Les MisĂ©rables by Victor Hugo (knowledgeable books to read txt) đ
BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS
I. The Convent as an Abstract IdeaII. The Convent as an Historical FactIII. On What Conditions One can respect the PastIV. The Convent from the Point of View of PrinciplesV. PrayerVI. The Absolute Goodness of PrayerVII. Precautions to be observed in BlameVIII. Faith, Law
BOOK EIGHTH.--CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM
I. Which treats of the Manner of entering a ConventII. Fauchelevent in the Presence of a DifficultyIII. Mother InnocenteIV. In which Jean Valjean has quite the Air of having readAustin CastillejoV. It is not Necessary to be Drunk in order to be ImmortalVI. Between Four PlanksVII. In which will be found the Origin of the Saying: Don'tlose the CardVIII. A Successful InterrogatoryIX. Cloister
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Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered:â
âIf you are killed before me, I shall take yours.â
âGamin!â said Enjolras.
âGreenhorn!â said Gavroche.
A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end of the street created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:â
âCome with us, young fellow! well now, donât we do anything for this old country of ours?â
The dandy fled.
CHAPTER VâPREPARATIONS
The journals of the day which said that that nearly impregnable structure, of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call it, reached to the level of the first floor, were mistaken. The fact is, that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was built in such a manner that the combatants could, at their will, either disappear behind it or dominate the barrier and even scale its crest by means of a quadruple row of paving-stones placed on top of each other and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the barricade, composed of piles of paving-stones and casks bound together by beams and planks, which were entangled in the wheels of Anceauâs dray and of the overturned omnibus, had a bristling and inextricable aspect.
An aperture large enough to allow a man to pass through had been made between the wall of the houses and the extremity of the barricade which was furthest from the wine-shop, so that an exit was possible at this point. The pole of the omnibus was placed upright and held up with ropes, and a red flag, fastened to this pole, floated over the barricade.
The little MondĂ©tour barricade, hidden behind the wine-shop building, was not visible. The two barricades united formed a veritable redoubt. Enjolras and Courfeyrac had not thought fit to barricade the other fragment of the Rue MondĂ©tour which opens through the Rue des PrĂȘcheurs an issue into the Halles, wishing, no doubt, to preserve a possible communication with the outside, and not entertaining much fear of an attack through the dangerous and difficult street of the Rue des PrĂȘcheurs.
With the exception of this issue which was left free, and which constituted what Folard in his strategical style would have termed a branch and taking into account, also, the narrow cutting arranged on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the interior of the barricade, where the wine-shop formed a salient angle, presented an irregular square, closed on all sides. There existed an interval of twenty paces between the grand barrier and the lofty houses which formed the background of the street, so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses, all inhabited, but closed from top to bottom.
All this work was performed without any hindrance, in less than an hour, and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bear-skin cap or a single bayonet make their appearance. The very bourgeois who still ventured at this hour of riot to enter the Rue Saint-Denis cast a glance at the Rue de la Chanvrerie, caught sight of the barricade, and redoubled their pace.
The two barricades being finished, and the flag run up, a table was dragged out of the wine-shop; and Courfeyrac mounted on the table. Enjolras brought the square coffer, and Courfeyrac opened it. This coffer was filled with cartridges. When the mob saw the cartridges, a tremor ran through the bravest, and a momentary silence ensued.
Courfeyrac distributed them with a smile.
Each one received thirty cartridges. Many had powder, and set about making others with the bullets which they had run. As for the barrel of powder, it stood on a table on one side, near the door, and was held in reserve.
The alarm beat which ran through all Paris, did not cease, but it had finally come to be nothing more than a monotonous noise to which they no longer paid any attention. This noise retreated at times, and again drew near, with melancholy undulations.
They loaded the guns and carbines, all together, without haste, with solemn gravity. Enjolras went and stationed three sentinels outside the barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des PrĂȘcheurs, the third at the corner of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie.
Then, the barricades having been built, the posts assigned, the guns loaded, the sentinels stationed, they waited, alone in those redoubtable streets through which no one passed any longer, surrounded by those dumb houses which seemed dead and in which no human movement palpitated, enveloped in the deepening shades of twilight which was drawing on, in the midst of that silence through which something could be felt advancing, and which had about it something tragic and terrifying, isolated, armed, determined, and tranquil.
CHAPTER VIâWAITING
During those hours of waiting, what did they do?
We must needs tell, since this is a matter of history.
While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan of melted brass and lead, destined to the bullet-mould smoked over a glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their student life, and, in one corner of this wine-shop which had been converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt which they had built, with their carbines loaded and primed resting against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to a supreme hour, began to recite love verses.
What verses? These:â
Lorsque nous Ă©tions si jeunes tous deux,
Et que nous nâavions au cĆur dâautre envie
Que dâĂȘtre bien mis et dâĂȘtre amoureux,
Lorsquâen ajoutant votre Ăąge Ă mon Ăąge,
Nous ne comptions pas Ă deux quarante ans,
Et que, dans notre humble et petit ménage,
Tout, mĂȘme lâhiver, nous Ă©tait printemps?
