The massacre seemed to be at an end; the fusillades were heard no longer. As I was about to knock at the door I hesitated for a moment; a man was there who seemed to be waiting. I went straight up to this man, and I said to him,—
"You seem to be waiting for somebody?"
He answered,—
"Yes."
"For whom?"
"For you."
And he added, lowering his voice, "I have come to speak to you."
I looked at this man. A street-lamp shone on him. He did not avoid the light.
He was a young man with a fair beard, wearing a blue blouse, and who had the gentle bearing of a thinker and the robust hands of a workman.
"Who are you?" I asked him.
He answered,—"I belong to the Society of the Last-makers. I know you very well, Citizen Victor Hugo."
"From whom do you come?" I resumed.
He answered still in a whisper,—
"From Citizen King."
"Very good," said I.
He then told me his name. As he has survived the events of the night of the 4th, and as he since escaped the denunciations, it can be understood that we will not mention his name here, and that we shall confine ourselves to terming him throughout the course of this story by his trade, calling him the "last-maker."27
"What do you want to say to me?" I asked him.
He explained that matters were not hopeless, that he and his friends meant to continue the resistance, that the meeting-places of the Societies had not yet been settled, but that they would be during the evening, that my presence was desired, and that if I would be under the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock, either himself or another of their men would be there, and would serve me as guide. We decided that in order to make himself known, the messenger, when accosting me, should give the password, "What is Joseph doing?"
I do not know whether he thought he noticed any doubt or mistrust on my part. He suddenly interrupted himself, and said,—
"After all, you are not bound to believe me. One does not think of everything: I ought to have asked them to give me a word in writing. At a time like this one distrusts everybody."
"On the contrary," I said to him, "one trusts everybody. I will be in the Colbert Arcade at nine o'clock."
And I left him.
I re-entered my asylum. I was tired, I was hungry, I had recourse to Charamaule's chocolate and to a small piece of bread which I had still left. I sank down into an arm-chair, I ate and I slept. Some slumbers are gloomy. I had one of those slumbers, full of spectres; I again saw the dead child and the two red holes in his forehead, these formed two mouths: one said "Morny," and the other "Saint-Arnaud." History is not made, however, to recount dreams. I will abridge. Suddenly I awoke. I started: "If only it is not past nine o'clock!" I had forgotten to wind up my watch. It had stopped. I went out hastily. The street was lonely, the shops were shut. In the Place Louvos I heard the hour striking (probably from Saint Roch); I listened. I counted nine strokes. In a few moments I was under the Colbert Arcade. I peered into the darkness. No one was under the Arcade.
I felt that it was impossible to remain there, and have the appearance of waiting about; near the Colbert Arcade there is a police-station, and the patrols were passing every moment. I plunged into the street. I found no one there. I went as far as the Rue Vivienne. At the corner of the Rue Vivienne a man was stopping before a placard and was trying to deface it or to tear it down. I drew near this man, who probably took me for a police agent, and who fled at the top of his speed. I retraced my steps. Near the Colbert Arcade, and just as I reached the point in the street where they post the theatrical bills, a workman passed me, and said quickly, "What is Joseph doing?"
I recognized the last-maker.
"Come," he said to me.
We set out without speaking and without appearing to know each other, he walking some steps before me.
We first went to two addresses, which I cannot mention here without pointing out victims for the proscription. In these two houses we got no news; no one had come there on the part of the societies.
"Let us go to the third place," said the last-maker, and he explained to me that they had settled among them three successive meeting-places, in case of need, so as to be always sure of finding each other if, perchance, the police discovered the first or even the second meeting-place, a precaution which for our part we adopted as much as possible with regard to our meetings of the Left end of the Committee.
We had reached the market quarter. Fighting had been going on there throughout the day. There were no longer any gas-lamps in the streets. We stopped from time to time, and listened so as not to run headlong into the arms of a patrol. We got over a paling of planks almost completely destroyed, and of which barricades had probably been made, and we crossed the extensive area of half-demolished houses which at that epoch encumbered the lower portions of the Rue Montmartre and Rue Montorgueil. On the peaks of the high dismantled gables could be seen a flickering red glow, doubtless the reflection of the bivouac-fires of the soldiers encamped in the markets and in the neighborhood of Saint Eustache. This reflection lighted our way. The last-maker, however, narrowly escaped falling into a deep hole, which was no less than the cellar of a demolished house. On coming out of this region, covered with ruins, amongst which here and there a few trees might be perceived, the remains of gardens which had now disappeared, we entered into narrow, winding, and completely dark streets, where it was impossible to recognize one's whereabouts. Nevertheless the last-maker walked on as much at his ease as in broad daylight, and like a man who is going straight to his destination. Once he turned round to me, and said to me,—
"The whole of this quarter is barricaded; and if, as I hope, our friends come down, I will answer that they will hold it for a long time."
Suddenly he stopped. "Here is one," said he. In truth, seven or eight paces before us was a barricade entirely constructed of paving-stones, not exceeding a man's height, and which in the darkness appeared like a ruined wall. A narrow passage had been formed at one end. We passed through it. There was no one behind the barricade.
