Les Misérables v. 4/5: The Idyll and the Epic Page 6
CHAPTER V.
FACTS FROM WHICH HISTORY IS DERIVED BUT WHICH HISTORY IGNORES.
Toward the end of April matters became aggravated, and the fermentationassumed the proportions of an ebullition. Since 1830 there had beensmall partial revolts, quickly suppressed, but breaking out again,which were the sign of a vast subjacent conflagration, and of somethingterrible smouldering. A glimpse could be caught of the lineaments of apossible revolution, though it was still indistinct and badly lighted.France was looking at Paris, and Paris at the Faubourg St. Antoine.The Faubourg St. Antoine, noiselessly heated, had begun to boil.The wine-shops in the Rue de Charonne were grave and stormy, thoughthe conjunction of these two epithets applied to wine-shops appearssingular. The Government was purely and simply put upon its trial onthis, and men publicly discussed whether "they should fight or remainquiet." There were back-rooms in which workmen swore to go into thestreets at the first cry of alarm, "and fight without counting theirenemies." Once they had taken the pledge, a man seated in a corner ofthe wine-shop shouted in a sonorous voice, "You hear! You have sworn!"Sometimes they went up to a private room on the first floor, wherescenes almost resembling masonic ceremonies took place, and the novicetook oaths, "in order to render a service to himself as well as tothe fathers of families,"--such was the formula. In the tap-rooms,"subversive" pamphlets were read, and, as a secret report of the daysays, "they spurned the Government." Remarks like the following couldbe heard: "I do not know the names of the chief, we shall not know theday till two hours beforehand." A workman said, "We are three hundred,let us each subscribe ten sous, and we shall have one hundred and fiftyfrancs, with which to manufacture bullets and gunpowder." Another said,"I do not ask for six months, I do not ask for two. Within a fortnightwe shall be face to face with the government, for it is possible to doso with twenty-five thousand men." Another said, "I do not go to bed atnights now, for I am making cartridges." From time to time well-dressedmen came, feigning embarrassment and having an air of command,and shook hands with the more important and then went away, neverstaying longer than ten minutes; significant remarks were exchangedin whispers, "The plot is ripe, the thing is ready,"--to borrow theremark of one of the audience, "this was buzzed by all present."The excitement was so great that one day a workman said openly in awine-shop, "But we have no weapons," to which a comrade replied, "Thesoldiers have them," unconsciously parodying Bonaparte's proclamationto the army of Italy. "When they had any very great secret," a reportadds, "they did not communicate it," though we do not understandwhat they could conceal after what they had said. The meetings weresometimes periodical; at certain ones there were never more than eightor ten members present, and they were always the same, but at othersany one who liked went in, and the room was so crowded that they wereobliged to stand; some went there through enthusiasm and passion,others "because it was the road to their work." In the same way asduring the revolution, there were female patriots in these wine-shops,who kissed the new-comers.
Other expressive facts were collected: thus a man went into awine-shop, drank, and went away, saying, "Wine-dealer, the revolutionwill pay what is due." Revolutionary agents were nominated at awine-shop opposite the Rue de Charonne, and the ballot was made incaps. Workmen assembled at a fencing-master's who gave lessons inthe Rue de Cotte. There was a trophy of arms, made of wooden sabres,canes, cudgels, and foils. One day the buttons were removed from thefoils, and a workman said, "We are five-and-twenty, but they do notreckon upon me, as they consider me a machine." This man was at alater date Quénisset. Things that were premeditated gradually assumeda strange notoriety; a woman who was sweeping her door said to anotherwoman, "They have been making cartridges for a long time past." Inthe open streets proclamations addressed to the National Guards ofthe departments were read aloud, and one of them was signed, "Burtot,wine-dealer."
