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_ The spot was, in fact, admirably adapted, the entrance to the street
widened out, the other extremity narrowed together into a pocket
without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondetour was
easily barricaded on the right and the left, no attack was possible
except from the Rue Saint-Denis, that is to say, in front, and in
full sight. Bossuet had the comprehensive glance of a fasting Hannibal.
Terror had seized on the whole street at the irruption of the mob.
There was not a passer-by who did not get out of sight. In the
space of a flash of lightning, in the rear, to right and left,
shops, stables, area-doors, windows, blinds, attic skylights,
shutters of every description were closed, from the ground floor
to the roof. A terrified old woman fixed a mattress in front
of her window on two clothes-poles for drying linen, in order to
deaden the effect of musketry. The wine-shop alone remained open;
and that for a very good reason, that the mob had rushed into
it.--"Ah my God! Ah my God!" sighed Mame Hucheloup.
Bossuet had gone down to meet Courfeyrac.
Joly, who had placed himself at the window, exclaimed:--
"Courfeyrac, you ought to have brought an umbrella. You will
gatch gold."
In the meantime, in the space of a few minutes, twenty iron bars
had been wrenched from the grated front of the wine-shop, ten fathoms
of street had been unpaved; Gavroche and Bahorel had seized in
its passage, and overturned, the dray of a lime-dealer named Anceau;
this dray contained three barrels of lime, which they placed beneath
the piles of paving-stones: Enjolras raised the cellar trap,
and all the widow Hucheloup's empty casks were used to flank
the barrels of lime; Feuilly, with his fingers skilled in painting
the delicate sticks of fans, had backed up the barrels and the dray
with two massive heaps of blocks of rough stone. Blocks which
were improvised like the rest and procured no one knows where.
The beams which served as props were torn from the neighboring
house-fronts and laid on the casks. When Bossuet and Courfeyrac
turned round, half the street was already barred with a rampart
higher than a man. There is nothing like the hand of the populace
for building everything that is built by demolishing.
Matelote and Gibelotte had mingled with the workers. Gibelotte went
and came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade.
She served the barricade as she would have served wine, with a
sleepy air.
An omnibus with two white horses passed the end of the street.
Bossuet strode over the paving-stones, ran to it, stopped the driver,
made the passengers alight, offered his hand to "the ladies,"
dismissed the conductor, and returned, leading the vehicle and the
horses by the bridle.
"Omnibuses," said he, "do not pass the Corinthe. Non licet omnibus
adire Corinthum."
An instant later, the horses were unharnessed and went off at
their will, through the Rue Mondetour, and the omnibus lying
on its side completed the bar across the street.
Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story.
Her eyes were vague, and stared without seeing anything, and she
cried in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge
from her throat.
"The end of the world has come," she muttered.
Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck,
and said to Grantaire: "My dear fellow, I have always regarded
a woman's neck as an infinitely delicate thing."
But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb.
Matelote had mounted to the first floor once more, Grantaire seized
her round her waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at
the window.
"Matelote is homely!" he cried: "Matelote is of a dream of ugliness!
Matelote is a chimaera. This is the secret of her birth:
a Gothic Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals,
fell in love with one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning.
He besought Love to give it life, and this produced Matelote.
Look at her, citizens! She has chromate-of-lead-colored hair,
like Titian's mistress, and she is a good girl. I guarantee that
she will fight well. Every good girl contains a hero. As for
Mother Hucheloup, she's an old warrior. Look at her moustaches!
She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She will
fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of
the banlieue. Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true
as there are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid
and formic acid; however, that is a matter of perfect indifference
to me. Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could
not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty.
I am Grantaire, the good fellow. Having never had any money,
I never acquired the habit of it, and the result is that I have
never lacked it; but, if I had been rich, there would have been
no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the kind hearts
only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I picture
myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild's fortune! How much good he
would do! Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid!
You have cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim
the kiss of a lover."
"Hold your tongue, you cask!" said Courfeyrac.
Grantaire retorted:--
"I am the capitoul[52] and the master of the floral games!"
[52] Municipal officer of Toulouse.
Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand,
raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows,
had something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition.
He would have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at
Drogheda with Cromwell.
"Grantaire," he shouted, "go get rid of the fumes of your wine
somewhere else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm,
not for drunkenness. Don't disgrace the barricade!"
This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would
have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face.
He seemed to be rendered suddenly sober.
He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at
Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him:--
"Let me sleep here."
"Go and sleep somewhere else," cried Enjolras.
But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed
on him, replied:--
"Let me sleep here,--until I die."
Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes:--
"Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing,
of living, and of dying."
Grantaire replied in a grave tone:--
"You will see."
He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell
heavily on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second
period of inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly
thrust him, an instant later he had fallen asleep. _
Read next: VOLUME IV: BOOK TWELFTH - CORINTHE: CHAPTER IV. An Attempt to console the Widow Hucheloup
Read previous: VOLUME IV: BOOK TWELFTH - CORINTHE: CHAPTER II. Preliminary Gayeties
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