"There has already been fighting here a short time ago," said the last-maker in a low voice; and he added, after a pause, "We are getting near."
The unpaving had left holes, of which we had to be careful. We strode, and sometimes jumped, from paving-stone to paving-stone. Notwithstanding the intense darkness, there yet hovered about an indefinable glimmer; on our way we noticed before us on the ground, close to the foot-pavement, something which looked like a stretched-out form. "The devil!" muttered my guide, "we were just going to walk upon it." He took a little wax match from his pocket and struck it on his sleeve; the flame flashed out. The light fell upon a pallid face, which looked at us with fixed eyes. It was a corpse lying there; it was an old man. The last-maker rapidly waved the match from his head to his feet. The dead man was almost in the attitude of a crucified man; his two arms were stretched out; his white hair, red at the ends, was soaking in the mud; a pool of blood was beneath him; a large blackish patch on his waistcoat marked the place where the ball had pierced his breast; one of his braces was undone; he had thick laced boots on his feet. The last-maker lifted up one of his arms, and said, "His collar-bone is broken." The movement shook the head, and the open mouth turned towards us as though about to speak to us. I gazed at this vision; I almost listened. Suddenly it disappeared.
This face re-entered the gloom; the match had just gone out.
We went away in silence. After walking about twenty paces, the last-maker, as though talking to himself, said in a whisper, "Don't know him."
We still pushed forward. From the cellars to the roofs, from the ground-floors to the garrets, there was not a light in the house. We appeared to be groping in an immense tomb.
A man's voice, firm and sonorous, suddenly issued out of the darkness, and shouted to us, "Who goes there?"
"Ah, there they are!" said the last-maker, and he uttered a peculiar whistle.
"Come on," resumed the voice.
It was another barricade. This one, a little higher than the first, and separated from it by a distance of about a hundred paces, was, as far as could be seen, constructed of barrels filled with paving-stones. On the top could be seen the wheels of a truck entangled between the barrels; planks and beams were intermingled. A passage had been contrived still narrower than the gangway of the other barricade.
"Citizens," said the last-maker, as he went into the barricade, "how many of you are there here?"
The voice which had shouted, "Who goes there?" answered,—
"There are two of us."
"Is that all?"
"That is all."
They were in truth two,—two men who alone during that night, in that solitary street, behind that heap of paving-stones, awaited the onslaught of a regiment.
Both wore blouses; they were two workmen; with a few cartridges in their pockets, and a musket upon each of their shoulders.
"So then," resumed the last-maker, in an impatient tone, "our friends have not yet come!"
"Well, then," I said to him, "let us wait for them."
The last-maker spoke for a short time in a low tone, and probably told my name to one of the two defenders of the barricade, who came up to me and saluted me. "Citizen Representative," said he, "it will be very warm here shortly."
"In the meantime," answered I laughingly, "it is cold."
It was very cold, in truth. The street which was completely unpaved behind the barricade, was nothing better than a sewer, ankle deep in water.
"I say that it will be warm," resumed the workman, "and that you would do well to go farther off."
The last-maker put his hand on his shoulder: "Comrade, it is necessary that we should remain here. The meeting-place is close by, in the ambulance."
"All the same," resumed the other workman, who was very short, and who stood up on a paving-stone; "the Citizen Representative would do well to go farther off."
"I can very well be where you are," said I to him.
The street was quite dark, nothing could be seen of the sky. Inside the barricade on the left, on the side where the passage was, could be seen a high paling of badly joined planks, through which shone in places a feeble light. Above the paling rose out, lost in the darkness, a house of six or seven storys; the ground floor, which was being repaired, and which was under-pinned, being closed in by these planks. A ray of light issuing from between the planks fell on the opposite wall, and lighted up an old torn placard, on which could be read, "Asnières. Water tournaments. Grand ball."
"Have you another gun?" asked the last-maker of the taller of the two workmen.
"If we had three guns we should be three men," answered the workman.
The little one added, "Do you think that the good will is wanting? There are plenty of musicians, but there are no clarionets."
By the side of the wooden paling could be seen a little, narrow and low door, which looked more like the door of a stall than the door of a shop. The shop to which this door belonged was hermetically sealed. The door seemed to be equally closed. The last-maker went up to it and pushed it gently. It was open.
"Let us go in," he said.
I went in first, he followed me, and shut the door behind me. We were in a room on the ground floor. At the end, on the left, a half-opened door emitted the reflection of a light. The room was only lighted by this reflection. A counter and a species of stove, painted in black and white, could be dimly distinguished.
A short, half-suffocated, intermittent gurgling could be heard, which seemed to come from an adjoining room on the same side as the light. The last-maker walked quickly to the half-opened door. I crossed the room after him, and we found ourselves in a sort of vast shed, lighted by one candle. We were on the other side of the plank paling. There was only the plank paling between ourselves and the barricade.
