Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)
Page 87
Finally a third sheet was found bearing, pencilled but still legible, a further and cryptic list of names. The loyal citizen into whose possession these documents came was familiar with their meaning. It seems that the names on the third list were the code-names (such as Kosciusko and Caius Gracchus) of all the sections of the Société des Droits de l’Homme in the fourth Paris arrondissement, with, in some cases, the name of the section-chief and an indication of his address. Today these hitherto unknown facts, which now are only a part of history, may be published. It may be added that this League of the Rights of Man appears to have been founded at a later date than that on which the pencilled list was found. At that stage, presumably, it was still in process of formation.
But on top of the spoken and written clues, concrete evidence was coming to light.
A raid on a second-hand dealer’s shop in the Rue Popincourt unearthed, in the drawer of a commode, seven large sheets of grey paper, folded in four, containing twenty-six squares of similar paper folded in the form of cartridges, together with a card on which was written:
Saltpetre
12 ounces.
Sulphur
2 ounces.
Charcoal
2 ½ ounces.
Water
2 ounces.
The official report of the raid stated that the drawer had a strong smell of gunpowder.
A builder’s labourer on his way home from work left, on a bench near the Pont d’Austerlitz, a small package which was handed in to the watch. It was found to contain two pamphlets signed Lahautière, a song entitled, ‘Workers Unite’ and a tin box filled with cartridges.
Children playing in the least frequented part of the boulevard between Père-Lachaise and the Barrière-du-Trône found in a ditch, under a pile of road-chippings and rubble, a bag containing a bullet-mould, a wooden form for making cartridges, a bowl in which there were grains of hunting-powder and a small metal cook-pot containing remnants of molten lead.
Police officers carrying out a surprise raid at five in the morning on the house of a man named Pardon (he later became head of the Barricade-Merry section, and was killed in the uprising of April 1834) found him standing by his bed making cartridges, one of which he had in his hand.
Two labourers were seen to meet after working hours outside a café in an alleyway near the Barrière Charenton. One passed the other a pistol, taking it from under his smock; but then, seeing that it was damp with sweat, he took it back and re-primed it. The men then separated.
A man named Gallais boasted of having a stock of 700 cartridges and 24 musket-flints.
The Government had word one day that firearms and 200,000 cartridges had been distributed in the faubourgs, and, a week later, a further 30,000 cartridges. The police, remarkably enough, were able to lay hands on none of this store. An intercepted letter contained the following passage: ‘The day is not far distant when within four hours by the clock 80,000 citizens will be under arms.’
It was a state of open, one can almost say tranquil, ferment. The coming insurrection made its preparations calmly under the nose of the authorities. No singularity was lacking in this crisis that was still subterranean but already plainly manifest. Middle-class gentlemen discussed it amiably with work-people, inquiring after the progress of the uprising, much as they might have asked after the health of their wives.
A furniture-dealer in the Rue Moreau asked, ‘Well, and when are you going to attack?’, and another shopkeeper said, ‘You’ll be attacking soon. I know it. A month ago there were only 15,000 of you; today there are 25,000.’ He offered his shotgun for sale, and his neighbour offered a small pistol at a price of seven francs.
The revolutionary fever was steadily rising, and no part of Paris, or of all France, was exempt. The tide was flowing everywhere. Secret societies, like a cancer in the human body, were spreading throughout the country. Out of the Society of Friends of the People, which was both open and secret, sprang the League of the Rights of Man, which, dating one of its Orders of the day ‘Pluviôse, in the Fortieth Year of the Republic’, was destined to survive court orders decreeing its dissolution, and which made no bones about calling its sections by such suggestive names as ‘The Pikes’, ‘The Alarm Gun’ and ‘The Phrygian Bonnet’.
