________________________________________________
_ Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear:
"He did not answer my question."
"He is a man who does good by gun-shots," said Combeferre.
Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant
epoch know that the National Guard from the suburbs was valiant
against insurrections. It was particularly zealous and intrepid
in the days of June, 1832. A certain good dram-shop keeper of
Pantin des Vertus or la Cunette, whose "establishment" had been
closed by the riots, became leonine at the sight of his deserted
dance-hall, and got himself killed to preserve the order represented
by a tea-garden. In that bourgeois and heroic time, in the presence
of ideas which had their knights, interests had their paladins.
The prosiness of the originators detracted nothing from the
bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns made
bankers sing the Marseillaise. They shed their blood lyrically
for the counting-house; and they defended the shop, that immense
diminutive of the fatherland, with Lacedaemonian enthusiasm.
At bottom, we will observe, there was nothing in all this that was
not extremely serious. It was social elements entering into strife,
while awaiting the day when they should enter into equilibrium.
Another sign of the times was the anarchy mingled with governmentalism
[the barbarous name of the correct party]. People were for order
in combination with lack of discipline.
The drum suddenly beat capricious calls, at the command of such or such
a Colonel of the National Guard; such and such a captain went into
action through inspiration; such and such National Guardsmen fought,
"for an idea," and on their own account. At critical moments, on "days"
they took counsel less of their leaders than of their instincts.
There existed in the army of order, veritable guerilleros, some of
the sword, like Fannicot, others of the pen, like Henri Fonfrede.
Civilization, unfortunately, represented at this epoch rather
by an aggregation of interests than by a group of principles,
was or thought itself, in peril; it set up the cry of alarm;
each, constituting himself a centre, defended it, succored it,
and protected it with his own head; and the first comer took
it upon himself to save society.
Zeal sometimes proceeded to extermination. A platoon of the National
Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council
of war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes.
It was an improvisation of this sort that had slain Jean Prouvaire.
Fierce Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach
the rest, for it has been applied by the Republic in America,
as well as by the monarchy in Europe. This Lynch law was complicated
with mistakes. On one day of rioting, a young poet, named Paul
Aime Garnier, was pursued in the Place Royale, with a bayonet at
his loins, and only escaped by taking refuge under the porte-cochere
of No. 6. They shouted:--"There's another of those Saint-Simonians!"
and they wanted to kill him. Now, he had under his arm a volume
of the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. A National Guard had read
the words Saint-Simon on the book, and had shouted: "Death!"
On the 6th of June, 1832, a company of the National Guards from
the suburbs, commanded by the Captain Fannicot, above mentioned,
had itself decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice
and its own good pleasure. This fact, singular though it may seem,
was proved at the judicial investigation opened in consequence
of the insurrection of 1832. Captain Fannicot, a bold and impatient
bourgeois, a sort of condottiere of the order of those whom we have
just characterized, a fanatical and intractable governmentalist,
could not resist the temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition
of capturing the barricade alone and unaided, that is to say,
with his company. Exasperated by the successive apparition of
the red flag and the old coat which he took for the black flag,
he loudly blamed the generals and chiefs of the corps, who were
holding council and did not think that the moment for the decisive
assault had arrived, and who were allowing "the insurrection to fry
in its own fat," to use the celebrated expression of one of them.
For his part, he thought the barricade ripe, and as that which is
ripe ought to fall, he made the attempt.
He commanded men as resolute as himself, "raging fellows," as a witness
said. His company, the same which had shot Jean Prouvaire the poet,
was the first of the battalion posted at the angle of the street.
At the moment when they were least expecting it, the captain launched
his men against the barricade. This movement, executed with
more good will than strategy, cost the Fannicot company dear.
Before it had traversed two thirds of the street it was received
by a general discharge from the barricade. Four, the most audacious,
who were running on in front, were mown down point-blank at the very
foot of the redoubt, and this courageous throng of National Guards,
very brave men but lacking in military tenacity, were forced to fall back,
after some hesitation, leaving fifteen corpses on the pavement.
This momentary hesitation gave the insurgents time to re-load
their weapons, and a second and very destructive discharge struck
the company before it could regain the corner of the street,
its shelter. A moment more, and it was caught between two fires,
and it received the volley from the battery piece which,
not having received the order, had not discontinued its firing.
The intrepid and imprudent Fannicot was one of the dead from this
grape-shot. He was killed by the cannon, that is to say, by order.
This attack, which was more furious than serious,
irritated Enjolras.--"The fools!" said he. "They are getting
their own men killed and they are using up our ammunition for nothing."
Enjolras spoke like the real general of insurrection which he was.
Insurrection and repression do not fight with equal weapons.
Insurrection, which is speedily exhausted, has only a certain number
of shots to fire and a certain number of combatants to expend.
An empty cartridge-box, a man killed, cannot be replaced. As repression
has the army, it does not count its men, and, as it has Vincennes,
it does not count its shots. Repression has as many regiments
as the barricade has men, and as many arsenals as the barricade has
cartridge-boxes. Thus they are struggles of one against a hundred,
which always end in crushing the barricade; unless the revolution,
uprising suddenly, flings into the balance its flaming archangel's sword.
This does happen sometimes. Then everything rises, the pavements
begin to seethe, popular redoubts abound. Paris quivers supremely,
the quid divinum is given forth, a 10th of August is in the air,
a 29th of July is in the air, a wonderful light appears, the yawning
maw of force draws back, and the army, that lion, sees before it,
erect and tranquil, that prophet, France. _
Read next: VOLUME V: BOOK FIRST - THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS: CHAPTER XIII. Passing Gleams
Read previous: VOLUME V: BOOK FIRST - THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS: CHAPTER XI. The Shot Which Misses Nothing and Kills No One
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