This species of shed was the ground floor in course of demolition. Iron columns, painted red, and fixed into stone sockets at short distances apart, supported the joists of the ceiling; facing the street, a huge framework standing erect, and denoting the centre of the surrounding paling, supported the great cross-beam of the first story, that is to say, supported the whole house. In a corner were lying some masons' tools, a heap of rubbish, and a large double ladder. A few straw-bottomed chairs were scattered here and there. The damp ground served for the flooring. By the side of a table, on which stood a candle in the midst of medicine bottles, an old woman and a young girl of about eight years old—the woman seated, the child squatting before a great basketful of old linen—were making lint. The end of the room, which was lost in the darkness, was carpeted with a litter of straw, on which three mattresses had been thrown. The gurgling noise came from there.
"It is the ambulance," said the last-maker.
The old woman turned her head, and seeing us, shuddered convulsively, and then, reassured probably by the blouse of the last-maker, she got up and came towards us.
The last-maker whispered a few words in her ear. She answered, "I have seen nobody."
Then she added, "But what makes me uneasy is that my husband has not yet come back. They have done nothing but fire muskets the whole evening."
Two men were lying on two of the mattresses at the end of the room. A third mattress was unoccupied and was waiting.
The wounded man nearest to me had received a musket ball in his stomach. He it was who was gurgling. The old woman came towards the mattress with a candle, and whispered to us, showing us her fist, "If you could only see the hole that that has made! We have stuffed lint as large as this into his stomach."
She resumed, "He is not above twenty-five years old. He will be dead to-morrow morning."
The other was still younger. He was hardly eighteen. "He has a handsome black overcoat," said the woman. "He is most likely a student." The young man had the whole of the lower part of his face swathed in blood-stained linen. She explained to us that he had received a ball in the mouth, which had broken his jaw. He was in a high fever, and gazed at us with lustrous eyes. From time to time he stretched his right arm towards a basin full of water in which a sponge was soaking; he took the sponge, carried it to his face, and himself moistened his bandages.
It seemed to me that his gaze fastened upon me in a singular manner. I went up to him, I stooped down, and I gave him my hand, which he took in his own. "Do you know me?" I asked him. He answered "Yes," by a pressure of the hand which went to my heart.
The last-maker said to me, "Wait a minute for me here, I shall be back directly; I want to see in this neighborhood, if there is any means of getting a gun."
He added,—
"Would you like one for yourself?"
"No," answered I. "I shall remain here without a gun. I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill."
I asked him if he thought his friends were going to come. He declared that he could not understand it, that the men from the societies ought to have arrived already, that instead of two men in the barricade there should be twenty, that instead of two barricades in the street there should have been ten, and that something must have happened; he added,—
"However, I will go and see; promise to wait for me here."
"I promise you," I answered, "I will wait all night if necessary."
He left me.
The old woman had reseated herself near the little girl, who did not seem to understand much of what was passing round her, and who from time to time raised great calm eyes towards me. Both were poorly clad, and it seemed to me that the child had stockingless feet. "My man has not yet come back," said the old woman, "my poor man has not yet come back. I hope nothing has happened to him!" With many heart-rending "My God's," and all the while quickly picking her lint, she wept. I could not help thinking with anguish of the old man we had seen stretched on the pavement at a few paces distant.
A newspaper was lying on the table. I took it up, and I unfolded it. It was the P——, the rest of the title had been torn off. A blood-stained hand was plainly imprinted on it. A wounded man on entering had probably placed his hand on the table on the spot where the newspaper lay. My eyes fell upon these lines:—
"M. Victor Hugo has just published an appeal to pillage and assassination."
In these terms the journal of the Elysée described the proclamation which I had dictated to Baudin, and which may be read in page 103 of this History.
As I threw back the paper on the table one of the two defenders of the barricade entered. It was the short man.
"A glass of water," said he. By the side of the medicine bottles there was a decanter and a glass. He drank, greedily. He held in his hand a morsel of bread and a sausage, which he was biting.
Suddenly we heard several successive explosions, following one after another, and which seemed but a short distance off. In the silence of this dark night it resembled the sound of a load of wood being shot on to the pavement.
The calm and serious voice of the other combatant shouted from outside, "It is beginning."
"Have I time to finish my bread?" asked the little one.
"Yes," said the other.
The little one then turned to me.
"Citizen Representative," said he to me, "those are volleys. They are attacking the barricades over there. Really you must go away."
I answered him, "But you yourselves are going to stay here."
"As for us, we are armed," resumed he; "as for you, you are not. You will only get yourself killed without benefiting any one. If you had a gun, I should say nothing. But you have not. You must go away."
"I cannot," I answered him. "I am waiting for some one."
He wished to continue and to urge me. I pressed his hand.
"Let me do as I like," said I.
He understood that my duty was to remain, and no longer persisted.
There was a pause. He again began to bite his bread. The gurgling of the dying man alone was audible. At that moment a sort of deep and hollow booming reached us. The old woman started from her chair, muttering, "It is the cannon!"
"No," said the little man, "it is the slamming of a street-door." Then he resumed, "There now! I have finished my bread," and he dusted one hand against the other, and went out.
In the meantime the explosions continued, and seemed to come nearer. A noise sounded in the shop. It was the last-maker who was coming back. He appeared on the threshold of the ambulance. He was pale.
"Here I am," said he, "I have come to fetch you. We must go home. Let us be off at once."
I arose from the chair where I had seated myself. "What does this mean? Will they not come?"
