Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Victor Hugo

  The gun went off; the detonation burst upon them.

  “Present!” cried a cheerful voice.

  And at the same time with the ball, Gavroche tumbled into the barricade.

  He came by way of the Rue du Cygne, and he had nimbly clambered over the minor barricade, which fronted upon the labyrinth of the Petite Truanderie.

  Gavroche produced more effect in the barricade than the ball.

  The ball lost itself in the jumble of the rubbish. At the very utmost it broke a wheel of the omnibus, and finished the old Anceau cart. Seeing which, the barricade began to laugh.

  “Proceed,” cried Bossuet to the gunners.

  7 (8)

  THE GUNNERS PRODUCE A SERIOUS IMPRESSION

  THEY surrounded Gavroche.

  But he had no time to tell anything. Marius, shuddering, took him aside.

  “What have you come here for?”

  “Hold on!” said the boy. “What have you come for?”

  And he looked straight at Marius with his epic effrontery. His eyes grew large with the proud light which was in them.

  Marius continued, in a stern tone:

  “Who told you to come back? At least you carried my letter to its address?”

  Gavroche had some little remorse in relation to that letter. In his haste to return to the barricade, he had got rid of it rather than delivered it. He was compelled to acknowledge to himself that he had intrusted it rather rashly to that stranger, whose face even he could not distinguish. True, this man was bareheaded, but that was not enough. On the whole, he had some little interior remonstrances on this subject, and he feared Marius’ reproaches. He took, to get out of the trouble, the simplest course; he lied abominably.

  “Citizen, I carried the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep. She will get the letter when she wakes up.”

  Marius, in sending this letter, had two objects: to say farewell to Cosette, and to save Gavroche. He was obliged to be content with the half of what he intended.

  The sending of his letter, and the presence of M. Fauchelevent in the barricade, this coincidence occurred to his mind. He pointed out M. Fauchelevent to Gavroche.

  “Do you know that man?”

  “No,” said Gavroche.

  Gavroche, in fact, as we have just mentioned, had only seen Jean Valjean in the night.

  The troubled and sickly conjectures which had arisen in Marius’ mind were dissipated. Did he know M. Fauchelevent’s opinions? M. Fauchelevent was a republican, perhaps. Hence his very natural presence in this conflict.

  Meanwhile Gavroche was already at the other end of the barricade, crying: “My musket!”

  Courfeyrac ordered it to be given him.

  Gavroche warned his “comrades,” as he called them, that the barricade was surrounded. He had had great difficulty in getting through. A battalion of the line whose muskets were stacked in la Petite Truanderie, were observing the side on the Rue du Cygne; on the opposite side the municipal guard occupied the Rue des Precheurs. In front, they had the bulk of the army.

  Meanwhile Enjolras, on his battlement, was watching, listening with intense attention.

  The assailants, dissatisfied doubtless with the effect of their fire, had not repeated it.

  A company of infantry of the line had come in and occupied the extremity of the street, in the rear of the gun. The soldiers tore up the pavement, and with the stones constructed a little low wall, a sort of breastwork, which was hardly more than eighteen inches high, and which fronted the barricade. At the corner on the left of this breastwork, they saw the head of the column of a battalion of the banlieue massed in the Rue St.-Denis.

  Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound which is made when canisters of grapeshot are taken from the caisson, and he saw the gunner change the aim and incline the piece slightly to the left. Then the cannoneers began to load. The gunner seized the linstock himself and brought it near the touch-hole.

  “Heads down, keep close to the wall!” cried Enjolras, “and all on your knees along the barricade!”

  The insurgents, who were scattered in front of the tavern, and who had left their posts of combat on Gavroche’s arrival, rushed pell-mell towards the barricade; but before Enjolras’ order was executed, the discharge took place with the fearful rattle of grapeshot. It was so in fact.

  The charge was directed at the opening of the redoubt, it ricocheted upon the wall, and this terrible ricochet killed two men and wounded three.

  If that continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. It was not proof against grapeshot.