The League of the Rights of Man in its turn gave birth to the League of Action, composed of eager spirits who broke away in order to progress faster. Other new associations sought to lure members from the parent bodies, and section-leaders complained of this. There were the Société Gauloise and the Committee for the Organization of the Municipalities, also societies advocating the Liberty of the Press, the Liberty of the Individual, Popular Education, and one which opposed indirect taxation. There was the Society of Egalitarian Workers, which divided into three branches, Egalitarians, Communists, and Reformists. There was the Armée des Bastilles, a fighting force organized on military lines – units of four men under a corporal, ten under a sergeant, twenty under a second-lieutenant, and forty under a lieutenant – in which never more than five men knew one another, a system combining caution with audacity which seems to have owed something to Venetian models: its Central Committee controlled two branches, the Action branch and the main body of the Armée. A legitimist society, the Chevaliers de la Fidélité, tried to establish itself among these republican bodies, but it was denounced and repudiated.
The Paris societies overflowed into the larger provincial cities. Lyons, Nantes, Lille, and Marseilles had their League of the Rights of Man, among others. Aix had a revolutionary society known as the Cougourde. We have already used that word.
In Paris there was scarcely less uproar in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau than in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the university schools were as agitated as the workers’ quarters. A café in the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe, and the Estaminet des Sept-Billards, in the Rue des Mathurins-Saint-Jacques, were the students’ headquarters. The Society of the Friends of ABC, which was affiliated with the ‘Mutualists’ in Angers and the Cougourde in Aix, met, as we have seen, at the Café Musain, but the same group also gathered at the cabaret-restaurant near the Rue Mondétour called Corinth. These meetings were secret, but others were entirely public, as may be gathered from the following extract from the cross-examination of a witness in one of the subsequent trials: ‘Where was this meeting held?’ … ‘In the Rue de la Paix’ … ‘In whose house?’ … ‘In the street’ … ‘How many sections attended?’ … ‘Only one’ … ‘Which one?’ … ‘The Manuel Section’ … ‘Who was its leader?’ … ‘I was’ … ‘You are too young to have taken the grave decision to attack the Government. Where did your orders come from?’… ‘From the Central Committee.’
The army was being subverted at the same time as the civil population, as was later proved by the mutinies in Belfort, Lunéville, and Épinal. The insurrectionists counted on the support of several regiments of the line and on the Twentieth Light Infantry.
‘Trees of liberty’ – tall poles surmounted by a red bonnet – were erected in Burgundy and in a number of towns in the south.
This, broadly, was the situation, and nowhere was it more acute, or more openly manifest, than in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was, so to say, its nerve centre. The ancient working-class quarter, crowded as an ant-heap and laborious, courageous and touchy as a hive of bees, simmered in the anticipation of a hoped-for upheaval, although its state of commotion in no way affected its daily work. It is hard to convey an impression of that lively and lowering countenance. Desperate hardship is concealed beneath the attic roofs of that quarter, and so are rare and ardent minds; and the moment of danger occurs when these two extremes, of poverty and intelligence, come together.
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine had other reasons for its feverish state. It was particularly affected by the economic crises, bankruptcies, strikes, unemployment, that are inseparable from any time of major political unrest. In a revolutionary period poverty is both a cause and an effect, aggravated by the very blows it strikes. Thos
e proud, hard-working people, charged to the utmost with latent energies and always prompt to explode, exasperated, deep-rooted, undermined, seemed to be only awaiting the striking of a spark. Whenever there is thunder in the air, borne on the wind of events, we are bound to think of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and the fateful chance which has set this powder-mill of suffering and political thought on the threshold of Paris.
The drinking-places of the quarter, so constantly referred to in this brief account, have acquired an historic notoriety. In troubled times their customers grow more drunk on words than on wine. A prophetic sense pervades them, an intimation of the future, exalting hearts and minds. They resemble those taverns on Mount Aventine built round the Sybil’s cave and stirred by the sacred breath, where the tables were virtually tripods and one drank what Annius calls ‘the Sybilline wine’.