"No," he answered, "no one will come. All is at an end."
Then he hastily explained that he had gone through the whole of the quarter in order to find a gun, that it was labor lost, that he had spoken to "two or three," that we must abandon all hope of the societies, that they would not come down, that what had been done during the day had appalled every one, that the best men were terrified, that the boulevards were "full of corpses," that the soldiers had committed "horrors," that the barricade was about to be attacked, that on his arrival he had heard the noise of footsteps in the direction of the crossway, that it was the soldiers who were advancing, that we could do nothing further there, that we must be off, that this house was "stupidly chosen," that there was no outlet in the rear, that perhaps we should already find it difficult to get out of the street, and that we had only just time.
He told this all panting, briefly, jerkily, and interrupted at every moment with this ejaculation, "And to think that they have no arms, and to think that I have no gun!"
As he finished we heard from the barricade a shout of "Attention!" and almost immediately a shot was fired.
A violent discharge replied to this shot.
Several balls struck the paling of the ambulance, but they were too obliquely aimed, and none pierced it. We heard the glass of several broken windows falling noisily into the street.
"There is no longer time," said the last-maker calmly; "the barricade is attacked."
He took a chair and sat down. The two workmen were evidently excellent marksmen. Two volleys assailed the barricade, one after the other. The barricade answered with animation. Then the fire ceased. There was a pause.
"Now they are coming at us with the bayonet! They are coming at the double!" said a voice in the barricade.
The other voice said, "Let us be off." A last musket-shot was fired. Then a violent blow which we interpreted as a warning shook our wooden wall. It was in reality one of the workmen who had thrown down his gun when going away; the gun in falling had struck the paling of the ambulance. We heard the rapid steps of the two combatants, as they ran off.
Almost at the same moment a tumult of voices, and of butt ends of muskets striking the paving-stones, filled the barricade.
"It is taken," said the last-maker, and he blew out the candle.
To the silence which enveloped this street a moment before succeeded a sort of ill-omened tumult. The soldiers knocked at the doors of the houses with the butt-ends of their muskets. It was by a miracle that the shop-door escaped them. If they had merely pushed against it, they would have seen that it was not shut, and would have entered.
A voice, probably the voice of an officer, cried out, "Light up the windows!" The soldiers swore. We heard them say, "Where are those blackguard Reds? Let us search the houses." The ambulance was plunged in darkness. Not a word was spoken, not a breath could be heard; even the dying man, as though he divined the danger, had ceased to gurgle. I felt the little girl pressing herself against my legs.
A soldier struck the barrels, and said laughingly,—
"Here is something to make a fire with to-night."
Another resumed,—
"Which way have they gone? They were at least thirty. Let us search the houses."
We heard one raising objections to this,—
"Nonsense! What do you want to do on a night like this? Enter the houses of the 'middle classes' indeed! There is some waste ground over yonder. They have taken refuge there."
"All the same," repeated the others, "let us search the houses."
At this moment a musket-shot was fired from the end of the street.
This shot saved us.
In fact, it was probably one of the two workmen who had fired in order to draw off their attention from us.
"That comes from over there," cried the soldiers, "They are over there!" and all starting off at once in the direction from which the shot had been fired, they left the barricade and ran down the street at the top of their speed.
The last-maker and myself got up.
"They are no longer there," whispered he. "Quick! let us be off."
"But this poor woman," said I. "Are we going to leave her here?"
"Oh," she said, "do not be afraid, I have nothing to fear; as for me, I am an ambulance. I am taking care of the wounded. I shall even relight my candle when you are gone. What troubles me is that my poor husband has not yet come back!"
We crossed the shop on tiptoe. The last-maker gently opened the door and glanced out into the street. Some inhabitants had obeyed the order to light up their windows, and four or five lighted candles here and there flickered in the wind upon the sills of the windows. The street was no longer completely dark.
"There is no one about now," said the last-maker; "but let us make haste, for they will probably come back."
We went out: the old woman closed the door behind us, and we found ourselves in the street. We got over the barricade and hurried away as quickly as possible. We passed by the dead old man. He was still there, lying on the pavement indistinctly revealed by the flickering glimmer from the windows; he looked as though he was sleeping. As we reached the second barricade we heard behind us the soldiers, who were returning.
We succeeded in regaining the streets in course of demolition. There we were in safety. The sound of musketry still reached us. The last-maker said, "They are fighting in the direction of the Rue de Cléry." Leaving the streets in course of demolition, we went round the markets, not without risk of falling into the hands of the patrols, by a number of zigzags, and from one little street to another little street. We reached the Rue Saint Honoré.
At the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the last-maker and I separated, "For in truth," said he to me, "two run more danger than one." And I regained No. 19, Rue Richelieu.
While crossing the rue des Bourdonnais we had noticed the bivouac of the Place Saint Eustache. The troops who had been dispatched for the attack had not yet come back. Only a few companies were guarding it. We could hear shouts of laughter. The soldiers were warming themselves at large fires lighted here and there. In the fire which was nearest to us we could distinguish in the middle of the brazier the wheels of the vehicles which had served for the barricades. Of some there only remained a great hoop of red-hot iron.
