Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [388]
Then they barricaded the basement window, and they held in readiness the iron cross-pieces which served to bar the door of the tavern on the inside at night.
The fortress was complete. The barricade was the rampart, the tavern was the donjon.
With the paving-stones which remained, they closed up the opening beside the barricade.
As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to husband their ammunition, and as the besiegers know it, the besiegers perfect their arrangements with a sort of provoking leisure, expose themselves to fire before the time, but in appearance more than in reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always made with a certain methodical slowness, after which, the thunderbolt.
This slowness allowed Enjolras to look over the whole, and to perfect the whole. He felt that since such men were to die, their death should be a masterpiece.
He said to Marius: “We are the two chiefs; I will give the last orders within. You stay outside and watch.”
Marius posted himself for observation upon the crest of the barricade.
Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which, we remember, was the hospital, nailed up.
“No spattering on the wounded,” said he.
He gave his last instructions in the basement-room in a quick, but deep and calm voice; Feuilly listened, and answered in the name of all.
“Second story, hold your axes ready to cut the staircase. You have them?”
“Yes,” said Feuilly.
“How many?”
“Two axes and a pole-axe.”
“Very well. There are twenty-six effective men left.”
“How many muskets are there?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Eight too many. Keep these eight muskets loaded like the rest, and at hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six in ambush at the dormer windows and at the window on the second story to fire upon the assailants through the loopholes in the paving-stones. Let there be no useless labourer here. Immediately, when the drum beats the charge, let the twenty from below rush to the barricade. The first there will get the best places.”
These dispositions made, he turned towards Javert, and said to him:
“I won’t forget you.”
And, laying a pistol on the table, he added:
“The last man to leave this room will blow out the spy’s brains!” “Here?” inquired a voice.
“No, do not leave this corpse with ours. You can climb over the little barricade on the Rue Mondétour. It is only four feet high. The man is well tied. You will take him there, and execute him there.”
There was one man, at that moment, who was more impassible than Enjolras; it was Javert.
Here Jean Valjean appeared.
He was in the throng of insurgents. He stepped forward, and said to Enjolras:
“You are the commander?”
“Yes.”
“You thanked me just now.”
“In the name of the republic. The barricade has two saviours, Marius Pontmercy and you.”
“Do you think that I deserve a reward?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, I ask one.”
“What?”
“To blow out that man’s brains myself.”
Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, made an imperceptible movement, and said:
“That is appropriate.”
As for Enjolras, he had begun to reload his carbine; he cast his eyes about him:
“No objection.”
And turning towards Jean Valjean: “Take the spy.”
Jean Valjean, in fact, took possession of Javert by sitting down on the end of the table. He caught up the pistol, and a slight click announced that he had cocked it.
Almost at the same moment, they heard a flourish of trumpets.
“Come on!” cried Marius, from the top of the barricade.
Javert began to laugh with that noiseless laugh which was peculiar to him, and, looking fixedly upon the insurgents, said to them:
“Your health