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine is a people’s stronghold. Times of revolutionary upheaval cause breaches in its walls through which the popular will, the sovereignty of the people, bursts out. That sovereignty may behave badly; it blunders, like all human action, but even in its blunderings, like the blind Cyclops, it remains great.
In 1793, according to whether the prevailing mood was good or evil, idealistic or fanatical, masses poured out of it which were heroic or simply barbarous. We must account for the latter word. What did they want, those violent men, ragged, bellowing and wild-eyed, who with clubs and pikes poured through the ancient streets of distracted Paris? They wanted to put an end to oppression, tyranny, and the sword; they wanted work for all men, education for their children, security for their wives, liberty, equality, fraternity, food enough to go round, freedom of thought, the Edenization of the world. In a word, they wanted Progress, that hallowed, good, and gentle thing, and they demanded it in a terrible fashion, with oaths on their lips and weapons in their hands. They were barbarous, yes; but barbarians in the cause of civilization.
They furiously proclaimed the right; they wanted to drive mankind into Paradise, even if it could only be done by terror. They looked like barbarians and were saviours. Wearing a mask of darkness, they clamoured for light.
And confronting these men, wild and terrible as we agree they were, but wild and terrible for good, there were men of quite another kind, smiling and adorned with ribbons and stars, silk-stockinged, yellow-gloved and with polished boots; men who, seated round a velvet table-cloth by a marble fireplace, gently insisted on the preservation of the past, of the Middle Ages, of divine right, of bigotry, ignorance, enslavement, the death-penalty and war, and who, talking in polished undertones, glorified the sword and the executioner’s block. For our part, if we had to choose between the barbarians of civilization and those civilized upholders of barbarism we would choose the former.
But there is mercifully, another way. No desperate step is needed, whether forward or backward, neither despotism nor terrorism. What we seek is progress by gradual degrees.
God is looking to it. Gradualness is the whole policy of God.
VI
Enjolras and his lieutenants
At about this time, Enjolras, with an eye to possible contingencies, made a tactful survey of policy among his followers. While they were holding counsel in the Café Musain, he said, interlarding his words with a few cryptic but meaningful metaphors:
‘It’s just as well to know where one stands and whom one can count on. If one wants active fighters one has to create them; no harm in possessing weapons. People trying to pass are always more likely to be gored if there are oxen in the street. So let’s take stock of our manpower. How many of us are there? No point in putting it off. Revolutionaries should always be in a hurry; progress has no time to waste. We must be ready for the unexpected and not let ourselves be caught out. It’s a matter of reviewing all the stitches we’ve sewn and seeing if they’ll hold, and it needs to be done at once. Courfeyrac, you can call on the polytechnic students, it’s their free day. Today’s Wednesday, isn’t it? Feuilly, you can call on the workers at the Glacière. Combeferre has said he’ll go to Picpus, there are a lot of good men there. Prouvaire, the stone-masons show signs of cooling off, you’d better find out how things are at the lodge in the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honoré. Joly can look in at the Dupuytren hospital and take the pulse of the medical students, and Bossuet can do the same with the law students at the Palais de Justice. I’ll do the Cougourde.’
‘And that’s the lot,’ said Courfeyrac.
‘No.’
‘What else is there?’
‘Something very important.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Combeferre.
‘The Barrière du Maine,’ said Enjolras.
He was silent for a moment, seeming plunged in thought, and then said:
‘There are marble-workers at the Barrière du Maine, and painters and workers in the sculptors’ studios. They’re keen, on the whole, but inclined to blow hot and cold. I don’t know what’s got into them recently. They seem to have lost interest, they spend their whole time playing dominoes. It’s important for someone to go and talk to them, and talk bluntly. Their place is the Café Richefeu and they’re always there between twelve and one. It needs a puff of air to brighten up those embers. I was going to ask that dreamy character, Marius, but he doesn’t come here any more. So I need someone for the Barrière du Maine, and I’ve no one to send.’