27 We may now, after twenty-six years, give the name of this loyal and courageous man. His name was Galoy (and not Galloix, as certain historians of the coup d'état have printed it while recounting, after their fashion, the incidents which we are about to read).
On the same night, almost at the same moment, at a few paces distant, a villainous deed was being perpetrated.
After the taking of the barricade, where Pierre Tissié was killed, seventy or eighty combatants had retired in good order by the Rue Saint Sauveur. They had reached the Rue Montorgueil, and had rejoined each other at the junction of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue du Cadran. At this point the street rises. At the corner of the Rue du Petit Carreau and the Rue de Cléry there was a deserted barricade, fairly high and well built. There had been fighting there during the morning. The soldiers had taken it, but had not demolished it. Why? As we have said, there were several riddles of this nature during this day.
The armed band which came from the Rue Saint Denis had halted there and had waited. These men were astonished at not being pursued. Had the soldiers feared to follow them into the little narrow streets, where each corner of the houses might conceal an ambuscade? Had a counter order been given? They hazarded various conjectures. Moreover they heard close by, evidently on the boulevard, a terrific noise of musketry, and a cannonade which resembled continuous thunder. Having no more ammunition, they were reduced to listen. If they had known what was taking place there, they would have understood why they were not pursued. The butchery of the boulevard was beginning. The generals employed in the massacre had suspended fighting for awhile.
The fugitives of the boulevard streamed in their direction, but when they perceived the barricade they turned back. Some, however, joined them indignant, and crying out for vengeance. One who lived in the neighborhood ran home and brought back a little tin barrel full of cartridges.
These were sufficient for an hour's fighting. They began to construct a barricade at the corner of the Rue du Cadran. In this manner the Rue du Petit Carreau, closed by two barricades, one towards the Rue de Cléry, the other at the corner of the Rue du Cadran, commanded the whole of the Rue Montorgueil. The space between these two barricades formed a perfect citadel. The second barricade was stronger than the first.
These men nearly all wore coats. Some of them rolled the paving-stones with gloves on.
Few workmen were amongst them, but those who were there were intelligent and energetic. These workmen were what might be termed the "pick of the crowd."
Jeanty Sarre had rejoined them; he at once became their leader.
Charpentier accompanied him, too brave to abandon the enterprise, but too much a dreamer to become a commander.
Two barricades, enclosing in the same manner some forty yards of the Rue Montorgueil, had just been constructed at the top of the Rue Mauconseil.
Three other barricades, extremely feebly constructed, again intersected the Rue Montorgueil in the space which separates the Rue Mauconseil from Saint Eustache.
Evening was closing in. The fusillade was ceasing upon the boulevard. A surprise was possible. They established a sentry-post at the corner of the Rue du Cadran, and sent a main-guard in the direction of the Rue Montmartre. Their scouts came in to report some items of information. A regiment seemed to be preparing to bivouac in the Place des Victoires.
Their position, to all appearance strong, was not so in reality. There were too few in number to defend at the same time the two barricades on the Rue de Cléry and the Rue Montorgueil, and the soldiers arriving in the rear hidden by the second barricade would have been upon them without being even noticed. This determined them to establish a post in the Rue de Cléry. They put themselves in communication with the barricades of the Rue du Cadran and with the two Mauconseil barricades. These two last barricades were only separated from them by a space of about 150 paces. They were about six feet high, fairly solid, but only guarded by six workmen who had built them.
Towards half-past four, in the twilight—the twilight begins early in December—Jeanty Sarre took four men with him and went out to reconnoitre. He thought also of raising an advanced barricade in one of the little neighboring streets. On the way they found one which had been abandoned, and which had been built with barrels. The barrels, however, were empty, only one contained any paving-stones, and the barricade could not have been held for two minutes. As they left this barricade they were assailed by a sharp discharge of musketry. A company of infantry, hardly visible in the dusk, was close upon them.
They fell back hastily; but one of them, who was a shoemaker of the Faubourg du Temple, was hit, and had remained on the pavement. They went back and brought him away. He had the thumb of the right hand smashed. "Thank God!" said Jeanty Sarre, "they have not killed him." "No," said the poor man, "it is my bread which they have killed."
And he added, "I can no longer work; who will maintain my children?"
They went back, carrying the wounded man. One of them, a medical student, bound up his wound.
The sentries, whom it was necessary to post in every direction, and who were chosen from the most trustworthy men, thinned and exhausted the little central land. There were scarcely thirty in the barricade itself.
There, as in the Quarter of the Temple, all the streetlamps were extinguished; the gas-pipes cut; the windows closed and unlighted; no moon, not even stars. The night was profoundly dark.
They could hear distant fusillades. The soldiers were firing from around Saint Eustache, and every three minutes sent a ball in their direction, as much as to say, "We are here." Nevertheless they did not expect an attack before the morning.
Dialogues like the following took place amongst them:—
"I wish I had a truss of straw," said Charpentier; "I have a notion that we shall sleep here to-night."
"Will you be able to get to sleep?" asked Jeanty Sarre.
"I? Certainly I shall go to sleep."
He did go to sleep, in fact, a few moments later.
