It was said that these munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pepin.
They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondetour, du Cygne, des Precheurs, and de la Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie.
Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything.
Two barricades were now in process of construction at once, both of them resting on the Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger shut off the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondetour, on the side of the Rue de Cygne.
This last barricade, which was very narrow, was constructed only of casks and paving-stones.
There were about fifty workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their way, they had effected a wholesale loan from an armorer’s shop.
Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than this troop.
One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holster-pistols, another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat, and a powder-horn slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper and was armed with a saddler’s awl.
There was one who was shouting:
“Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at the point of our bayonet.”
This man had no bayonet.
Another spread out over his coat the cross-belt and cartridge-box of a National Guardsman, the cover of the cartridge-box being ornamented with this inscription in red worsted: Public Order.
There were a great many guns bearing the numbers of the legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes.
Add to this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men, and bronzed longshoremen.
All were in haste; and as they helped each other, they discussed the possible chances. That they would receive succor about three o’clock in the morning—that they were sure of one regiment, that Paris would rise.
Terrible sayings with which was mingled a sort of cordial joviality.
One would have pronounced them brothers, but they did not know each other’s names.
Great perils have this fine characteristic, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
A fire had been lighted in the kitchen, and there they were engaged in moulding into bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass table-ware of the establishment.
In the midst of it all, they drank.
Caps and buckshot were mixed pell-mell on the tables with glasses of wine.
In the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered another breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old dish-cloths and making lint; three insurgents were assisting them, three bushy-haired, jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble.
The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras had observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making himself useful there.
Gavroche was working on the larger one.
As for the young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and who had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when the omnibus had been overturned.
Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get everything in readiness.
He went, came, mounted, descended, re-mounted, whistled, and sparkled.
He seemed to be there for the encouragement of all.
Had he any incentive?
Yes, certainly, his poverty; had he wings? yes, certainly, his joy.
Gavroche was a whirlwind.
He was constantly visible, he was incessantly audible.
He filled the air, as he was everywhere at once.
He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity; no halt was possible with him.
The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches.
He troubled the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated the weary, he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired gayety in some, and breath in others, wrath in others, movement in all, now pricking a student, now biting an artisan; he alighted, paused, flew off again, hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one party to another, murmuring and humming, and harassed the whole company; a fly on the immense revolutionary coach.
Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor in his little lungs.
“Courage! more paving-stones! more casks! more machines!
Where are you now?
A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with!
Your barricade is very small.
It must be carried up.
Put everything on it, fling everything there, stick it all in.
Break down the house.
A barricade is Mother Gibou’s tea.
Hullo, here’s a glass door.”
This elicited an exclamation from the workers.
“A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass door, tubercle?”
“Hercules yourselves!” retorted Gavroche.
“A glass door is an excellent thing in a barricade.