PREPARATIONS.
The journals of the day which stated that the barricade in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, that "almost impregnable fortress," as they called it, reached the level of a first-floor, are mistaken, for the truth is that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was so built that the combatants could at will either disappear behind it or ascend to its crest by means of a quadruple row of paving-stones arranged like steps inside. Externally the front of the barricade, composed of piles of paving-stones and barrels, held together by joists and planks passed through the wheels of the truck and the omnibus, had a bristling and inextricable appearance. A gap, sufficiently wide for one man to pass, was left between the house-wall and the end of the barricade farthest from the wine-shop, so that a sortie was possible. The pole of the omnibus was held upright by ropes, and a red flag fixed to this pole floated over the barricade. The small Mondétour barricade, concealed behind the wine-shop, could not be seen, but the two barricades combined formed a real redoubt. Enjolras and Courfeyrac had not thought it advisable to barricade the other portion of the Rue Mondétour, which opens on to the Halles, as they doubtless wished to maintain a possible communication with the outside, and had but little fear of being attacked by the difficult and dangerous Rue des Prêcheurs. With the exception of this issue left free, which constituted what Folard would have called in a strategic style a boyau, and of the narrow passage in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the interior of the barricade, in which the wine-shop formed a salient angle, presented an irregular quadrilateral enclosed on all sides. There was a space of twenty yards between the great barricade and the tall houses which formed the end of the street, so that it might be said that the barricade leaned against these houses, which were all inhabited, but closed from top to bottom.
All this labor was completed without any obstacle, in less than an hour, during which this handful of men had not seen a single bearskin-cap or bayonet. The few citizens who still ventured at this moment of riot into the Rue St. Denis took a glance into the Rue de la Chanvrerie, perceived the barricade, and doubled their pace. When the two barricades were completed and the flag was hoisted, a table was pulled from the wine-shop into the street, and Courfeyrac got upon it. Enjolras brought up the square chest, which Courfeyrac opened, and it proved to be full of cartridges. When they saw these cartridges the bravest trembled, and there was a moment's silence. Courfeyrac distributed the cartridges smilingly, and each received thirty: many had powder, and began making others with the bullets which had been cast; as for the powder barrel, it was on a separate table, near the door, and was held in reserve. The drum-beat call to arms, which was traversing the whole of Paris, did not cease, but in the end it had become a monotonous sound, to which they no longer paid any attention. This noise at one moment retired, at another came nearer, with lugubrious undulations. The guns and carbines were loaded all together, without precipitation and with a solemn gravity. Enjolras then stationed three sentries outside the barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des Prêcheurs, the third at the corner of the Petite Truanderie. Then, when the barricades were built, the posts assigned, the guns loaded, the sentries set, the insurgents alone in these formidable streets, through which no one now passed, surrounded by dumb and, as it were, dead houses, in which no human movement palpitated, enveloped in the menacing darkness, in the midst of that silence and obscurity in which they felt something advancing, and which had something tragical and terrifying about it, isolated, armed, determined, and tranquil—waited.
CHAPTER VI.
WAITING.
During the hours of waiting, what did they do? We are bound to tell it, because this is historical.
While the men were making cartridges and the women lint, while a large stewpan full of melted tin and lead, intended for the bullet-mould, was smoking on a red-hot chafing-dish, while the vedettes were watching with shouldered guns on the barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to distract, watched the vedettes, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and a few others, assembled, as in the most peaceful days of their student conversations, and in one corner of the wine-shop converted into a casemate, two paces from the barricade which they had raised, and with their loaded and primed muskets leaning against the back of their chairs,—these fine young men, so near their last hour, wrote love verses.
What verses? Here they are:—
Do you remember those days gone by,
Our youth's high spring-tide? The sweet glad spell
Held us a season, when you and I
Lived but to love and to look well?
Then all your years together with mine
Would not make two-score when all was said;
Our nest it was so cosy and fine,
Spring hid within till Winter had fled.
What days! Manuel, how lofty, how chaste!
Paris, turned godly, would be improved.
And how Foy thundered—and in your waist
Was a pin, that pricked when my fingers roved!
All eyes looked your way. At Prado's where
Your briefless barrister dined with you,
You were so pretty, the roses there
Turned and eyed you, in envy too.
I seemed to hear them whisper, "How fair!
What wealth of ringlets, what rich perfume!
They are wings she hides 'neath her mantle there;
Her bonnet's a blossom all a-bloom!"
Arm linked in arm, together we strayed;
Passers thought, as we went our way,
Light-hearted Cupid a match had made
'Twixt tender April and gallant May.
We lived so merrily hidden away,
Feeding on Love's dear forbidden fruit.
Swifter than aught that my lips could say
Your heart replied, when your lips were mute.
In the Sorbonne 't was, that idyllic spot,
I dreamed of you through the long night-hours.
'T is thus a youthful lover self-taught
In the Latin Quarter sights Love-land's towers.
O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine!
Dear sky-built palace-attic where
You drew your stocking on, unseen—
I gazed at a star in the ceiling there!
Lamennais, Malebranche, forgotten they,
And Plato too, mastered so carefully;
But I fathomed God's Infinite Love one day
In a flower,—the flower you gave to me.
I was your slave. You my subject were.
O golden attic! to watch you pass
Back and forth, dressing, at daybreak there,
Your girl's face smiling from that old glass!
O golden dawn! O golden days!
Who can outlive them, forget them wholly?
The ribbons too, flowers and gauze and lace,
Wherein Love stammered its first sweet folly.
Our garden,—a tulip-pot held the whole!
Your petticoat curtained the window-pane;
I kept for myself the earthen-ware bowl,
And gave you the cup of porcelain.
And such mishaps too, for mirth and woe!
Your muff had caught fire, your tippet was gone
And that portrait of Shakespeare we valued so
Sold for a song—to be supped upon.
I'd beg and you would your alms bestow,
A kiss from your fair round arm I'd steal.
Our board was that Dante in folio,
And a hundred chestnuts our humble meal.
And that one moment, and all its joy
When your lips met mine and the first kiss given,
You fled, dishevelled and rosy and coy;
I grew quite pale and believed in Heaven!
Do you remember our countless joys?
Those neckerchiefs rumpled? ah, well-a-day!
And now from heavier hearts what sighs
To skies all darkened are borne away!
The hour, the spot, the recollections of youth recalled, a few stars which were beginning to glisten in the sky, the funereal repose of these deserted streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure which was preparing, gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low voice in the twilight by Jean Prouvaire, who, as we said, was a gentle poet.
In the mean while a lamp had been lit on the small barricade, and on the large one, one of those wax torches such as may be seen on Shrove Tuesday in front of the vehicles crowded with masks that are proceeding to the Courtille. These torches, we know, came from the Faubourg St. Antoine. The torch was placed in a species of lantern of paving-stones closed on three sides to protect it from the wind, and arranged so that the entire light should fall on the flag. The street and the barricade remained plunged in darkness, and nothing was visible save the red flag formidably illumined, as if by an enormous dark-lantern. This light added a strange and terrible purple to the scarlet of the flag.