In this gloomy network of narrow streets, intersected with barricades, and blockaded by soldiers, two wine-shops had remained open. They made more lint there, however, than they drank wine; the orders of the chiefs were only to drink reddened water.
The doorway of one of these wine-shops opened exactly between the two barricades of the Petit Cancan. In it was a clock by which they regulated the sentries' relief. In a back room they had locked up two suspicious-looking persons who had intermingled with the combatants. One of these men at the moment when he was arrested said, "I have come to fight for Henri V." They kept them under lock and key, and placed a sentry at the door.
An ambulance had been established in an adjoining room. There the wounded shoemaker was lying upon a mattress thrown upon the ground.
They had established, in case of need, another ambulance in the Rue du Cadran. An opening had been effected at the corner of the barricade on this side, so that the wounded could be easily carried away.
Towards half-past nine in the evening a man came up to the barricade.
Jeanty Sarre recognized him.
"Good day, Denis," said he.
"Call me, Gaston," said the man.
"Why?"
"Because—"
"Are you your brother?"
"Yes, I am my brother. For to-day."
"Very well. Good-day, Gaston."
They heartily shook hands.
It was Denis Dussoubs.
He was pale, calm, and bleeding; he had already been fighting during the morning. At the barricade of the Faubourg Saint Martin a ball had grazed his breast, but had been turned off by some money in his pocket, and had only broken the skin. He had had the rare good fortune of being scratched by a ball. It was like the first touch from the claws of death. He wore a cap, his hat having been left behind in the barricade where he had fought: and he had replaced his bullet-pierced overcoat, which was made of Belleisle cloth, by a pea-jacket bought at a slop-shop.
How had he reached the barricade of the Petit Carreau? He could not say. He had walked straight before him. He had glided from street to street. Chance takes the predestined by the hand, and leads them straight to their goal through the thick darkness.
At the moment when he entered the barricade they cried out to him, "Who goes there?" He answered, "The Republic!"
They saw Jeanty Sarre shake him by the hand. They asked Jeanty Sarre,—
"Who is he?"
Jeanty Sarre answered,—
"It is some one."
And he added,—
"We were only sixty a short time since. We are a hundred now."
All pressed round the new-comer. Jeanty Sarre offered him the command.
"No," said he, "I do not understand the tactics of barricade fighting. I should be a bad chief, but I am a good soldier. Give me a gun."
They seated themselves on the paving-stones. They exchanged their experiences of what had been done. Denis described to them the fighting on the Faubourg Saint Martin. Jeanty Sarre told Denis of the fighting in the Rue Saint Denis.
During all this time the generals were preparing a final assault,—what the Marquis of Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called the "Coup de Collier," and what, in 1789, the Prince of Lambese had called the "Coup de Bas." Throughout all Paris there was now only this point which offered any resistance. This knot of barricade, this labyrinth of streets, embattled like a redoubt, was the last citadel of the People and of Right. The generals invested it leisurely, step by step, and on all sides. They concentrated their forces. They, the combatants of this fateful hour, knew nothing of what was being done. Only from time to time they interrupted their recital of events and they listened. From the right and from the left, from the front, from the rear, from every side, at the same time, an unmistakable murmur, growing every moment louder, and more distinct, hoarse, piercing, fear-inspiring, reached them through the darkness. It was the sound of the battalions marching and charging at the trumpet-command in all the adjoining streets. They resumed their gallant conversation, and then in another moment they stopped again and listened to that species of ill-omened chant, chanted by Death, which was approaching.
Nevertheless some still thought that they would not be attacked till the next morning. Night combats are rare in street-warfare. They are more "risky" than all the other conflicts. Few generals venture upon them. But amongst the old hands of the barricade, from certain never-failing signs, they believed that an assault was imminent.
In fact, at half-past ten at night, and not at eight o'clock as General Magnan has said in the despicable document which he calls his report—a special movement was heard in the direction of the markets. This was the marching of the troops. Colonel de Lourmel had determined to make the attack. The 51st of the Line, posted at Saint Eustache, entered the Rue Montorgueil. The 2d battalion formed the advanced guard. The Grenadiers and the Light Infantry, hurled forward at the double, quickly carried the three little barricades which were on the other side of the vacant space of the Rue Mauconseil, and the feebly defended barricades of the adjoining streets. It was at that very moment that the barricade near which I was happened to be carried.
From the barricade of the Petit Carreau they heard the night-strife draw near through the darkness, with a fitful noise, strange and appalling. First a great tumult, then volleys, then silence, and then all began again. The flashing of the fusillades suddenly delineated in the darkness the outlines of the houses, which appeared as though they themselves were affrighted.
The decisive moment drew near.
The outpost had fallen back upon the barricades. The advanced posts of the Rue de Cléry and the Rue du Cadran had come back. They called over the roll. Not one of those of the morning was missing.
They were, as we have said, about sixty combatants, and not a hundred, as the Magnan report has stated.
From the upper extremity of the street where they were stationed it was difficult to ascertain what was happening. They did not exactly know how many barricades they were in the Rue Montorgueil between them and Saint Eustache, whence the troops were coming. They only knew that their nearest point of resistance was the double Mauconseil barricade, and that, when all was at an end there, it would be their turn.
