Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (early readers .txt) 📖

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passed the Hotel Lamoignon. There he uttered this appeal:—

“Forward march to the battle!”

And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with an air of reproach which seemed an attempt to appease it:—

“I’m going off,” said he, “but you won’t go off!”

One dog may distract the attention from another dog.45 A very gaunt poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion for him.

“My poor doggy,” said he, “you must have gone and swallowed a cask, for all the hoops are visible.”

Then he directed his course towards l’Orme-Saint-Gervais.

CHAPTER III—JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER

The worthy hair-dresser who had chased from his shop the two little fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were talking. The hair-dresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the riot, then of General Lamarque, and from Lamarque they had passed to the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and soldier which Prudhomme, had he been present, would have enriched with arabesques, and which he would have entitled: “Dialogue between the razor and the sword.”

“How did the Emperor ride, sir?” said the barber.

“Badly. He did not know how to fall—so he never fell.”

“Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses!”

“On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. It was a racing mare, perfectly white. Her ears were very wide apart, her saddle deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly articulated knees, prominent ribs, oblique shoulders and a powerful crupper. A little more than fifteen hands in height.”

“A pretty horse,” remarked the hair-dresser.

“It was His Majesty’s beast.”

The hair-dresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on:—

“The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir?”

The old soldier replied with the calm and sovereign tone of a man who had been there:—

“In the heel. At Ratisbon. I never saw him so well dressed as on that day. He was as neat as a new sou.”

“And you, Mr. Veteran, you must have been often wounded?”

“I?” said the soldier, “ah! not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I received two sabre-blows on the back of my neck, a bullet in the right arm at Austerlitz, another in the left hip at Jena. At Friedland, a thrust from a bayonet, there,—at the Moskowa seven or eight lance-thrusts, no matter where, at Lutzen a splinter of a shell crushed one of my fingers. Ah! and then at Waterloo, a ball from a biscaïen in the thigh, that’s all.”

“How fine that is!” exclaimed the hair-dresser, in Pindaric accents, “to die on the field of battle! On my word of honor, rather than die in bed, of an illness, slowly, a bit by bit each day, with drugs, cataplasms, syringes, medicines, I should prefer to receive a cannon-ball in my belly!”

“You’re not over fastidious,” said the soldier.

He had hardly spoken when a fearful crash shook the shop. The show-window had suddenly been fractured.

The wig-maker turned pale.

“Ah, good God!” he exclaimed, “it’s one of them!”

“What?”

“A cannon-ball.”

“Here it is,” said the soldier.

And he picked up something that was rolling about the floor. It was a pebble.

The hair-dresser ran to the broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing at the full speed, towards the Marché Saint-Jean. As he passed the hair-dresser’s shop Gavroche, who had the two brats still in his mind, had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had flung a stone through his panes.

“You see!” shrieked the hair-dresser, who from white had turned blue, “that fellow returns and does mischief for the pure pleasure of it. What has any one done to that gamin?”

CHAPTER IV—THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN

In the meantime, in the Marché Saint-Jean, where the post had already been disarmed, Gavroche had just “effected a junction” with a band led by Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Feuilly. They were armed after a fashion. Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire had found them and swelled the group. Enjolras had a double-barrelled hunting-gun, Combeferre the gun of a National Guard bearing the number of his legion, and in his belt, two pistols which his unbuttoned coat allowed to be seen, Jean Prouvaire an old cavalry musket, Bahorel a rifle; Courfeyrac was brandishing an unsheathed sword-cane. Feuilly, with a naked sword in his hand, marched at their head shouting: “Long live Poland!”

They reached the Quai Morland. Cravatless, hatless, breathless, soaked by the rain, with lightning in their eyes. Gavroche accosted them calmly:—

“Where are we going?”

“Come along,” said Courfeyrac.

Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a passer-by, who cried in bewilderment:—

“Here are the reds!”

“The reds, the reds!” retorted Bahorel. “A queer kind of fear, bourgeois. For my part I don’t tremble before a poppy, the little red hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let’s leave fear of the red to horned cattle.”

He caught sight of a corner of the wall on which was placarded the most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his “flock.”

Bahorel exclaimed:—

“‘Flock’; a polite way of saying geese.”

And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavroche. From that instant Gavroche set himself to study Bahorel.

“Bahorel,” observed Enjolras, “you are wrong. You should have let that charge alone, he is not the person with whom we have to deal, you are wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not fire out of the ranks with the soul any more than with a gun.”

“Each one in his own fashion, Enjolras,” retorted Bahorel. “This bishop’s prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I’m not wasting myself, I’m getting a start; and if I tore down that charge, Hercle! ‘twas only to whet my appetite.”

This word, Hercle, struck Gavroche. He sought all occasions for learning, and that tearer-down of posters possessed his esteem. He inquired of him:—

“What does Hercle mean?”

Bahorel answered:—

“It means cursed name of a dog, in Latin.”

