3.V.1.13. PASSING GLEAMS
IN the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a
barricade, there is a little of everything; there is bravery,
there is youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the
rage of the gambler, and, above all, intermittences of hope.
One of these intermittences, one of these vague quivers of
hope suddenly traversed the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie
at the moment when it was least expected.
"Listen," suddenly cried Enjolras, who was still on the
watch, "it seems to me that Paris is waking up."
It is certain that, on the morning of the 6th of June, the
insurrection broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain
extent. The obstinacy of the alarm peal of Saint-Merry
reanimated
some fancies. Barricades were begun in the Rue du
Poirier and the Rue des Gravilliers. In front of the Porte
Saint-Martin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked alone
a squadron of cavalry. In plain sight, on the open boulevard,
he placed one knee on the ground, shouldered his weapon,
fired, killed the commander of the squadron, and turned
away, saying: "There's another who will do us no more
harm."
He was put to the sword. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a
woman fired on the National Guard from behind a lowered
blind. The slats of the blind could be seen to tremble at every
shot. A child fourteen years of age was arrested in the Rue
de la Cossonerie, with his pockets full of cartridges. Many
posts were attacked. At the entrance to the Rue Bertin-Poiree,
a very lively and utterly unexpected fusillade welcomed
a regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched
Marshal General Cavaignac de Barague. In the Rue Planche-Mibray,
they threw old pieces of pottery and household utensils
down on the soldiers from the roofs; a bad sign; and when
this matter was reported to Marshal Soult, Napoleon's old
lieutenant grew thoughtful, as he recalled Suchet's saying at
Saragossa: "We are lost when the old women empty their pots
de chambre on our heads."
These general symptoms which presented themselves at the
moment when it was thought that the uprising had been rendered
local, this fever of wrath, these sparks which flew hither
and thither above those deep masses of combustibles which
are called the faubourgs of Paris, — all this, taken together,
disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to stamp out
these beginnings of conflagration.
They delayed the attack on the barricades Maubuee, de la
Chanvrerie and Saint-Merry until these sparks had been
extinguished,
in order that they might have to deal with the
barricades only and be able to finish them at one blow. Columns
were thrown into the streets where there was fermentation,
sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left,
now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge. The troops
broke in the doors of houses whence shots had been fired; at
the same time, manoeuvres by the cavalry dispersed the groups
on the boulevards. This repression was not effected without
some commotion, and without that tumultuous uproar peculiar
to collisions between the army and the people. This was
what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the cannonade
and the musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men
passing the end of the street in litters, and he said to
Courfeyrac: —
"Those wounded do not come from us."
Their hope did not last long; the gleam was quickly
eclipsed. In less than half an hour, what was in the air
vanished,
it was a flash of lightning unaccompanied by thunder,
and the insurgents felt that sort of leaden cope, which the
indifference
of the people casts over obstinate and deserted men,
fall over them once more.
The general movement, which seemed to have assumed a
vague outline, had miscarried; and the attention of the minister
of war and the strategy of the generals could now be concentrated
on the three or four barricades which still remained
standing.
The sun was mounting above the horizon.
An insurgent hailed Enjolras.
"We are hungry here. Are we really going to die like
this,
without anything to eat?"
Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his
embrasure,
made an affirmative sign with his head, but without
taking his eyes from the end of the street.