Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:—
“Here’s the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!”
Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent, sought to
console the widowed proprietress.
“Mother Hucheloup, weren’t you complaining the other day because you
had had a notice served on you for infringing the law, because
Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of your window?”
“Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going to
put that table of mine in your horror, too? And it was for the
counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from the attic
window into the street, that the government collected a fine of a
hundred francs. If that isn’t an abomination, what is!”
“Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you.”
Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit
which she was to derive from these reprisals made on her account. She
was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who, having received
a box on the ear from her husband, went to complain to her father, and
cried for vengeance, saying: “Father, you owe my husband affront for
affront.” The father asked: “On which cheek did you receive the blow?”
“On the left cheek.” The father slapped her right cheek and said: “Now
you are satisfied. Go tell your husband that he boxed my daughter’s
ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his wife’s.”
The rain had ceased. Recruits had arrived. Workmen had brought under
their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing bottles of
vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket filled with
fire-pots, “left over from the King’s festival.” This festival was very
recent, having taken place on the 1st of May. It was said that these
munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pépin.
They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the
lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all the
lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondétour, du Cygne, des
Prêcheurs, and de la Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie.
Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two
barricades were now in process of construction at once, both of them
resting on the Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger
shut off the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondétour,
on the side of the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very
narrow, was constructed only of casks and paving-stones. There were
about fifty workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their
way, they had effected a wholesale loan from an armorer’s shop.
Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than
this troop. One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two
holster-pistols, another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat,
and a powder-horn slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine
sheets of gray paper and was armed with a saddler’s awl. There was one
who was shouting: “Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at
the point of our bayonet.” This man had no bayonet. Another spread out
over his coat the cross-belt and cartridge-box of a National Guardsman,
the cover of the cartridge-box being ornamented with this inscription
in red worsted: _Public Order_. There were a great many guns bearing
the numbers of the legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some
pikes. Add to this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young
men, and bronzed longshoremen. All were in haste; and as they helped
each other, they discussed the possible chances. That they would
receive succor about three o’clock in the morning—that they were sure
of one regiment, that Paris would rise. Terrible sayings with which was
mingled a sort of cordial joviality. One would have pronounced them
brothers, but they did not know each other’s names. Great perils have
this fine characteristic, that they bring to light the fraternity of
strangers. A fire had been lighted in the kitchen, and there they were
engaged in moulding into bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all
the brass table-ware of the establishment. In the midst of it all, they
drank. Caps and buckshot were mixed pell-mell on the tables with
glasses of wine. In the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and
Gibelotte, variously modified by terror, which had stupefied one,
rendered another breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old
dish-cloths and making lint; three insurgents were assisting them,
three bushy-haired, jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who
plucked away at the linen with the fingers of seamstresses and who made
them tremble.
The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras had
observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the Rue
des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making
himself useful there. Gavroche was working on the larger one. As for
the young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and
who had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time
when the omnibus had been overturned.
Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get
everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended, re-mounted,
whistled, and sparkled. He seemed to be there for the encouragement of
all. Had he any incentive? Yes, certainly, his poverty; had he wings?
yes, certainly, his joy. Gavroche was a whirlwind. He was constantly
visible, he was incessantly audible. He filled the air, as he was
everywhere at once. He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity; no
halt was possible with him. The enormous barricade felt him on its
haunches. He troubled the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated
the weary, he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired gayety in
some, and breath in others, wrath in others, movement in all, now
pricking a student, now biting an artisan; he alighted, paused, flew
off again, hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one
party to another, murmuring and humming, and harassed the whole
company; a fly on the immense revolutionary coach.
Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor in his
little lungs.
“Courage! more paving-stones! more casks! more machines! Where are you
now? A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with! Your barricade is
very small. It must be carried up. Put everything on it, fling
everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house. A barricade is
Mother Gibou’s tea. Hullo, here’s a glass door.”
This elicited an exclamation from the workers.
“A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass door,
tubercle?”
“Hercules yourselves!” retorted Gavroche. “A glass door is an excellent
thing in a barricade. It does not prevent an attack, but it prevents
the enemy taking it. So you’ve never prigged apples over a wall where
there were broken bottles? A glass door cuts the corns of the National
Guard when they try to mount on the barricade. Pardi! glass is a
treacherous thing. Well, you haven’t a very wildly lively imagination,
comrades.”
However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol. He went from one
to another, demanding: “A gun, I want a gun! Why don’t you give me a
gun?”
“Give you a gun!” said Combeferre.
“Come now!” said Gavroche, “why not? I had one in 1830 when we had a
dispute with Charles X.”
Enjolras shrugged his shoulders.
“When there are enough for the men, we will give some to the children.”
Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered:—
“If you are killed before me, I shall take yours.”
“Gamin!” said Enjolras.
“Greenhorn!” said Gavroche.
A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end of the street
created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:—
“Come with us, young fellow! well now, don’t we do anything for this
old country of ours?”
The dandy fled.