  There was a sound of consternation.

  “Let us prevent the second shot, at any rate,” said Enjolras.

  And, lowering his carbine, he aimed at the gunner, who, at that moment, bending over the breech of the gun, was correcting and finally adjusting the aim.

  This gunner was a fine-looking sergeant of artillery, quite young, of fair complexion, with a very mild face, and the intelligent air peculiar to that predestined and formidable arm which, by perfecting itself in horror, must end in killing war.

  Combeferre, standing near Enjolras, looked at this young man.

  “What a pity!” said Combeferre. “What a hideous thing these butcheries are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war. Enjolras, you are aiming at that sergeant, you are not looking at him. Just think that he is a charming young man; he is intrepid; you see that he is a thinker; these young artillery-men are well educated; he has a father, a mother, a family; he is in love probably; he is at most twenty-five years old; he might be your brother.”

  “He is,” said Enjolras.

  “Yes,” said Combeferre, “and mine also. Well, don’t let us kill him.”

  “Let me alone. We must do what we must.”

  And a tear rolled slowly down Enjolras’ marble cheek.

  At the same time he pressed the trigger of his carbine. The flash leaped forth. The artillery-man turned twice round, his arms stretched out before him, and his head raised as if to drink the air, then he fell over on his side upon the gun, and lay there motionless. His back could be seen, from the centre of which a stream of blood gushed upwards. The ball had entered his breast and passed through his body. He was dead.

  It was necessary to carry him away and to replace him. It was indeed some minutes gained.

  8 (9)

  USE OF THAT OLD POACHER’S SKILL, AND THAT INFALLIBLE AIM WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONVICTION OF 1796

  THERE WAS confusion in the counsel of the barricade. The gun was about to be fired again. They could not hold out a quarter of an hour in that storm of grapeshot. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the blows.

  Enjolras threw out his command:

  “We must put a mattress there.”

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

  Jean Valjean, seated apart on a block, at the corner of the tavern, his musket between his knees, had, up to this moment, taken no part in what was going on. He seemed not to hear the combatants about him say: “There is a musket which is doing nothing.”

  At the order given by Enjolras, he got up.

  It will be remembered that on the arrival of the company in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing bullets, had put her mattress before her window. This window, a garret window, was on the roof of a house of seven stories standing a little outside of the barricade. The mattress, placed crosswise, rested at the bottom upon two clothes-poles, and was sustained above by two ropes which, in the distance, seemed like threads, and which were fastened to nails driven into the window casing. These two ropes could be seen distinctly against the sky like hairs.

  “Can somebody lend me a double-barrelled carbine?” said Jean Valjean.

  Enjolras, who had just reloaded his, handed it to him.

  Jean Valjean aimed at the window and fired.

  One of the two ropes of the mattress was cut.

  The mattress now hung only by one threa
d.

  Jean Valjean fired the second barrel. The second rope struck the glass of the window. The mattress slid down between the two poles and fell into the street.

  The barricade applauded.

  All cried:

  “There is a mattress.”

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

  The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside of the barricade, between the besieged and the besiegers. Now, the death of the gunner having exasperated the troops, the soldiers, for some moments, had been lying on their faces behind the line of paving-stones which they had raised, and, to make up for the compulsory silence of the gun, which was quiet while its service was being reorganised, they had opened fire on the barricade. The insurgents made no response to this musketry, to spare their ammunition. The fusilade was broken against the barricade; but the street, which it filled with balls, was terrible.

  Jean Valjean went out at the opening, entered the street, passed through the storm of balls, went to the mattress, picked it up, put it on his back, and returned to the barricade.

  He put the mattress into the opening himself. He fixed it against the wall in such a way that the artillerymen did not see it.

  This done, they awaited the charge of grapeshot.

  They had not long to wait.

  The cannon vomited its package of shot with a roar. But there was no ricochet. The grapeshot miscarried upon the mattress. The desired effect was obtained. The barricade was preserved.

  “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 thunders. But it is all the same; glory to the mattress which nullifies a cannon.”