One day a man with a large beard and an Italian accent leaped ona bench at the door of a dram-shop in the Marché Lenoir, and beganreading a singular document, which seemed to emanate from some occultpower. Groups assembled around him and applauded, and the passageswhich most excited the mob were noted down at the time. "Our doctrinesare impeded, our proclamations are torn down, our bill-posters watchedand thrown into prison.... The collapse in cottons has brought overto us a good many conservatives.... The future of the people is beingworked out in our obscure ranks.... These are the terms laid down,action or reaction, revolution or counter-revolution, for in our ageno one still believes in inertia or immobility. For the people, oragainst the people, that is the question, and there is no other.... Onthe day when we no longer please you, break us, but till then aid usto progress." All this took place in broad daylight. Other facts, ofeven a more audacious nature, appeared suspicious to the people, owingto their very audacity. On April 4, 1832, a passer-by leaped on thebench at the corner of the Rue Sainte Marguerite, and shouted, "I ama Babouviste," but under Babœuf the people scented Gisquet. Amongother things this man said: "Down with property! The opposition of theLeft is cowardly and treacherous: when they wish to be in the right,they preach the revolution; they are democratic that they may not bedefeated, and royalist so that they need not fight. The republicans arefeathered beasts; distrust the republicans, citizen-workmen!" "Silence,citizen-spy!" a workman shouted, and this put an end to the speech.
Mysterious events occurred. At nightfall a workman met a "well-dressed"man near the canal, who said to him, "Where art thou going, citizen?""Sir," the workman answered, "I have not the honor of knowing you"--"Iknow thee, though;" and the man added, "Fear nothing, I am the agent ofthe committee, and it is suspected that thou art not to be trusted. Butthou knowest that there is an eye upon thee, if thou darest to revealanything." Then he shook the workman's hand and went away, saying,"We shall meet again soon." The police, who were listening, overheardsingular dialogues, not only in the wine-shops but in the streets."Get yourself ready soon," said a weaver to a cabinet-maker. "Why so?""There will be shots to fire." Two passers-by in rags exchanged thefollowing peculiar remarks, which were big with an apparent Jacquerie:"Who governs us?" "It is Monsieur Philippe." "No, the bourgeoisie."It would be an error to suppose that we attach a bad sense to theword "Jacquerie;" the Jacques were the poor. Another time a man washeard saying to his companion, "We have a famous plan of attack."Of a private conversation between four men seated in a ditch nearthe Barrière du Trône only the following was picked up: "Everythingpossible will be done to prevent him walking about Paris any longer.""Who is the _he_?" there is a menacing obscurity about it. The"principal chiefs," as they were called in the faubourg, kept aloof,but were supposed to assemble to arrange matters at a wine-shop nearthe Point St. Eustache. A man of the name of Aug, chief of the societyfor the relief of tailors, was supposed to act as central intermediarybetween the chiefs and the Faubourg St. Antoine. Still, a considerableamount of obscurity hangs over these chiefs, and no fact could weakenthe singular pride in the answer made at a later date, by a prisonerbrought before the Court of Peers.
"Who was your chief?"
"I did not know any, and I did not recognize any."
As yet they were but words, transparent but vague, at times mere rumorsand hearsays, but other signs arrived ere long. A carpenter, engagedin the Rue de Rueilly in nailing up a fence round a block of groundon which a house was being built, found on the ground a piece of atorn letter, on which the following lines were still legible: "... TheCommittee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections forthe different societies;" and as a postscript, "We have learned thatthere are guns at No. 5, Rue du Faubourg, Poissonnière, to the numberof five or six thousand, at a gunmaker's in the yard. The Sectionpossesses no arms." What startled the carpenter, and induced him toshow the thing to his neighbors, was that a few paces farther on hefound another paper, also torn, and even more significant, of which wereproduce the shape, owing to the historic interest of these strangedocuments.
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? Q ? C ? D ?
