To embark in death is sometimes the means of escaping a shipwreck;
and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank of safety.
As on the preceding evening, the attention of all was directed,
we might almost say leaned upon, the end of the street, now lighted
up and visible.
They had not long to wait.
A stir began distinctly in the Saint-Leu quarter, but it did
not resemble the movement of the first attack. A clashing of chains,
the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click of brass skipping along
the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar, announced that some sinister
construction of iron was approaching. There arose a tremor in
the bosoms of these peaceful old streets, pierced and built for
the fertile circulation of interests and ideas, and which are
not made for the horrible rumble of the wheels of war.
The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity
of the street became ferocious.
A cannon made its appearance.
Artillery-men were pushing the piece; it was in firing trim;
the fore-carriage had been detached; two upheld the gun-carriage,
four were at the wheels; others followed with the caisson. They
could see the smoke of the burning lint-stock.
"Fire!" shouted Enjolras.
The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche
of smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men; after a few
seconds, the cloud dispersed, and the cannon and men re-appeared;
the gun-crew had just finished rolling it slowly, correctly, without
haste, into position facing the barricade.
Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain of the piece,
bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, began
to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling
a telescope.
"Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet.
And the whole barricade clapped their hands.
A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the
street, astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action.
A formidable pair of jaws yawned on the barricade.
"Come, merrily now!" ejaculated Courfeyrac.
"That's the brutal part of it.
After the fillip on the nose, the blow from the fist. The
army is reaching out its big paw to us.
The barricade is going to be severely shaken up.
The fusillade tries, the cannon takes."
"It is a piece of eight, new model, brass," added
Combeferre. "Those pieces are liable to burst as soon as
the proportion of ten parts of tin to one hundred of brass is
exceeded.
The excess of tin renders them too tender.
Then it comes to pass that they have caves and chambers when
looked at from the vent hole.
In order to obviate this danger, and to render it possible
to force the charge, it may become necessary to return to the
process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and to encircle the
piece on the outside with a series of unwelded steel bands, from
the breech to the trunnions. In the meantime, they remedy this
defect as best they may; they manage to discover where the holes
are located in the vent of a cannon, by means of a searcher.
But there is a better method, with Gribeauval's movable star."
"In the sixteenth century," remarked Bossuet, "they
used to rifle cannon."
"Yes," replied Combeferre, "that augments the
projectile force, but diminishes the accuracy of the firing.
In firing at short range, the trajectory is not as rigid as
could be desired, the parabola is exaggerated, the line of the
projectile is no longer sufficiently rectilinear to allow of its
striking intervening objects, which is, nevertheless, a necessity
of battle, the importance of which increases with the proximity
of the enemy and the precipitation of the discharge. This defect
of the tension of the curve of the projectile in the rifled cannon
of the sixteenth century arose from the smallness of the charge;
small charges for that sort of engine are imposed by the ballistic
necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation of the gun-carriage.
In short, that despot, the cannon, cannot do all that it desires;
force is a great weakness.
A cannon-ball only travels six hundred leagues an hour; light
travels seventy thousand leagues a second.
Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."
"Reload your guns," said Enjolras.
How was the casing of the barricade going to behave under
the cannon-balls? Would they effect a breach?
That was the question. While the insurgents were reloading
their guns, the artillery-men were loading the cannon.
The anxiety in the redoubt was profound.
The shot sped the report burst forth.
"Present!" shouted a joyous voice.
And Gavroche flung himself into the barricade just as the
ball dashed against it.
He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne, and he had
nimbly climbed over the auxiliary barricade which fronted on the
labyrinth of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie.
Gavroche produced a greater sensation in the barricade than
the cannon-ball.
The ball buried itself in the mass of rubbish.
At the most there was an omnibus wheel broken, and the old
Anceau cart was demolished. On seeing this, the barricade burst
into a laugh.
"Go on!" shouted Bossuet to the artillerists.
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