THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED.
Day grew rapidly, but not a window opened, not a door was ajar; it was
the dawn, not an awaking. The end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie opposed
to the barricade had been evacuated by the troops, as we stated; it
appeared to be free and open for passers-by with sinister tranquillity.
The Rue St. Denis was dumb as the Avenue of the Sphinxes at Thebes;
there was not a living being on the square, which a sunbeam whitened.
Nothing is so melancholy as this brightness of deserted streets;
nothing could be seen, but something could be heard, and there was a
mysterious movement at a certain distance off. It was evident that the
critical moment was arriving, and, as on the previous evening, the
vedettes fell back, but this time all of them did so. The barricade
was stronger than at the prior attack, for since the departure of the
five it had been heightened. By the advice of the vedette who had been
watching the region of the Halles, Enjolras, through fear of a surprise
in the rear, formed a serious resolution. He barricaded the small
passage of the Mondétour Lane, which had hitherto remained free, and
for this purpose a further portion of the street was unpaved. In this
way the barricade, walled in on three sides,--in front by the Rue de
la Chanvrerie, on the left by the Rue du Cygne, and on the right by
the Rue Mondétour,--was truly almost impregnable, but it is true that
they were fatally enclosed within it. It had three fronts but no issue,
it was a fortress but a mouse-trap, as Courfeyrac said with a smile.
Enjolras had some thirty paving-stones piled up by the door of the inn.
"They dug up more than enough," said Bossuet. The silence was now so
profound in the direction whence the attack must come, that Enjolras
ordered all his men to return to their fighting-posts, and a ration of
brandy was distributed to each man.
Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault;
every man chooses his place, as at the theatre. They crowd, elbow, and
shoulder one another, and some make stalls of paving-stones. Here an
angle of the wall is in the way, and it is avoided; there is a redan
which may offer protection, and they seek shelter in it. Left-handed
men are precious, for they take places inconvenient for others. Many
arrange so as to fight seated, for they wish to be at their ease to
kill, and comfortable in dying. In the fatal war of June, 1848, an
insurgent, who was a wonderful marksman, and who fought from a terraced
roof, had a Voltaire easy-chair carried there, and was knocked over
in it by a volley of grape-shot. So soon as the chief has given the
signal for action all disorderly movements cease; there is no longer
any sharp-shooting, any conversations or asides: all that minds contain
converges, and is changed into the expectation of the assailant. A
barricade before danger is a chaos, in danger discipline, for peril
produces order. So soon as Enjolras had taken his double-barrelled
gun, and placed himself at a species of parapet which he reserved for
himself, all were silent; a quick, sharp crackling ran confusedly along
the wall of paving-stones; it was the muskets being cocked. However,
the attitudes were haughtier and more confident than ever, for an
excess of sacrifice is a consolidation, and though they no longer had
hope, they had despair,--despair, that last weapon, which at times
gives victory, as Virgil tells us. Supreme resources issue from extreme
resolutions. To embark on death is at times the means of escaping the
shipwreck, and the cover of the coffin becomes a plank of salvation.
As on the previous evening, all their attention was turned upon the
end of the street, which was now lighted up and visible. They had not
long to wait ere the movement began again, distinctly in the direction
of St. Leu, but it did not resemble the sound of the first attack. A
rattling of chains, the alarming rolling of a heavy weight, a clang
of bronze leaping on the pavement, and a species of solemn noise,
announced that a sinister engine was approaching; there was a tremor
in the entrails of these old peaceful streets, pierced and built for
the fruitful circulation of interests and ideas, and which are not made
for the monstrous rolling of the wheels of war. The fixity of the eyes
turned toward the end of the street became stern, as a cannon appeared.
The gunners pushed the gun on; the limber was detached, and two men
supported the carriage, while four were at the wheels; others followed
with the tumbril, and the lighted match could be seen smoking.
"Fire!" shouted Enjolras.
The whole barricade burst into a flame, and the detonation was
frightful; an avalanche of smoke covered and concealed the gun and
the men. A few seconds after the cloud was dispersed, and the gun and
the men reappeared; the gunners were bringing it up to the front of
the barricade, slowly, correctly, and without hurry; not one had been
wounded. Then the captain of the gun, hanging with his whole weight
on the breech to elevate the muzzle, began pointing the gun with the
gravity of an astronomer setting a telescope.
"Bravo for the artillery!" cried Bossuet.
And all the men at the barricade clapped their hands. A moment after
the gun, standing in the very centre of the street across the gutter,
was in position, and a formidable mouth yawned at the barricade.
"Come, we are going to be gay," said Courfeyrac. "Here is the
brutality; after the fillip the blow with the fist The army is
extending its heavy paw toward us, and the barricade is going to be
seriously shaken. The musketry-fire feels, and the cannon takes."
"It is an eight-pounder of the new pattern in bronze," Combeferre
added. "Those guns, if the proportion of ten parts of tin to one
hundred of copper is exceeded, are liable to burst, for the excess of
tin renders them too soft. It thus happens that have holes and cavities
in the vent, and in order to obviate this danger and be able to load,
it would perhaps be advisable to revert to the process of the 14th
century, circling and reinforcing the gun with a series of steel rings,
without any welding from the breech to the trunnions. In the mean while
they remedy the defect as well as they can, and they manage to discover
where the holes are in the vent of the gun by means of a searcher; but
there is a better method in Gribeauval's movable star."
"In the 16th century," Bossuet observed, "guns were rifled."
"Yes," Combeferre replied; "that augments the ballistic force, but
lessens the correctness of aim. At short distances the trajectory has
not all the desirable rigidness, the parabola is exaggerated, the
path of the projectile is not sufficiently rectilinear for it to hit
intermediate objects, though that is a condition of fighting whose
importance grows with the proximity of the enemy and the precipitation
of the firing. This defective tension of the curve of the projectile
in rifled cannon of the 16th century emanated from the weakness of the
charge; weak charges for such engines are imposed by the ballistic
necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation of the carriage.
After all, the cannon, that despot, cannot do all that it wishes, and
strength is a great weakness. A cannon-ball goes only six hundred
leagues an hour, while light covers seventy thousand leagues per
second. This is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."
"Reload your guns," said Enjolras.
In what manner would the revetment of the barricade behave against a
cannon-ball? Would a breach be formed? That was the question. While
the insurgents were reloading their guns the artillerymen loaded the
cannon. The anxiety within the redoubt was profound; the shot was
fired, and the detonation burst forth.
"Present!" a joyous voice cried.
And at the same time as the cannon-ball struck the barricade, Gavroche
bounded inside it. He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne,
and actively clambered over the accessory barricade which fronted the
labyrinth of the Little Truanderie. Gavroche produced greater effect at
the barricade than the cannon-ball did; for the latter was lost in the
heap of rubbish. It had broken a wheel of the omnibus, and finished the
old truck, on seeing which the insurgents burst into a laugh.
"Persevere!" cried Bossuet to the gunners.