E ? Apprenez cette liste par cœur. Après ? ? ? ? ? ? vous la déchirerez: Les hommes admis ? ? ? ? ? ? en feront autant lorsque vous leur ? ? ? ? ? ? aurez transmis des ordres. ? ? ? ? ? ? Salut et Fraternité. ? ? ? ? ? ? u og a¹ fe L. ? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Persons at that time on the scent of this discovery did not learntill a later date the meaning of the four capitals,--_Quinturions,Centurions, Décurions_, and _Éclaireurs_, or the sense of the letters_u og a¹ fe_, which were a date, and indicated "this 15th April,1832." Under each capital letter were written names followed by verycharacteristic remarks. Thus, "Q. Bannerel, 8 guns, 83 cartridges. Asafe man.--C. Boubière, 1 pistol, 40 cartridges.--D. Rollet, 1 foil,1 pistol, 1 lb. gunpowder.--E. Tessin, 1 sabre, 1 cartouche-box.Punctual.--Terreur, 8 guns. Brave," etc. Lastly, this carpenter foundin the same enclosure a third paper, on which was written in pencil,but very legibly, this enigmatical list.
Unité. Blanchard: Arbre sec. 6.
Barra. Sixteen. Sall au Comte.
Kosciusko. Aubry the butcher?
J. J. R.
Caius Graccus.
Right of revision. Dufond. Four.
Downfall of the Girondists. Derbac. Maubuée.
Washington. Pinson. 1 pist. 86 cart.
Marseillaise.
Sovereignty of the people. Michel. Quincampoix. Sabre.
Hoche.
Marceau. Plato. Arbre Sec.
Warsaw, Tilly, crier of the _Populaire_.
The honest citizen in whose hands this list remained learned itspurport. It seems that the list was the complete nomenclature of thesections of the fourth arrondissement of the Society of the Rights ofMan, with the names and addresses of the chiefs of sections. At thepresent day, when these obscure facts have become historic, they may bepublished. We may add that the foundation of the Society of the Rightsof Man seems to have been posterior to the date on which this paper wasfound, and so it was possibly only a sketch. After propositions andwords and written information, material facts began to pierce through.In the Rue Popincourt, at the shop of a broker, seven pieces of paper,all folded alike, were found in a drawer; these papers containedtwenty-six squares of the same gray paper, folded in the shape ofcartridges, and a card on which was written:--
Saltpetre . . . . . . 12 oz. Sulphur . . . . . . 2 " Charcoal . . . . . . 2 1/2 " Water . . . . . . . . 2 "
The report of the seizure showed that there was a strong smell ofgunpowder in the drawer.
A mason, returning home after his day's work, left a small parcelon the bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. It was carried to theguard-house and opened, and from it were taken two printed dialoguessigned "Lahautière," a song called "Workmen, combine!" and a tin boxfull of cartridges. A workman drinking with his comrade bade him feelhow hot he was; and the other noticed a pistol under his jacket. In aditch on the boulevard between Père Lachaise and the Barrière du Trône,some children, playing at the most deserted spot, discovered under aheap of rubbish a bag containing a bullet mould, a mandrel for makingcartridges, a pouch in which there were some grains of gunpowder, andan iron ladle on which were evident signs of melted lead. Some policeagents suddenly entering at five A.M. the room of one Pardon, who wasat a later date a sectionist belonging to the Barricade Merry section,found him sitting on his bed with cartridges in his hand, which hewas in the act of making. At the hour when workmen are generallyresting, two men were noticed to meet between the Picpus and Charentonbarrières, in a lane running between two walls. One took a pistol fromunder his blouse, which he handed to the other; as he gave it him henoticed that the perspiration on his chest had dampened the gunpowder,he therefore filled the pan afresh, and the two men thereupon parted.A man of the name of Gallas, afterwards killed in the April affair inthe Rue Beaubourg, used to boast that he had at home seven hundredcartridges and twenty-four gun flints. One day the Government receivedinformation that arms and two hundred thousand cartridges had just beendistributed in the faubourg, and the next week thirty thousand morecartridges were given out. The remarkable thing was that the policecould not seize any of them; but an intercepted letter stated: "The dayis not far distant when eighty thousand patriots will be under arms infour hours."
