THE VULTURE BECOMES PREY.
We must lay a stress upon a psychological fact peculiar to barricades,
for nothing which characterizes this surprising war of streets ought
to be omitted. Whatever the internal tranquillity to which we have
just referred may be, the barricade does not the less remain a vision
for those who are inside it There is an apocalypse in a civil war, all
the darkness of the unknown world is mingled with these stern flashes,
revolutions are sphinxes, and any one who has stood behind a barricade
believes that he has gone through a dream. What is felt at these spots,
as we have shown in the matter of Marius, and whose consequences we
shall see, is more and less than life. On leaving a barricade, a man
no longer knows what he has seen; he may have been terrible, but he is
ignorant of the fact. He has been surrounded there by combating ideas
which possessed human faces, and had his head in the light of futurity.
There were corpses laid low and phantoms standing upright; and the
hours were colossal, and seemed hours of eternity. A man has lived in
death, and shadows have passed. What was it? He has seen hands on which
was blood; it was a deafening din, but at the same time a startling
silence: there were open mouths that cried, and other open mouths which
were silent, and men were in smoke, perhaps in night. A man fancies he
has touched the sinister dripping of unknown depths, and he looks at
something red which he has in his nails, but he no longer recollects
anything.
Let us return to the Rue de la Chanvrerie. Suddenly, between two
discharges, the distant sound of a clock striking was heard.
"It is midday," said Combeferre.
The twelve strokes had not died out ere Enjolras drew himself up to his
full height and hurled the loud cry from the top of the barricade,--
"Take up the paving-stones into the house, and line the windows with
them. One half of you to the stones, the other half to the muskets.
There is not a moment to lose."
A party of sappers, with their axes on their shoulders, had just
appeared in battle-array at the end of the street. This could only
be the head of a column; and of what column? Evidently the column
of attack; for the sappers ordered to demolish the barricade always
precede the troops appointed to escalade it. It was plain that the
moment was at hand which M. Clermont Tonnerre called in 1822 "a strong
pull."
Enjolras's order was carried out with that correct speed peculiar to
ships and barricades, the only two battle-fields whence escape is
impossible. In less than a minute two thirds of the paving-stones which
Enjolras had ordered to be piled up against the door of Corinth were
carried to the first-floor and attic, and before a second minute had
passed these paving-stones, artistically laid on one another, walled
up one half of the window. A few spaces carefully arranged by Feuilly,
the chief constructor, allowed the gun-barrels to pass through. This
armament of the windows was the more easily effected because the
grape-shot had ceased. The two cannon were now firing solid shot at the
centre of the barricade, in order to make a hole, and if possible a
breach, for the assault. When the stones intended for the final assault
were in their places, Enjolras carried to the first-floor the bottles
he had placed under the table on which Mabœuf lay.
"Who will drink that?" Bossuet asked him.
"They will," Enjolras answered.
Then the ground-floor window was also barricaded, and the iron bars
which closed the door at night were held in readiness. The fortress
was complete; the barricade was the rampart, and the wine-shop the
keep. With the paving-stones left over the gap was stopped up. As the
defenders of a barricade are always obliged to save their ammunition,
and the besiegers are aware of the fact, the latter combine their
arrangements with a sort of irritating leisure, expose themselves
before the time to the fire, though more apparently than in reality,
and take their ease. The preparations for the attack are always made
with a certain methodical slowness, and after that comes the thunder.
This slowness enabled Enjolras to revise and render everything perfect.
He felt that since such men were about to die, their death must be a
masterpiece. He said to Marius,--
"We are the two chiefs. I am going to give the final orders inside,
while you remain outside and watch."
Marius posted himself in observation on the crest of the barricade,
while Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which it will be remembered
served as ambulance, nailed up.
"No splashing on the wounded," he said.
He gave his final instructions in the ground-floor room in a sharp but
wonderfully calm voice, and Feuilly listened and answered in the name
of all.
"At the first-floor hold axes ready to cut down the stairs. Have you
them?"
"Yes," Feuilly answered.
"How many?"
"Two axes and a crowbar."
"Very good. In all, twenty-six fighting men left. How many guns are
there?"
"Thirty-four."
"Eight too many. Keep those guns loaded like the others, and within
reach. Place your sabres and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to
the barricade. Six will ambush themselves in the garret and at the
first-floor window, to fire on the assailants through the loop-holes in
the paving-stones. There must not be an idle workman here. Presently,
when the drummer sounds the charge, the twenty men below will rush to
the barricade, and the first to arrive will be the best placed."
These arrangements made, he turned to Javert, and said to him,--
"I have not forgotten you."
And laying a pistol on the table he added,--
"The last man to leave here will blow out this spy's brains."
"Here?" a voice answered.
"No, let us not have this corpse near ours. It is easy to stride over
the small barricade in Mondétour Lane, as it is only four feet high.
This man is securely bound, so lead him there and execute him."
Some one was at this moment even more stoical than Enjolras; it was
Javert. Here Jean Valjean appeared; he was mixed up with the group of
insurgents, but stepped forward and said to Enjolras,--
"Are you the commander?"
"Yes."
"You thanked me just now."
"In the name of the Republic. The barricade has two saviors,--Marius
Pontmercy and yourself."
"Do you think that I deserve a reward?"
"Certainly."
"Well, then, I ask one."
"What is it?"
"To let me blow out that man's brains myself."
Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, gave an imperceptible start,
and said, "It is fair."
As for Enjolras, he was reloading his gun. He looked around him.
"Is there no objection?"
And he turned to Jean Valjean.
"Take the spy."
Jean Valjean took possession of Javert by seating himself on the end of
the table. He seized the pistol, and a faint clink showed that he had
cocked it. Almost at the same moment the bugle-call was heard.
"Mind yourselves!" Marius shouted from the top of the barricade.
Javert began laughing that noiseless laugh peculiar to him, and,
looking intently at the insurgents, said to them,--
"You are no healthier than I am."
"All outside," Enjolras cried.
The insurgents rushed tumultuously forth, and as they passed, Javert
smote them on the back, so to speak, with the expression, "We shall
meet again soon."