Bab Bab 308 · EMPLOYMENT OF THE OLD TALENTS OF A POACHER AND THAT

INFALLIBLE MARKSMANSHIP WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONDEMNATION OF 1796

Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was

about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could not hold out

a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the

blows.

Enjolras issued this command:

“We must place a mattress there.”

“We have none,” said Combeferre, “the wounded are lying on them.”

Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post, at the corner of

the tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to that moment,

taken no part in anything that was going on. He did not appear to hear

the combatants saying around him: “Here is a gun that is doing

nothing.”

At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose.

It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble in the Rue de

la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the bullets, had placed her

mattress in front of her window. This window, an attic window, was on

the roof of a six-story house situated a little beyond the barricade.

The mattress, placed cross-wise, supported at the bottom on two poles

for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that

distance, looked like two threads, and which were attached to two nails

planted in the window frames. These ropes were distinctly visible, like

hairs, against the sky.

“Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?” said Jean Valjean.

Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him.

Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired.

One of the mattress ropes was cut.

The mattress now hung by one thread only.

Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes

of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and

fell into the street.

The barricade applauded.

All voices cried:

“Here is a mattress!”

“Yes,” said Combeferre, “but who will go and fetch it?”

The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between

besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeant of artillery

having exasperated the troop, the soldiers had, for several minutes,

been lying flat on their stomachs behind the line of paving-stones

which they had erected, and, in order to supply the forced silence of

the piece, which was quiet while its service was in course of

reorganization, they had opened fire on the barricade. The insurgents

did not reply to this musketry, in order to spare their ammunition. The

fusillade broke against the barricade; but the street, which it filled,

was terrible.

Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the

storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress, hoisted it upon his back,

and returned to the barricade.

He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixed it there

against the wall in such a manner that the artillery-men should not see

it.

That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot.

It was not long in coming.

The cannon vomited forth its package of buckshot with a roar. But there

was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen had been attained.

The barricade was saved.

“Citizen,” said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, “the Republic thanks you.”

Bossuet admired and laughed. He exclaimed:

“It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power. Triumph of

that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never

mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon!”