A party of sappers, with their axes on their shoulders, had just appeared in battle-array at the end of the street. This could only be the head of a column; and of what column? Evidently the column of attack; for the sappers ordered to demolish the barricade always precede the troops appointed to escalade it. It was plain that the moment was at hand which M. Clermont Tonnerre called in 1822 "a strong pull."
Enjolras's order was carried out with that correct speed peculiar to ships and barricades, the only two battle-fields whence escape is impossible. In less than a minute two thirds of the paving-stones which Enjolras had ordered to be piled up against the door of Corinth were carried to the first-floor and attic, and before a second minute had passed these paving-stones, artistically laid on one another, walled up one half of the window. A few spaces carefully arranged by Feuilly, the chief constructor, allowed the gun-barrels to pass through. This armament of the windows was the more easily effected because the grape-shot had ceased. The two cannon were now firing solid shot at the centre of the barricade, in order to make a hole, and if possible a breach, for the assault. When the stones intended for the final assault were in their places, Enjolras carried to the first-floor the bottles he had placed under the table on which Mabœuf lay.
"Who will drink that?" Bossuet asked him.
"They will," Enjolras answered.
Then the ground-floor window was also barricaded, and the iron bars which closed the door at night were held in readiness. The fortress was complete; the barricade was the rampart, and the wine-shop the keep. With the paving-stones left over the gap was stopped up. As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to save their ammunition, and the besiegers are aware of the fact, the latter combine their arrangements with a sort of irritating leisure, expose themselves before the time to the fire, though more apparently than in reality, and take their ease. The preparations for the attack are always made with a certain methodical slowness, and after that comes the thunder. This slowness enabled Enjolras to revise and render everything perfect. He felt that since such men were about to die, their death must be a masterpiece. He said to Marius,—
"We are the two chiefs. I am going to give the final orders inside, while you remain outside and watch."
Marius posted himself in observation on the crest of the barricade, while Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which it will be remembered served as ambulance, nailed up.
"No splashing on the wounded," he said.
He gave his final instructions in the ground-floor room in a sharp but wonderfully calm voice, and Feuilly listened and answered in the name of all.
"At the first-floor hold axes ready to cut down the stairs. Have you them?"