Les Misérables, page 236
CHAPTER V--FACTS WHENCE HISTORY SPRINGS AND WHICH HISTORY IGNORES
Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. Thefermentation entered the boiling state. Ever since 1830, petty partialrevolts had been going on here and there, which were quickly suppressed,but ever bursting forth afresh, the sign of a vast underlyingconflagration. Something terrible was in preparation. Glimpses could becaught of the features still indistinct and imperfectly lighted, of apossible revolution. France kept an eye on Paris; Paris kept an eye onthe Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning itsebullition.
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The wine-shops of the Rue de Charonne were, although the union ofthe two epithets seems singular when applied to wine-shops, grave andstormy.
The government was there purely and simply called in question. Therepeople publicly discussed the _question of fighting or of keepingquiet_. There were back shops where workingmen were made to swear thatthey would hasten into the street at the first cry of alarm, and"that they would fight without counting the number of the enemy."This engagement once entered into, a man seated in the corner of thewine-shop "assumed a sonorous tone," and said, "You understand! You havesworn!"
Sometimes they went upstairs, to a private room on the first floor,and there scenes that were almost masonic were enacted. They made theinitiated take oaths _to render service to himself as well as to thefathers of families_. That was the formula.
In the tap-rooms, "subversive" pamphlets were read. _They treated thegovernment with contempt_, says a secret report of that time.
Words like the following could be heard there:--
"I don't know the names of the leaders. We folks shall not know the dayuntil two hours beforehand." One workman said: "There are three hundredof us, let each contribute ten sous, that will make one hundred andfifty francs with which to procure powder and shot."
Another said: "I don't ask for six months, I don't ask for even two.In less than a fortnight we shall be parallel with the government. Withtwenty-five thousand men we can face them." Another said: "I don't sleepat night, because I make cartridges all night." From time to time,men "of bourgeois appearance, and in good coats" came and "causedembarrassment," and with the air of "command," shook hands with _themost important_, and then went away. They never stayed more than tenminutes. Significant remarks were exchanged in a low tone: "The plot isripe, the matter is arranged." "It was murmured by all who were there,"to borrow the very expression of one of those who were present. Theexaltation was such that one day, a workingman exclaimed, before thewhole wine-shop: "We have no arms!" One of his comrades replied:"The soldiers have!" thus parodying without being aware of the fact,Bonaparte's proclamation to the army in Italy: "When they had anythingof a more secret nature on hand," adds one report, "they did notcommunicate it to each other." It is not easy to understand what theycould conceal after what they said.
These reunions were sometimes periodical. At certain ones of them, therewere never more than eight or ten persons present, and they were alwaysthe same. In others, any one entered who wished, and the room wasso full that they were forced to stand. Some went thither throughenthusiasm and passion; others because it _was on their way to theirwork_. As during the Revolution, there were patriotic women in some ofthese wine-shops who embraced new-comers.
Other expressive facts came to light.
A man would enter a shop, drink, and go his way with the remark:"Wine-merchant, the revolution will pay what is due to you."
Revolutionary agents were appointed in a wine-shop facing the Rue deCharonne. The balloting was carried on in their caps.
Workingmen met at the house of a fencing-master who gave lessons inthe Rue de Cotte. There there was a trophy of arms formed of woodenbroadswords, canes, clubs, and foils. One day, the buttons were removedfrom the foils.
A workman said: "There are twenty-five of us, but they don't counton me, because I am looked upon as a machine." Later on, that machinebecame Quenisset.
The indefinite things which were brewing gradually acquired a strangeand indescribable notoriety. A woman sweeping off her doorsteps saidto another woman: "For a long time, there has been a strong force busymaking cartridges." In the open street, proclamation could be seenaddressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of theseproclamations was signed: _Burtot, wine-merchant_.
One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italianaccent mounted a stone post at the door of a liquor-seller in the MarchéLenoir, and read aloud a singular document, which seemed to emanate froman occult power. Groups formed around him, and applauded.
The passages which touched the crowd most deeply were collected andnoted down. "--Our doctrines are trammelled, our proclamations torn, ourbill-stickers are spied upon and thrown into prison."--"The breakdownwhich has recently taken place in cottons has converted to us manymediums."--"The future of nations is being worked out in our obscureranks."--"Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution orcounter-revolution. For, at our epoch, we no longer believe either ininertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is thequestion. There is no other."--"On the day when we cease to suit you,break us, but up to that day, help us to march on." All this in broaddaylight.
Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the eyes of thepeople by reason of their very audacity. On the 4th of April, 1832, apasser-by mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of theRue Sainte-Marguerite and shouted: "I am a Babouvist!" But beneathBabeuf, the people scented Gisquet.
Among other things, this man said:--
"Down with property! The opposition of the left is cowardly andtreacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preachesrevolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, androyalist so that it may not have to fight. The republicans are beastswith feathers. Distrust the republicans, citizens of the laboringclasses."
"Silence, citizen spy!" cried an artisan.
This shout put an end to the discourse.
Mysterious incidents occurred.
At nightfall, a workingman encountered near the canal a "very welldressed man," who said to him: "Whither are you bound, citizen?" "Sir,"replied the workingman, "I have not the honor of your acquaintance." "Iknow you very well, however." And the man added: "Don't be alarmed, Iam an agent of the committee. You are suspected of not being quitefaithful. You know that if you reveal anything, there is an eye fixed onyou." Then he shook hands with the workingman and went away, saying: "Weshall meet again soon."
The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, notonly in the wine-shops, but in the street.
"Get yourself received very soon," said a weaver to a cabinet-maker.
"Why?"
"There is going to be a shot to fire."
Two ragged pedestrians exchanged these remarkable replies, fraught withevident Jacquerie:--
"Who governs us?"
"M. Philippe."
"No, it is the bourgeoisie."
The reader is mistaken if he thinks that we take the word _Jacquerie_ ina bad sense. The Jacques were the poor.
On another occasion two men were heard to say to each other as theypassed by: "We have a good plan of attack."
Only the following was caught of a private conversation between four menwho were crouching in a ditch of the circle of the Barrière du Trône:--
"Everything possible will be done to prevent his walking about Paris anymore."
Who was the _he?_ Menacing obscurity.
"The principal leaders," as they said in the faubourg, held themselvesapart. It was supposed that they met for consultation in a wine-shopnear the point Saint-Eustache. A certain Aug--, chief of the Societyaid for tailors, Rue Mondétour, had the reputation of serving asintermediary central between the leaders and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
Nevertheless, there was always a great deal of mystery about theseleaders, and no certain fact can invalidate the singular arrogance ofthis reply made later on by a man accused before the Court of Peers:--
"Who was your leader?"
_"I knew of none and I recognized none."_
There was nothing but words, transparent but vague; sometimes idlereports, rumors, hearsay. Other indications cropped up.
A carpenter, occupied in nailing boards to a fence around the groundon which a house was in process of construction, in the Rue de Reuillyfound on that plot the torn fragment of a letter on which were stilllegible the following lines:--
The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sectionsfor the different societies.
And, as a postscript:--
We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière,No. 5 [bis], to the number of five or six thousand, in the house of agunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms.
What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this thing to hisneighbors was the fact, that a few paces further on he picked up anotherpaper, torn like the first, and still more significant, of which wereproduce a facsimile, because of the historical interest attaching tothese strange documents:--
