EMPLOYMENT OF THE POACHER'S OLD SKILL AND HIS UNERRING SHOT, WHICH HAD
AN INFLUENCE ON THE CONDEMNATION IN 1796.
Opinions varied in the barricade, for the firing of the piece was going
to begin again, and the barricade could not hold out for a quarter of
an hour under the grape-shot; it was absolutely necessary to abate the
firing. Enjolras gave the command.
"We must have a mattress here."
"We have none," said Combeferre; "the wounded are lying on them."
Jean Valjean, seated apart on a bench, near the corner of the
wine-shop, with his gun between his legs, had not up to the present
taken any part in what was going on. He did not seem to hear the
combatants saying around him, "There is a gun that does nothing." On
hearing the order given by Enjolras, he rose. It will be remembered
that on the arrival of the insurgents in the Rue de la Chanvrerie,
an old woman, in her terror of the bullets, placed her mattress in
front of her window. This window, a garret window, was on the roof
of a six-storied house, a little beyond the barricade. The mattress,
placed across it, leaning at the bottom upon two clothes-props, was
held above by two ropes, which, at a distance, seemed two pieces of
pack-thread, and were fastened to nails driven into the frames of the
roof. These cords could be distinctly seen on the sky, like hairs.
"Can any one lend me a double-barrelled gun?" Jean Valjean asked.
Enjolras, who had just reloaded his, handed it to him. Jean Valjean
aimed at the garret window and fired; one of the two cords of the
mattress was cut asunder, and it hung by only one thread. Jean Valjean
fired the second shot, and the second cord lashed the garret window;
the mattress glided between the two poles and fell into the street The
insurgents applauded, and every voice cried,--
"There is a mattress."
"Yes," said Combeferre, "but who will go and fetch it?"
The mattress, in truth, had fallen outside the barricade, between the
besiegers and besieged. Now, as the death of the sergeant of artillery
had exasperated the troops, for some time past they had been lying flat
behind the pile of paving-stones which they had raised; and in order to
make up for the enforced silence of the gun, they had opened fire on
the barricade. The insurgents, wishing to save their ammunition, did
not return this musketry: the fusillade broke against the barricade,
but the street which it filled with bullets was terrible. Jean Valjean
stepped out of the gap, entered the street, traversed the hail of
bullets, went to the mattress, picked it up, placed it on his back, and
re-entering the barricade, himself placed the mattress in the gap,
and fixed it against the wall, so that the gunners should not see it.
This done, they waited for the next round, which was soon fired. The
gun belched forth its canister with a hoarse roar, but there was no
ricochet, and the grape-shot was checked by the mattress. The expected
result was obtained, and the barricade saved.
"Citizen," Enjolras said to Jean Valjean, "the republic thanks you."
Bossuet admired, and laughingly said,--
"It is immoral for a mattress to have so much power: it is the triumph
of that which yields over that which thunders. But no matter, glory to
the mattress that annuls a cannon!"