‘There’s me,’ said Grantaire. ‘I’m here.’
‘You?’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll go out and preach republicanism, rouse up the halfhearted in the name of principle?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Would you be any good at it?’
‘I’d quite like to try,’ said Grantaire.
‘But you don’t believe in anything?’
‘I believe in you.’
‘Grantaire, do you really want to do me a service?’
‘Anything you like – I’d black your boots.’
‘Then keep out of our affairs. Stick to your absinthe.’
‘That’s ungrateful of you, Enjolras.’
‘You really think you’re man enough to go to the Barrière du Maine? You’d be capable of it?’
‘I’m quite capable of walking along the Rue des Grès, up the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince to the Rue de Vaugirard, along the Rue d’Assas, across the Boulevard du Montparnasse and through the Barrière to the Café Richefeu. My boots are good enough.’
‘How well do you know that lot at the Richefeu?’
‘Not very well, but we’re quite friendly.’
‘What would you say to them?’
‘Well, I’d talk to them about Robespierre and Danton and the principles of the Revolution.’
‘You would?’
‘Yes, me. Nobody does me justice. When I really go for something I’m tremendous. I’ve read Prudhomme and the Contrat Social and I know the Constitution of the Year Two by heart. “The liberty of the citizen ends where that of another citizen begins.” Do you think I’m an ignoramus? I have an old assignat in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the Sovereignty of the people, I know the lot. I’m even a bit of an Hébertist. I can hold forth sublimely –for six hours on end, if need be, by the clock.’
‘Be serious,’ said Enjolras.
‘I’m madly serious.’
Enjolras considered for a few moments, then made a gesture of decision.
‘Very well, Grantaire,’ he said soberly. ‘I’ll give you a trial. You shall go to the Barrière du Maine.’
Grantaire was living in a furnished room very near the café. He went out and was back in five minutes wearing a Robespierre waistcoat.
‘Red,’ he said, looking meaningfully at Enjolras. Smoothing the red points of the waistcoat with a firm hand, he bent towards him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, and putting on his hat marched resolutely to the door.
A quarter of an hour later the back-room at the Café Musain was empty. All the ‘Friends of ABC’ had departed on their respective tasks. Enjolras, who had r
eserved the Cougourde d’Aix for himself, was the last to leave.
Those members of the Cougourde d’Aix who were in Paris were accustomed to meet in the Plaine d’Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous on that side of the city. While he was on his way there Enjolras reviewed the situation. The gravity of the times was apparent. When events which are the premonitory symptoms of social sickness stir ponderously into motion the least complication may impede them. It is a time of false starts and fresh beginnings. Enjolras had a sense of a splendid new dawn breaking through the clouds on the horizon. Who could tell? Perhaps the moment was very near when, inspiring thought, the people would assert their rights, and the Revolution, majestically regaining possession of France, would say to the world: ‘More is to follow!’ Enjolras was happy. The temperature was rising. He had, at that moment, a powder-train of friends scattered through Paris, and he was rehearsing in his mind an electrifying speech that would spark off the general explosion – a speech combining the depth and philosophic eloquence of Combeferre, the cosmopolitan ardours of Feuilly, the verve of Courfeyrac, the laughter of Bahorel, the melancholy of Jean Prouvaire, the knowledge of Joly, and the sarcasm of Bossuet. All of them working together. Surely the result must justify their labours. All was well. And this brought him to the thought of Grantaire. The Barrière du Maine was only a little off his way. Why should he not make a slight detour to look in at the Café Richefeu and see how he was getting on?
The clock-tower in the Rue de Vaugirard was striking when he thrust open the door of the café and, letting it swing to behind him, stood with folded arms in the doorway contemplating the crowded room filled with tables, men and tobacco-smoke.
Grantaire was seated opposite another man at a marble-topped table scattered with dominoes. He was banging on the marble with his fist, and this was what Enjolras overheard:
‘Double six.’