All this fermentation was public, we might almost say calm, and theimpending insurrection prepared its storm quietly in the face of theGovernment. No singularity was lacking in this crisis, which was stillsubterranean, but already perceptible. The citizens spoke peacefullyto the workmen of what was preparing. They said, "How is the revoltgoing on?" in the same tone as they could have said, "How is yourwife?" A furniture broker in the Rue Moreau asked, "Well, when doyou attack?" and another shop-keeper said, "They will attack soon,I know it. A month ago there were fifteen thousand of you, and nowthere are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighboroffered a pocket pistol which was marked for sale at seven francs. Therevolutionary fever spread, and no point of Paris or of France escapedit. The artery throbbed everywhere, and the network of secret societiesbegan spreading over the country like the membranes which spring upfrom certain inflammations, and are formed in the human body. From theAssociation of the Friends of the People, which was at the same timepublic and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of Man, which datedone of its orders of the day, "Pluviose, year 40 of the republicanera," which was destined even to survive the decrees of the Court ofAssizes pronouncing its dissolution, and did not hesitate to give toits sections significant titles like the following: "Pikes. The Tocsin.The Alarm Gun. The Phrygian Cap. January 21. The Beggars. The Vagrants.March forward. Robespierre. The Level. Ça ira."
The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action,composed of impatient men who detached themselves and hurried forward.Other associations tried to recruit themselves in the great mothersocieties: and the sectionists complained of being tormented. Suchwere the "Gaulish Society" and the "Organizing Committee of theMunicipalities;" such the associations for the "Liberty of the Press,"for "Individual Liberty," for the "Instruction of the People," and"Against Indirect Taxes." Next we have the Society of EqualitarianWorkmen divided into three fractions,--the Equalitarians, theCommunists, and the Reformers. Then, again, the Army of the Bastilles,a cohort possessing military organization, four men being commanded bya corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by a sub-lieutenant, and fortyby a lieutenant; there were never more than five men who knew eachother. This is a creation where precaution is combined with audacity,and which seems to be stamped with the genius of Venice. The centralcommittee which formed the head, had two arms,--the Society of Actionand the Army of the Bastilles. A legitimist association, the "Knightsof Fidelity," agitated among these republican affiliations, but wasdenounced and repudiated. The Parisian societies ramified through theprincipal cities. Lyons, Nantes, Lille, and Marseilles, had theirSociety of the Rights of Man, The Charbonnière, and the Free Men. Aixhad a revolutionary society called the Cougourde. We have alreadymentioned that name.
At Paris the Faubourg Marceau buzzed no less than the Faubourg St.Antoine, and the schools were quite as excited as the faubourgs.A coffee-shop in the Rue Saint Hyacinthe, and the Estaminet desSept Billards in the Rue des Mathurins St. Jacques, served as thegathering-place for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A.B. C. affiliated with the Mutualists of Angers, and the Cougourde ofAix assembled, as we have seen, at the Café Musain. The same young menmet, as we have also said, at a wine-shop and eating-house near the RueMontdétour, called Corinthe. These meetings were secret, but otherswere as public as possible, and we may judge of their boldness by thisfragment from an examination that was held in one of the ulteriortrials. "Where was the meeting held?" "In the Rue de la Paix." "Atwhose house?" "In the street." "What sections were there?" "Only one.""Which one?" "The Manuel section." "Who was the chief?" "Myself." "Youare t
oo young to have yourself formed this serious resolve of attackingthe Government. Whence came your instructions?" "From the centralcommittee." The army was undermined at the same time as the population,as was proved at a later date by the movements of Béford, Luneville,and Épinal. Hopes were built on the 52d, 5th, 8th, and 37th regiments,and on the 20th light infantry. In Burgundy and the southern towns thetree of liberty was planted, that is to say, a mast surmounted by a redcap.
