by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER IX.
EMPLOYMENT OF THE POACHER'S OLD SKILL AND HIS UNERRING SHOT, WHICH HADAN INFLUENCE ON THE CONDEMNATION IN 1796.
Opinions varied in the barricade, for the firing of the piece was goingto begin again, and the barricade could not hold out for a quarter ofan hour under the grape-shot; it was absolutely necessary to abate thefiring. Enjolras gave the command.
"We must have a mattress here."
"We have none," said Combeferre; "the wounded are lying on them."
Jean Valjean, seated apart on a bench, near the corner of thewine-shop, with his gun between his legs, had not up to the presenttaken any part in what was going on. He did not seem to hear thecombatants saying around him, "There is a gun that does nothing." Onhearing the order given by Enjolras, he rose. It will be rememberedthat on the arrival of the insurgents in the Rue de la Chanvrerie,an old woman, in her terror of the bullets, placed her mattress infront of her window. This window, a garret window, was on the roofof a six-storied house, a little beyond the barricade. The mattress,placed across it, leaning at the bottom upon two clothes-props, washeld above by two ropes, which, at a distance, seemed two pieces ofpack-thread, and were fastened to nails driven into the frames of theroof. These cords could be distinctly seen on the sky, like hairs.
"Can any one lend me a double-barrelled gun?" Jean Valjean asked.
Enjolras, who had just reloaded his, handed it to him. Jean Valjeanaimed at the garret window and fired; one of the two cords of themattress was cut asunder, and it hung by only one thread. Jean Valjeanfired the second shot, and the second cord lashed the garret window;the mattress glided between the two poles and fell into the street Theinsurgents applauded, and every voice cried,--
"There is a mattress."
"Yes," said Combeferre, "but who will go and fetch it?"
The mattress, in truth, had fallen outside the barricade, between thebesiegers and besieged. Now, as the death of the sergeant of artilleryhad exasperated the troops, for some time past they had been lying flatbehind the pile of paving-stones which they had raised; and in order tomake up for the enforced silence of the gun, they had opened fire onthe barricade. The insurgents, wishing to save their ammunition, didnot return this musketry: the fusillade broke against the barricade,but the street which it filled with bullets was terrible. Jean Valjeanstepped out of the gap, entered the street, traversed the hail ofbullets, went to the mattress, picked it up, placed it on his back, andre-entering the barricade, himself placed the mattress in the gap,and fixed it against the wall, so that the gunners should not see it.This done, they waited for the next round, which was soon fired. Thegun belched forth its canister with a hoarse roar, but there was noricochet, and the grape-shot was checked by the mattress. The expectedresult was obtained, and the barricade saved.
"Citizen," Enjolras said to Jean Valjean, "the republic thanks you."
Bossuet admired, and laughingly said,--
"It is immoral for a mattress to have so much power: it is the triumphof that which yields over that which thunders. But no matter, glory tothe mattress that annuls a cannon!"
