Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to
insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles
which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he
assailed it with a burst of irony.
“You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me,
you are wasting your row. That’s not thunder, it’s a cough.”
And the bystanders laughed.
Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the
peril, like Madame Scarron, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and,
as wine was lacking, they poured out gayety to all.
“I admire Enjolras,” said Bossuet. “His impassive temerity astounds me.
He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras
complains of his greatness, which binds him to widowhood. The rest of
us have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say,
brave. When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can
do is to fight like a lion. That is one way of taking our revenge for
the capers that mesdames our grisettes play on us. Roland gets himself
killed for Angélique; all our heroism comes from our women. A man
without a woman is a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman that
sets the man off. Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and
yet he manages to be intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man
should be as cold as ice and as bold as fire.”
Enjolras did not appear to be listening, but had any one been near him,
that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: “Patria.”
Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed:
“News!”
And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added:
“My name is Eight-Pounder.”
In fact, a new personage had entered on the scene. This was a second
piece of ordnance.
The artillery-men rapidly performed their manœuvres in force and placed
this second piece in line with the first.
This outlined the catastrophe.
A few minutes later, the two pieces, rapidly served, were firing
point-blank at the redoubt; the platoon firing of the line and of the
soldiers from the suburbs sustained the artillery.
Another cannonade was audible at some distance. At the same time that
the two guns were furiously attacking the redoubt from the Rue de la
Chanvrerie, two other cannons, trained one from the Rue Saint-Denis,
the other from the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, were riddling the Saint-Merry
barricade. The four cannons echoed each other mournfully.
The barking of these sombre dogs of war replied to each other.
One of the two pieces which was now battering the barricade on the Rue
de la Chanvrerie was firing grape-shot, the other balls.
The piece which was firing balls was pointed a little high, and the aim
was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper
crest of the barricade, and crumbled the stone down upon the
insurgents, mingled with bursts of grape-shot.
The object of this mode of firing was to drive the insurgents from the
summit of the redoubt, and to compel them to gather close in the
interior, that is to say, this announced the assault.
The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls,
and from the windows of the cabaret by grape-shot, the attacking
columns could venture into the street without being picked off,
perhaps, even, without being seen, could briskly and suddenly scale the
redoubt, as on the preceding evening, and, who knows? take it by
surprise.
“It is absolutely necessary that the inconvenience of those guns should
be diminished,” said Enjolras, and he shouted: “Fire on the
artillery-men!”
All were ready. The barricade, which had long been silent, poured forth
a desperate fire; seven or eight discharges followed, with a sort of
rage and joy; the street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the
end of a few minutes, athwart this mist all streaked with flame, two
thirds of the gunners could be distinguished lying beneath the wheels
of the cannons. Those who were left standing continued to serve the
pieces with severe tranquillity, but the fire had slackened.
“Things are going well now,” said Bossuet to Enjolras. “Success.”
Enjolras shook his head and replied:
“Another quarter of an hour of this success, and there will not be any
cartridges left in the barricade.”
It appears that Gavroche overheard this remark.