Chapter Chapter 306 · 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

crossroads, 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 Mondétour 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 Mondétour, 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 reappeared; 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.