Such was the situation.
This situation, as we said at the commencement, the Faubourg St.Antoine rendered keen and marked more than any other group of thepopulation. This was the stitch in the side. This old faubourg, peopledlike an ant-heap, laborious, courageous, and passionate as a hive ofbees, quivered in expectation and the desire of a commotion. All wasagitation there, but labor was not suspended on that account. Nothingcould give an idea of these sharp and sombre faces; there were inthis faubourg crushing distress hidden under the roofs of houses, andalso ardent and rare minds. It is especially in the case of distressand intelligence that it is dangerous for extremes to meet. TheFaubourg St. Antoine had other causes for excitement, as it receivedthe counter-stroke of commercial crisis, bankruptcies, stoppages, andcessation of work, which are inherent in all political convulsions. Inrevolutionary times misery is at once the cause and the effect, and theblow which it deals falls upon itself again. This population, full ofhaughty virtue, capable of the highest amount of latent caloric, everready to take up arms, prompt to explode, irritated, profound, andundermined, seemed to be only waiting for the fall of a spark. Whenevercertain sparks float about the horizon, driven by the wind of events,we cannot help thinking of the Faubourg St. Antoine and the formidablechance which has placed at the gates of Paris this powder-magazine ofsufferings and ideas.
The wine-shops of the Antoine suburb, which have been more than oncereferred to in this sketch, possess an historic notoriety. In times oftrouble people grow intoxicated in them more on words than wine; and aspecies of prophetic spirit and an effluvium of the future circulatesthere, swelling hearts and ennobling minds. These wine-shops resemblethe taverns on the Mons Aventinus, built over the Sibyl's cave andcommunicating with the sacred blasts of the depths,--taverns in whichthe tables were almost tripods, and people drank what Ennius calls theSibylline wine. The Faubourg St. Antoine is a reservoir of the people,in which the revolutionary earthquake makes fissures, through which thesovereignty of the people flows. This sovereignty can act badly, itdeceives itself like other things, but even when led astray it remainsgrand. We may say of it, as of the blind Cyclops, "Ingens." In '93,according as the idea that floated was good or bad, or according as itwas the day of fanaticism or enthusiasm, savage legions or heroic bandsissued from this faubourg. Savage,--let us explain that word. What didthese bristling men want, who, in the Genesis of the revolutionarychaos, rushed upon old overthrown Paris in rags, yelling and ferocious,with uplifted clubs and raised pikes? They wanted the end ofoppression, the end of tyranny, the end of the sword, work for the man,instruction for the child, social gentleness for the woman, liberty,equality, fraternity, bread for all, the idea for all, the Edenizationof the world, and progress; and this holy, good, and sweet thing calledprogress, they, driven to exasperation, claimed terribly with upraisedweapons and curses. They were savages, we grant, but the savages ofcivilization. They proclaimed the right furiously, and wished toforce the human race into Paradise, even were it through tremblingand horror. They seemed barbarians, and were saviors; they demandedlight while wearing the mask of night. Opposite these men,--stern andfrightful we admit, but stern and frightful for good,--there are othermen, smiling, embroidered, gilded, be-ribboned, in silk stockings,with white feathers, yellow gloves, and kid shoes, who, leaning upon avelvet-covered table near a marble chimney-piece, gently insist on themaintenance and preservation of the past, of the middle ages; of divineright, of fanaticism, of ignorance, of slavery, of the punishmentof death, and of war; and who glorify in a low voice and with greatpoliteness the sabre, the pyre, and the scaffold. For our part, were wecompelled to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization andthe civilized of barbarism, we would choose the barbarians. But, thanksbe to Heaven, another choice is possible; no fall down an abyss isrequired, either in front or behind, neither despotism nor terrorism.We wish for progress on a gentle incline, and God provides for this.Reducing inclines is the whole policy of God.