Bab Bab 312 · PASSING GLEAMS

In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there

is a little of everything; there is bravery, there is youth, honor,

enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the rage of the gambler, and, above

all, intermittences of hope.

One of these intermittences, one of these vague quivers of hope

suddenly traversed the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie at the

moment when it was least expected.

“Listen,” suddenly cried Enjolras, who was still on the watch, “it

seems to me that Paris is waking up.”

It is certain that, on the morning of the 6th of June, the insurrection

broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy

of the alarm peal of Saint-Merry reanimated some fancies. Barricades

were begun in the Rue du Poirier and the Rue des Gravilliers. In front

of the Porte Saint-Martin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked

alone a squadron of cavalry. In plain sight, on the open boulevard, he

placed one knee on the ground, shouldered his weapon, fired, killed the

commander of the squadron, and turned away, saying: “There’s another

who will do us no more harm.”

He was put to the sword. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a woman fired on the

National Guard from behind a lowered blind. The slats of the blind

could be seen to tremble at every shot. A child fourteen years of age

was arrested in the Rue de la Cossonerie, with his pockets full of

cartridges. Many posts were attacked. At the entrance to the Rue

Bertin-Poirée, a very lively and utterly unexpected fusillade welcomed

a regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal General

Cavaignac de Barague. In the Rue Planche-Mibray, they threw old pieces

of pottery and household utensils down on the soldiers from the roofs;

a bad sign; and when this matter was reported to Marshal Soult,

Napoleon’s old lieutenant grew thoughtful, as he recalled Suchet’s

saying at Saragossa: “We are lost when the old women empty their pots

de chambre on our heads.”

These general symptoms which presented themselves at the moment when it

was thought that the uprising had been rendered local, this fever of

wrath, these sparks which flew hither and thither above those deep

masses of combustibles which are called the faubourgs of Paris,—all

this, taken together, disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to

stamp out these beginnings of conflagration.

They delayed the attack on the barricades Maubuée, de la Chanvrerie and

Saint-Merry until these sparks had been extinguished, in order that

they might have to deal with the barricades only and be able to finish

them at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets where there was

fermentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left,

now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge. The troops broke in the

doors of houses whence shots had been fired; at the same time,

manœuvres by the cavalry dispersed the groups on the boulevards. This

repression was not effected without some commotion, and without that

tumultuous uproar peculiar to collisions between the army and the

people. This was what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the

cannonade and the musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men passing

the end of the street in litters, and he said to Courfeyrac:—“Those

wounded do not come from us.”

Their hope did not last long; the gleam was quickly eclipsed. In less

than half an hour, what was in the air vanished, it was a flash of

lightning unaccompanied by thunder, and the insurgents felt that sort

of leaden cope, which the indifference of the people casts over

obstinate and deserted men, fall over them once more.

The general movement, which seemed to have assumed a vague outline, had

miscarried; and the attention of the minister of war and the strategy

of the generals could now be concentrated on the three or four

barricades which still remained standing.

The sun was mounting above the horizon.

An insurgent hailed Enjolras.

“We are hungry here. Are we really going to die like this, without

anything to eat?”

Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his embrasure, made an

affirmative sign with his head, but without taking his eyes from the

end of the street.