[CHAPTER IV.]
AN ENDEAVOR TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP.
Bahorel, delighted with the barricade, exclaimed, "How well the street looks décolleté!"
Courfeyrac, while gradually demolishing the public-house, tried to console the widowed landlady.
"Mother Hucheloup, were you not complaining the other day that you had been summoned by the police, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out of the window?"
"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good gracious! are you going to put that table too in your horror? Yes, and the Government also condemned me to a fine of one hundred francs on account of a flower-pot that fell out of the garret into the street. Is that not abominable?"
"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are going to avenge you."
Mother Hucheloup did not exactly see the advantage accruing to her from the reparation made her. She was satisfied after the fashion of the Arab woman who, having received a box on the ears from her husband, went to complain to her father, crying vengeance, and saying, "Father, you owe my husband affront for affront." The father asked, "On which cheek did you receive the blow?" "On the left cheek." The father boxed her right cheek, and said, "Now you must be satisfied. Go and tell your husband that he buffeted my daughter, but I have buffeted his wife." The rain had ceased, and recruits began to arrive. Artisans brought under their blouses a barrel of gunpowder, a hamper containing carboys of vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket full of lamps, "remaining from the king's birthday," which was quite recent, as it was celebrated on May 1. It was said that this ammunition was sent by a grocer in the Faubourg St. Antoine named Pépin. The only lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and all those in the surrounding streets, were broken. Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything, and now two barricades were erected simultaneously, both of which were supported by Corinth and formed a square; the larger one closed the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and the smaller the Rue Mondétour on the side of the Rue du Cygne. This latter barricade, which was very narrow, was merely made of barrels and paving-stones. There were about fifty workmen there, of whom three were armed with guns, for on the road they had borrowed a gunsmith's entire stock.
Nothing could be stranger or more motley than this group: one had a sleeved waistcoat, a cavalry sabre, and a pair of holster pistols; another was in shirt-sleeves, with a round hat, and a powder-flask hung at his side; while a third was cuirassed with nine sheets of gray paper, and was armed with a saddler's awl. There was one who shouted, "Let us exterminate to the last, and die on the point of our bayonet!" This man had no bayonet. Another displayed over his coat the belts and pouch of a National Guard, with these words sewn in red worsted on the cover, "Public order." There were many muskets, bearing the numbers of legions, few hats, no neckties, a great many bare arms, and a few pikes; add to this all ages, all faces, short pale youths, and bronzed laborers at the docks. All were in a hurry, and while assisting each other, talked about the possible chances,—that they were sure of one regiment, and Paris would rise. There were terrible remarks, with which a sort of cordial joviality was mingled; they might have been taken for brothers, though they did not know one another's names. Great dangers have this beauty about them, that they throw light on the fraternity of strangers.