Here Bahorel recognized at a window a pale young man with a black beard who was watching them as they passed, probably a Friend of the A B C. He shouted to him:—

“Quick, cartridges, para bellum.”

“A fine man! that’s true,” said Gavroche, who now understood Latin.

A tumultuous retinue accompanied them,—students, artists, young men affiliated to the Cougourde of Aix, artisans, longshoremen, armed with clubs and bayonets; some, like Combeferre, with pistols thrust into their trousers.

An old man, who appeared to be extremely aged, was walking in the band.

He had no arms, and he made great haste, so that he might not be left behind, although he had a thoughtful air.

Gavroche caught sight of him:—

“Keksekça?” said he to Courfeyrac.

“He’s an old duffer.”

It was M. Mabeuf.

CHAPTER V—THE OLD MAN

Let us recount what had taken place.

Enjolras and his friends had been on the Boulevard Bourdon, near the public storehouses, at the moment when the dragoons had made their charge. Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were among those who had taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting: “To the barricades!” In the Rue Lesdiguières they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was acquainted with the peaceful and more than timid habits of the old beadle-book-collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst of that uproar, a couple of paces from the cavalry charges, almost in the midst of a fusillade, hatless in the rain, and strolling about among the bullets, he had accosted him, and the following dialogue had been exchanged between the rioter of fire and the octogenarian:—

“M. Mabeuf, go to your home.”

“Why?”

“There’s going to be a row.”

“That’s well.”

“Thrusts with the sword and firing, M. Mabeuf.”

“That is well.”

“Firing from cannon.”

“That is good. Where are the rest of you going?”

“We are going to fling the government to the earth.”

“That is good.”

And he had set out to follow them. From that moment forth he had not uttered a word. His step had suddenly become firm; artisans had offered him their arms; he had refused with a sign of the head. He advanced nearly to the front rank of the column, with the movement of a man who is marching and the countenance of a man who is sleeping.

“What a fierce old fellow!” muttered the students. The rumor spread through the troop that he was a former member of the Convention,—an old regicide. The mob had turned in through the Rue de la Verrerie.

Little Gavroche marched in front with that deafening song which made of him a sort of trumpet.

He sang:
“Voici la lune qui paraît,
Quand irons-nous dans la forêt?
Demandait Charlot à Charlotte.

Tou tou tou
Pour Chatou.
Je n’ai qu’un Dieu, qu’un roi, qu’un liard, et qu’une botte.

“Pour avoir bu de grand matin
La rosée à même le thym,
Deux moineaux étaient en ribotte.

Zi zi zi
Pour Passy.
Je n’ai qu’un Dieu, qu’un roi, qu’un liard, et qu’une botte.

“Et ces deux pauvres petits loups,
Comme deux grives étaient soûls;
Un tigre en riait dans sa grotte.

Don don don
Pour Meudon.
Je n’ai qu’un Dieu, qu’un roi, qu’un liard, et qu’une botte.

“L’un jurait et l’autre sacrait.
Quand irons nous dans la forêt?
Demandait Charlot à Charlotte.

Tin tin tin
Pour Pantin.
Je n’ai qu’un Dieu, qu’un roi, qu’un liard, et qu’une botte."46

They directed their course towards Saint-Merry.

CHAPTER VI—RECRUITS

The band augmented every moment. Near the Rue des Billettes, a man of lofty stature, whose hair was turning gray, and whose bold and daring mien was remarked by Courfeyrac, Enjolras, and Combeferre, but whom none of them knew, joined them. Gavroche, who was occupied in singing, whistling, humming, running on ahead and pounding on the shutters of the shops with the butt of his triggerless pistol; paid no attention to this man.

It chanced that in the Rue de la Verrerie, they passed in front of Courfeyrac’s door.

“This happens just right,” said Courfeyrac, “I have forgotten my purse, and I have lost my hat.”

He quitted the mob and ran up to his quarters at full speed. He seized an old hat and his purse.

He also seized a large square coffer, of the dimensions of a large valise, which was concealed under his soiled linen.

As he descended again at a run, the portress hailed him:—

“Monsieur de Courfeyrac!”

“What’s your name, portress?”

The portress stood bewildered.

“Why, you know perfectly well, I’m the concierge; my name is Mother Veuvain.”

“Well, if you call me Monsieur de Courfeyrac again, I shall call you Mother de Veuvain. Now speak, what’s the matter? What do you want?”

“There is some one who wants to speak with you.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is he?”

“In my lodge.”

“The devil!” ejaculated Courfeyrac.

“But the person has been waiting your return for over an hour,” said the portress.

At the same time, a sort of pale, thin, small, freckled, and youthful artisan, clad in a tattered blouse and patched trousers of ribbed velvet, and who had rather the air of a girl accoutred as a man than of a man, emerged from the lodge and said to Courfeyrac in a voice which was not the least

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