Denis had posted himself on the inner side of the barricade in such a manner that half his body was above the top, and from there he watched. The glimmer which came from the doorway of the wine-shop rendered his gestures visible.
Suddenly he made a sign. The attack on the Mauconseil redoubt was beginning.
The soldiers, in fact, after having some time hesitated before this double wall of paving-stones, lofty, well-built, and which they supposed was well defended, had ended by rushing upon it, and attacking it with blows of their guns.
They were not mistaken. It was well defended. We have already said that there were only six men in this barricade, the six workmen who had built it. Of the six one only had three cartridges, the others had only two shots to fire. These six men heard the regiment advancing and the roll of the battery which was followed on it, and did not stir. Each remained silent at his post of battle, the barrel of his gun between two paving-stones. When the soldiers were within range they fired, and the battalion replied.
"That is right. Rage away, Red Breeches," said, laughingly, the man who had three shots to fire.
Behind them, the men of the Petit Carreau were crowded round Denis and Jeanty Sarre, and leaning on the crest of their barricade, stretching their necks towards the Mauconseil redoubt, they watched them like the gladiators of the next combat.
The six men of this Mauconseil redoubt resisted the onslaught of the battalion for nearly a quarter of an hour. They did not fire together, "in order," one of them said, "to make the pleasure last the longer." The pleasure of being killed for duty; a noble sentence in this workman's mouth. They did not fall back into the adjoining streets until after having exhausted their ammunition. The last, he who had three cartridges, did not leave until the soldiers were actually scaling the summit of the barricade.
In the barricade of the Petit Carreau not a word was spoken; they followed all the phases of this struggle, and they pressed each other's hands.
Suddenly the noise ceased, the last musket-shot was fired. A moment afterwards they saw the lighted candles being placed in all the windows which looked on on the Mauconseil redoubt. The bayonets and the brass ornaments on the shakos sparkled there. The barricade was taken.
The commander of the battalion, as is always the custom in similar circumstances, had sent orders into the adjoining houses to light up all the windows.
This was done at the Mauconseil redoubt.
Seeing that their hour had come, the sixty combatants of the barricade of the Petit Carreau mounted their heap of paving-stones, and shouted with one voice, in the midst of the darkness, this piercing cry, "Long live the Republic!"
No one answered them.
They could only hear the battalion loading their guns.
This acted upon them as a species of signal for action. They were all worn out with fatigue, having been on their feet since the preceding day, carrying paving-stones or fighting, the greater part had neither eaten nor slept.
Charpentier said to Jeanty Sarre,—
"We shall all be killed."
"Shall we really!" said Jeanty Sarre.
Jeanty Sarre ordered the door of the wine-shop to be closed, so that their barricade, completely shrouded in darkness, would give them some advantage over the barricade which was occupied by the soldiers and lighted up.
In the meantime the 51st searched the streets, carried the wounded into the ambulances, and took up their position in the double barricade of the Rue Mauconseil. Half an hour thus elapsed.
Now, in order to clearly understand what is about to follow, the reader must picture to himself in this silent street, in this darkness of the night, at from sixty to eighty yards apart, within speaking distance, these two redoubts facing each other, and able as in an Iliad to address each other.
On one side the Army, on the other side the People, the darkness over all.
The species of truce which always precedes decisive encounters drew to a close. The preparations were completed on both sides. The soldiers could be heard forming into order of battle, and the captains giving out their commands. It was evident that the struggle was at hand.
"Let us begin," said Charpentier; and he raised his gun.
Denis held his arm back. "Wait," he said.
Then an epic incident was seen.
Denis slowly mounted the paving-stones of the barricade, ascended to the top, and stood there erect, unarmed and bareheaded.
Thence he raised his voice, and, facing the soldiers, he shouted to them, "Citizens!"
At this word a sort of electric shudder ensued which was felt from one barricade to the other. Every sound was hushed, every voice was silent, on both sides reigned a deep religious and solemn silence. By the distant glimmer of a few lighted windows the soldiers could vaguely distinguish a man standing above a mass of shadows, like a phantom who was speaking to them in the night.
Denis continued,—
"Citizens of the Army! Listen to me!"
The silence grew still more profound.
He resumed,—
"What have you come to do here? You and ourselves, all of us who are in this street, at this hour, with the sword or gun in hand, what are we about to do? To kill each other! To kill each other, citizens! Why? Because they have raised a misunderstanding between us! Because we obey—you your discipline—we our Right! You believe that you are carrying out your instructions; as for us, we know that we are doing our duty. Yes! it is Universal Suffrage, it is the Right of the Republic, it is our Right that we are defending, and our Right, soldiers, is your Right. The Army is the People, as the People is the Army. We are the same nation, the some country, the same men. My God! See, is there any Russian blood in my veins, in me who am speaking to you? Is there any Prussian blood in your veins, in you who are listening to me? No! Why then should we fight? It is always an unfortunate thing for a man to fire upon a man. Nevertheless, a gun-shot between a Frenchman and an Englishman can be understood; but between a Frenchman and a Frenchman, ah! that wounds Reason, that wounds France, that wounds our mother!"