  9 (10)

  DAWN

  AT THAT MOMENT Cosette awoke.

  Her room was small, neat, retired, with a long window to the east, looking upon the back-yard of the house.

  Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had not been out of her room in the evening, and she had already withdrawn to it when Toussaint said: “It appears that there is a row.”

  Cosette had slept few hours, but well. She had had sweet dreams which was partly owing perhaps to her little bed being very white. Somebody who was Marius had appeared to her surrounded by a halo. She awoke with the sun in her eyes, which at first produced the effect of a continuation of her dream.

  Her first emotion, on coming out of this dream, was joyous. Cosette felt entirely reassured. She was passing through, as Jean Valjean had done a few hours before, that reaction of the soul which absolutely refuses woe. She began to hope with all her might without knowing why. Then came an oppression of the heart. Here were three days now that she had not seen Marius. But she said to herself that he must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that he was so clever, that he would find means to reach her. And that certainly to-day, and perhaps this very morning. It was broad day, but the rays of light were very horizontal, she thought it was very early; that she must get up, however, to receive Marius.

  She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that consequently, that was enough, and that Marius would come. No objection was admissible. All that was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered three days. Marius absent three days, it was horrible in the eyes of the good Lord. Now this cruel teasing of Heaven was an ordeal that was over. Marius was coming, and would bring good news. Thus is youth constituted; it quickly wipes its eyes; it believes sorrow useless and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of the future before an unknown being which is itself. It is natural for it to be happy. It seems as though it breathed hope.

  Besides, Cosette could not succeed in recalling what Marius had said to her on the subject of this absence which was to last but one day, or what explanation he had given her about it.

  Cosette dressed herself very quickly, combed and arranged her hair, which was a very simple thing at that time, when women did not puff out their ringlets and plaits with cushions and rolls, and did not put crinoline in their hair. Then she opened the window and looked all about, hoping to discover something of the street, a corner of a house, a patch of pavement, and to be able to watch for Marius there. But she could see nothing of the street. The back-yard was surrounded with high walls, and a few gardens only were in view. Cosette pronounced these gardens hideous; for the first time in her life she found flowers ugly. The least bit of a street gutter would have been more to her mind. She finally began to look at the sky, as if she thought that Marius might come that way also.

  Suddenly, she melted into tears. Not that it was fickleness of soul; but, hopes cut off by faintness of heart, such was her situation. She vaguely felt some indefinable horror. Things float in the air in fact. She said to herself that she was not sure of anything; that to lose from sight, was to lose; and the idea that Marius might indeed return to her from the sky, appeared no longer charming, but dismal.

  Then, such are these clouds, calmness returned to her, and hope, and a sort of smile, unconscious, but trusting in God.

  Everybody was still in bed in the house. A rural silence reigned. No shutter had been opened. The porter’s box was closed. Toussaint was not up, and Cosette very naturally thought that her father was asleep. She must have suffered indeed, and she must have been still suffering, for she said to herself that her father had been unkind; but she counted on Marius. The eclipse of such a light was entirely impossible. At intervals she heard at some distance a kind of sullen jar, and she said: “It is singular that people are opening and shutting porte-cochères so early.” It was the cannon battering the barricade.

  10 (11 )

  THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NOBODY

  THE FIRE of the assailants continued. The musketry and the grapeshot alternated, without much damage indeed. The top of the façade of Corinth alone suffered; the window of the second story and the dormer windows on the roof, riddled with shot and ball, were slowly demolished. The combatants who were posted there, had to withdraw. Besides, this is the art of attacking barricades; to tease for a long time, in order to exhaust the ammunition of the insurgents if they commit the blunder of replying. When it is perceived, from the slackening of their fire, that they have no longer either balls or powder, the assault is made. Enjolras did not fall into this snare; the barricade did not reply.

  At each platoon fire, Gavroche thrust out his cheek with his tongue, a mark of lofty disdain:

  “That’s right,” said he, “tear up the cloth. We want lint.”