Beaux jours! Manuel Ă©tait fier et sage,
Paris sâasseyait Ă de saints banquets,
Foy lançait la foudre, et votre corsage
Avait une Ă©pingle oĂč je me piquais.
Tout vous contemplait. Avocat sans causes,
Quand je vous menais au Prado dĂźner,
Vous Ă©tiez jolie au point que les roses
Me faisaient lâeffet de se retourner.
Je les entendais dire: Est elle belle!
Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux Ă flots!
Sous son mantelet elle cache une aile,
Son bonnet charmant est Ă peine Ă©clos.
Jâerrais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple.
Les passants croyaient que lâamour charmĂ©
Avait marié, dans notre heureux couple,
Le doux mois dâavril au beau mois de mai.
Nous vivions cachés, contents, porte close,
DĂ©vorant lâamour, bon fruit dĂ©fendu,
Ma bouche nâavait pas dit une chose
Que dĂ©jĂ ton cĆur avait rĂ©pondu.
La Sorbonne Ă©tait lâendroit bucolique
OĂč je tâadorais du soir au matin.
Câest ainsi quâune Ăąme amoureuse applique
La carte du Tendre au pays Latin.
O place Maubert! O place Dauphine!
Quand, dans le taudis frais et printanier,
Tu tirais ton bas sur ta jambe fine,
Je voyais un astre au fond du grenier.
Jâai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne mâen reste;
Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais,
Tu me démontrais la bonté céleste
Avec une fleur que tu me donnais.
Je tâobĂ©issais, tu mâĂ©tais soumise;
O grenier doré! te lacer! te voir
Aller et venir dĂšs lâaube en chemise,
Mirant ton jeune front Ă ton vieux miroir.
Et qui donc pourrait perdre la mémoire
De ces temps dâaurore et de firmament,
De rubans, de fleurs, de gaze et de moire,
OĂč lâamour bĂ©gaye un argot charmant?
Nos jardins Ă©taient un pot de tulipe;
Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon;
Je prenais le bol de terre de pipe,
Et je te donnais le tasse en japon.
Et ces grands malheurs qui nous faisaient rire!
Ton manchon brûlé, ton boa perdu!
Et ce cher portrait du divin Shakespeare
Quâun soir pour souper nons avons vendu!
JâĂ©tais mendiant et toi charitable.
Je baisais au vol tes bras frais et ronds.
Dante in folio nous servait de table
Pour manger gaĂźment un cent de marrons.
La premiĂšre fois quâen mon joyeux bouge
Je pris un baiser Ă ta lĂšvre en feu,
Quand tu tâen allais dĂ©coiffĂ©e et rouge,
Je restai tout pĂąle et je crus en Dieu!
Te rappelles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre,
Et tous ces fichus changés en chiffons?
Oh que de soupirs, de nos cĆurs pleins dâombre,
Se sont envolés dans les cieux profonds!53
The hour, the spot, these souvenirs of youth recalled, a few stars which began to twinkle in the sky, the funeral repose of those deserted streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in preparation, gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low tone in the dusk by Jean Prouvaire, who, as we have said, was a gentle poet.
In the meantime, a lamp had been lighted in the small barricade, and in the large one, one of those wax torches such as are to be met with on Shrove-Tuesday in front of vehicles loaded with masks, on their way to la Courtille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
The torch had been placed in a sort of cage of paving-stones closed on three sides to shelter it from the wind, and disposed in such a fashion that all the light fell on the flag. The street and the barricade remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag formidably illuminated as by an enormous dark-lantern.
This light enhanced the scarlet of the flag, with an indescribable and terrible purple.
CHAPTER VIIâTHE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES
Night was fully come, nothing made its appearance. All that they heard was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades; but these were rare, badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus prolonged, was a sign that the Government was taking its time, and collecting its forces. These fifty men were waiting for sixty thousand.
Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls on the threshold of redoubtable events. He went in search of Gavroche, who had set to making cartridges in the tap-room, by the dubious light of two candles placed on the counter by way of precaution, on account of the powder which was scattered on the tables. These two candles cast no gleam outside. The insurgents had, moreover, taken pains not to have any light in the upper stories.
Gavroche was deeply preoccupied at that moment, but not precisely with his cartridges. The man of the Rue des Billettes had just entered the tap-room and had seated himself at the table which was the least lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it between his legs. Gavroche, who had been, up to that moment, distracted by a hundred âamusingâ things, had not even seen this man.
When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically with his eyes, admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street urchin sprang to his feet. Any one who had spied upon that man up to that moment, would have seen that he was observing everything in the barricade and in the band of insurgents, with singular attention; but, from the moment when he had entered this room, he had fallen into a sort of brown study, and no longer seemed to see anything that was going on. The gamin approached this pensive personage, and began to step around him on tiptoe, as one walks in the vicinity of a person whom one is afraid of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance which was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and so profound, so gay and so heart-breaking, passed all those grimaces of an old man which signify: Ah bah! impossible! My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this be? no, it is not! but yes! why, no! etc. Gavroche balanced on his heels, clenched both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a bird, expended in a gigantic pout all the sagacity of his lower lip. He was astounded, uncertain, incredulous, convinced, dazzled. He had the mien of the chief of the eunuchs in
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