All anxiously listened to him. At this moment from the opposite barricade a voice shouted to him,—
"Go home, then!"
At this coarse interruption an angry murmur ran through Denis's companions, and several guns could be heard being loaded. Denis restrained them by a sign.
This sign possessed a strange authority.
"Who is this man?" the combatants behind the barricade asked each other. Suddenly they cried out,—
"He is a Representative of the People!"
Denis had, in fact, suddenly assumed his brother Gaston's sash.
What he had premeditated was about to be accomplished; the hour of the heroic falsehood had arrived. He cried out,—
"Soldiers, do you know what the man is who is speaking to you at this moment? He is not only a citizen, he is a Legislator! He is a Representative chosen by Universal Suffrage! My name is Dussoubs, and I am a Representative of the People. It is in the name of the National Assembly, it is in the name of the Sovereign Assembly, it is in the name of the People, and in the name of the Law, that I summon you to hear me. Soldiers, you are the armed force. Well, then, when the Law speaks, the armed force listens."
This time the silence was not broken.
We reproduce these words almost literally; such as they are, and such as they have remained graven on the memory of those who heard them; but what we cannot reproduce, and what should be added to these words, in order to realize the effect, is the attitude, the accent, the thrill of emotion, the vibration of the words issuing from this noble breast, the intense impression produced by the terrible hour and place.
Denis Dussoubs continued: "He spoke for some twenty minutes," an eye-witness has told me. Another has said, "He spoke with a loud voice; the whole street heard him." He was vehement, eloquent, earnest; a judge for Bonaparte, a friend for the soldiers. He sought to rouse them by everything which could still vibrate in them; he recalled to them their true wars, their true victories, the national glory, the ancient military honor, the flag. He told them that all this was about to be slain by the bullets from their guns. He adjured them, he ordered them to join themselves to the People and to the Law; and then suddenly coming back to the first words which he had pronounced, carried away by that fraternity with which his soul overflowed, he interrupted himself in the middle of a half-completed sentence, and cried out:—
"But to what purpose are all these words? It is not all this that is wanted, it is a shake of the hand between brothers! Soldiers, you are there opposite us, at a hundred paces from us, in a barricade, with the sword drawn, with guns pointed; you are aiming directly at me; well then, all of us who are here love you! There is not one of us who would not give his life for one of you. You are the peasants of the fields of France; we are the workmen of Paris. What, then, is in question? Simply to see each other, to speak to each other, and not to cut each other's throats. Shall we try this? Say! Ah! as for myself in this frightful battle-field of civil war, I would rather die than kill. Look now, I am going to get off this barricade and come to you. I am unarmed; I only know that you are my brothers. I am confident, I am calm; and if one of you presents his bayonet at me, I will offer him my hand."
He finished speaking.
A voice cried out from the opposite barricade, "Advance in order!"
Then they saw him slowly descend the dimly-lighted crest of the barricade, paving-stone by paving-stone, and plunge with head erect into the dark street.
From the barricade all eyes followed him with an inexpressible anxiety. Hearts ceased beating, mouths no longer breathed.
No one attempted to restrain Denis Dussoubs. Each felt that he was going where he ought to go. Charpentier wished to accompany him. "Would you like me to go with you?" he cried out to him. Dussoubs refused, with a shake of the head.
Dussoubs, alone and grave, advanced towards the Mauconseil Barricade. The night was so dark that they lost sight of him immediately. They could distinguish only for a few seconds his peaceable and intrepid bearing. Then he disappeared. They could no longer see anything. It was an inauspicious moment. The night was dark and dumb. There could only be heard in this thick darkness the sound of a measured and firm step dying away in the distance.
After some time, how long no one could reckon, so completely did emotion eclipse thought amongst the witnesses of this marvellous scene, a glimmer of light appeared in the barricade of the soldiers; it was probably a lantern which was being brought or taken away. By the flash they again saw Dussoubs, he was close to the barricade, he had almost reached it, he was walking towards it with his arms stretched out like Christ.
Suddenly the word of command, "Fire!" was heard.
A fusillade burst forth.
They had fired upon Dussoubs when he was at the muzzles of their guns.
Dussoubs fell.
Then he raised himself and cried, "Long live the Republic!"
Another bullet struck him, he fell again. Then they saw him raise himself once more, and heard him shout in a loud voice, "I die with the Republic."
These were his last words.
In this manner died Denis Dussoubs.
It was not vainly that he had said to his brother, "Your sash will be there."
He was anxious that this sash should do its duty. He determined in the depths of his great soul that this sash should triumph either through the law or through death.
That is to say, in the first case it would save Right, in the second save Honor.
Dying, he could say, "I have succeeded."
Of the two possible triumphs of which he had dreamed, the gloomy triumph was not the less splendid.
The insurgent of the Elysée thought that he had killed a Representative of the People, and boasted of it. The sole journal published by the coup d'état under these different titles Patrie, Univers, Moniteur, Parisien, etc., announced on the next day, Friday, the 5th, "that the ex-Representative Dussoubs (Gaston) had been killed at the barricade of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache, and that he bore 'a red flag in his hand.'"