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_ The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened,
not a door stood ajar; it was the dawn but not the awaking.
The end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, opposite the barricade, had been
evacuated by the troops, as we have stated it seemed to be free,
and presented itself to passers-by with a sinister tranquillity.
The Rue Saint-Denis was as dumb as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes.
Not a living being in the cross-roads, which gleamed white in the light
of the sun. Nothing is so mournful as this light in deserted streets.
Nothing was to be seen, but there was something to be heard.
A mysterious movement was going on at a certain distance.
It was evident that the critical moment was approaching. As on
the previous evening, the sentinels had come in; but this time all
had come.
The barricade was stronger than on the occasion of the first attack.
Since the departure of the five, they had increased its height
still further.
On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of
the Halles, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came to
a serious decision. He had the small gut of the Mondetour lane,
which had been left open up to that time, barricaded. For this purpose,
they tore up the pavement for the length of several houses more.
In this manner, the barricade, walled on three streets, in front
on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, to the left on the Rues du Cygne and de
la Petite Truanderie, to the right on the Rue Mondetour, was really
almost impregnable; it is true that they were fatally hemmed in there.
It had three fronts, but no exit.--"A fortress but a rat hole too,"
said Courfeyrac with a laugh.
Enjolras had about thirty paving-stones "torn up in excess,"
said Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wine-shop.
The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must
needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his post of battle.
An allowance of brandy was doled out to each.
Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault.
Each man selects his place as though at the theatre. They jostle,
and elbow and crowd each other. There are some who make stalls
of paving-stones. Here is a corner of the wall which is in the way,
it is removed; here is a redan which may afford protection,
they take shelter behind it. Left-handed men are precious;
they take the places that are inconvenient to the rest. Many arrange
to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at ease to kill,
and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, an insurgent
who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the top of a
terrace upon a roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for his use;
a charge of grape-shot found him out there.
As soon as the leader has given the order to clear the decks for action,
all disorderly movements cease; there is no more pulling from
one another; there are no more coteries; no more asides, there is
no more holding aloof; everything in their spirits converges in,
and changes into, a waiting for the assailants. A barricade before
the arrival of danger is chaos; in danger, it is discipline itself.
Peril produces order.
As soon as Enjolras had seized his double-barrelled rifle,
and had placed himself in a sort of embrasure which he had reserved
for himself, all the rest held their peace. A series of faint,
sharp noises resounded confusedly along the wall of paving-stones.
It was the men cocking their guns.
Moreover, their attitudes were prouder, more confident than ever;
the excess of sacrifice strengthens; they no longer cherished any hope,
but they had despair, despair,--the last weapon, which sometimes
gives victory; Virgil has said so. Supreme resources spring from
extreme resolutions. To embark in death is sometimes the means
of escaping a shipwreck; and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank
of safety.
As on the preceding evening, the attention of all was directed,
we might almost say leaned upon, the end of the street, now lighted
up and visible.
They had not long to wait. A stir began distinctly in the Saint-Leu
quarter, but it did not resemble the movement of the first attack.
A clashing of chains, the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click
of brass skipping along the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar,
announced that some sinister construction of iron was approaching.
There arose a tremor in the bosoms of these peaceful old streets,
pierced and built for the fertile circulation of interests and ideas,
and which are not made for the horrible rumble of the wheels
of war.
The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity
of the street became ferocious.
A cannon made its appearance.
Artillery-men were pushing the piece; it was in firing trim;
the fore-carriage had been detached; two upheld the gun-carriage,
four were at the wheels; others followed with the caisson.
They could see the smoke of the burning lint-stock.
"Fire!" shouted Enjolras.
The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche
of smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men; after a few seconds,
the cloud dispersed, and the cannon and men re-appeared; the gun-crew
had just finished rolling it slowly, correctly, without haste,
into position facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck.
Then the captain of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order
to raise the muzzle, began to point the cannon with the gravity
of an astronomer levelling a telescope.
"Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet.
And the whole barricade clapped their hands.
A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street,
astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action. A formidable
pair of jaws yawned on the barricade.
"Come, merrily now!" ejaculated Courfeyrac. "That's the brutal
part of it. After the fillip on the nose, the blow from the fist.
The army is reaching out its big paw to us. The barricade is going
to be severely shaken up. The fusillade tries, the cannon takes."
"It is a piece of eight, new model, brass," added Combeferre.
"Those pieces are liable to burst as soon as the proportion of ten
parts of tin to one hundred of brass is exceeded. The excess
of tin renders them too tender. Then it comes to pass that they
have caves and chambers when looked at from the vent hole. In order
to obviate this danger, and to render it possible to force the charge,
it may become necessary to return to the process of the fourteenth
century, hooping, and to encircle the piece on the outside with a
series of unwelded steel bands, from the breech to the trunnions.
In the meantime, they remedy this defect as best they may;
they manage to discover where the holes are located in the vent
of a cannon, by means of a searcher. But there is a better method,
with Gribeauval's movable star."
"In the sixteenth century," remarked Bossuet, "they used to rifle cannon."
"Yes," replied Combeferre, "that augments the projectile force,
but diminishes the accuracy of the firing. In firing at short range,
the trajectory is not as rigid as could be desired, the parabola
is exaggerated, the line of the projectile is no longer sufficiently
rectilinear to allow of its striking intervening objects, which is,
nevertheless, a necessity of battle, the importance of which increases
with the proximity of the enemy and the precipitation of the discharge.
This defect of the tension of the curve of the projectile in the
rifled cannon of the sixteenth century arose from the smallness
of the charge; small charges for that sort of engine are imposed
by the ballistic necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation
of the gun-carriage. In short, that despot, the cannon, cannot do
all that it desires; force is a great weakness. A cannon-ball only
travels six hundred leagues an hour; light travels seventy thousand
leagues a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."
"Reload your guns," said Enjolras.
How was the casing of the barricade going to behave under the
cannon-balls? Would they effect a breach? That was the question.
While the insurgents were reloading their guns, the artillery-men
were loading the cannon.
The anxiety in the redoubt was profound.
The shot sped the report burst forth.
"Present!" shouted a joyous voice.
And Gavroche flung himself into the barricade just as the ball
dashed against it.
He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne, and he had nimbly
climbed over the auxiliary barricade which fronted on the labyrinth
of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie.
Gavroche produced a greater sensation in the barricade than
the cannon-ball.
The ball buried itself in the mass of rubbish. At the most there
was an omnibus wheel broken, and the old Anceau cart was demolished.
On seeing this, the barricade burst into a laugh.
"Go on!" shouted Bossuet to the artillerists. _
Read next: VOLUME V: BOOK FIRST - THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS: CHAPTER VIII. The Artillery-men Compel People to Take Them Seriously
Read previous: VOLUME V: BOOK FIRST - THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS: CHAPTER VI. Marius Haggard, Javert Laconic
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