  Courfeyrac jested with the grapeshot about its lack of effect, and said to the cannon:

  “You are getting diffuse, my goodman.”

  In a battle people force themselves upon acquaintance, as at a ball. It is probable that this silence of the redoubt began to perplex the besiegers, and make them fear some unlooked-for accident, and that they felt the need of seeing through that heap of paving-stones and knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall, which was receiving their fire without answering it. The insurgents suddenly perceived a helmet shining in the sun upon a neighbouring roof. An army engineer was backed up against a tall chimney, and seemed to be there as a sentinel. He looked directly into the barricade.

  “There is a troublesome observer,” said Enjolras.

  Jean Valjean had returned his carbine to Enjolras, but he had his musket.

  Without saying a word, he aimed at the engineer, and, a second afterwards, the helmet, struck by a ball, fell noisily into the street. The startled soldier hastened to disappear.

  A second observer took his place. This was an officer. Jean Valjean, who had reloaded his musket, aimed at the new-comer, and sent the officer’s helmet to keep company with the soldier’s. The officer was not obstinate, and withdrew very quickly. This time the warning was understood. Nobody appeared upon the roof again, and they gave up watching the barricade.
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br />   “Why didn’t you kill the man?” asked Bossuet of Jean Valjean.

  Jean Valjean did not answer.

  11 (13)

  PASSING GLEAMS

  IN THE CHAOS of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is something of everything; there is bravery, youth, honour, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the eager fury of the gamester, and above all, intervals of hope.

  One of those intervals, one of those vague thrills of hope, suddenly crossed, at the most unexpected moment, the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie.

  “Hark!” abruptly exclaimed Enjolras, who was constantly on the alert, “it seems to me that Paris is waking.”

  It is certain that on the morning of the 6th of June the insurrection had, for an hour or two, a certain recrudescence. The obstinacy of the tocsin of Saint Merry reanimated some dull hopes. In the Rue du Poirier, in the Rue des Gravilliers, barricades were planned out. In front of the Porte Saint Martin, a young man, armed with a carbine, attacked singly a squadron of cavalry. Without any shelter, in the open boulevard, he dropped on one knee, raised his weapon to his shoulder, fired, killed the chief of the squadron, and turned round saying: “There is another who will do us no more harm.” He was sabred. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a woman fired upon the Municipal Guard from behind a Venetian blind. The slats of the blind were seen to tremble at each report. A boy of fourteen was arrested in the Rue de la Cossonerie with his pockets full of cartridges. Several posts were attacked. At the entrance of the Rue Bertin Poiree, a very sharp and entirely unexpected fusilade greeted a regiment of cuirassiers, at the head of which marched General Cavaignac de Baragne. In the Rue Planche Mibray they threw upon the troops, from the roofs, old fragments of household vessels and utensils; a bad sign; and when this fact was reported to Marshal Soult, the old lieutenant of Napoleon grew thoughtful, remembering the saying of Suchet at Saragossa: “We are lost when the old women empty their pots upon our heads.”

  These general symptoms which were manifested just when it was supposed the émeute was localised, this fever of wrath which was regaining the upper hand, these sparks which flew here and there above those deep masses of combustible material which are called the Faubourgs of Paris, all taken together rendered the military chiefs anxious. They hastened to extinguish these beginnings of conflagration. They delayed, until these sparks should be quenched, the attack on the barricades Maubuée, de la Chanvrerie, and Saint Merry, that they might have them only to deal with, and might be able to finish all at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets in fermentation, sweeping the large ones, probing the small on the right, on the left, sometimes slowly and with precaution, sometimes at a double quick step. The troops beat in the doors of the houses from which there had been firing; at the same time manoeuvres of cavalry dispersed the groups on the boulevards. This repression was not accomplished without noise, nor without that tumultuous uproar peculiar to shocks between the army and the people. This was what Enjolras caught, in the intervals of the cannonade and the musketry. Besides, he had seen some wounded passing at the end of the street upon litters, and said to Courfeyrac: “Those wounded do not come from our fire.”