Les Misérables, v. 4

Other expressive facts were collected: thus a man went into a wine-shop, drank, and went away, saying, "Wine-dealer, the revolution will pay what is due." Revolutionary agents were nominated at a wine-shop opposite the Rue de Charonne, and the ballot was made in caps. Workmen assembled at a fencing-master's who gave lessons in the Rue de Cotte. There was a trophy of arms, made of wooden sabres, canes, cudgels, and foils. One day the buttons were removed from the foils, and a workman said, "We are five-and-twenty, but they do not reckon upon me, as they consider me a machine." This man was at a later date Quénisset. Things that were premeditated gradually assumed a strange notoriety; a woman who was sweeping her door said to another woman, "They have been making cartridges for a long time past." In the open streets proclamations addressed to the National Guards of the 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 on a bench at the door of a dram-shop in the Marché Lenoir, and began reading a singular document, which seemed to emanate from some occult power. Groups assembled around him and applauded, and the passages which most excited the mob were noted down at the time. "Our doctrines are impeded, our proclamations are torn down, our bill-posters watched and thrown into prison… The collapse in cottons has brought over to us a good many conservatives… The future of the people is being worked out in our obscure ranks… These are the terms laid down, action or reaction, revolution or counter-revolution, for in our age no one still believes in inertia or immobility. For the people, or against the people, that is the question, and there is no other… On the day when we no longer please you, break us, but till then aid us to progress." All this took place in broad daylight. Other facts, of even a more audacious nature, appeared suspicious to the people, owing to their very audacity. On April 4, 1832, a passer-by leaped on the bench at the corner of the Rue Sainte Marguerite, and shouted, "I am a Babouviste," but under Babœuf the people scented Gisquet. Among other things this man said: "Down with property! The opposition of the Left is cowardly and treacherous: when they wish to be in the right, they preach the revolution; they are democratic that they may not be defeated, and royalist so that they need not fight. The republicans are feathered 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" – "I know thee, though;" and the man added, "Fear nothing, I am the agent of the committee, and it is suspected that thou art not to be trusted. But thou knowest that there is an eye upon thee, if thou darest to reveal anything." Then he shook the workman's hand and went away, saying, "We shall meet again soon." The police, who were listening, overheard singular 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 the following 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 the word "Jacquerie;" the Jacques were the poor. Another time a man was heard saying to his companion, "We have a famous plan of attack." Of a private conversation between four men seated in a ditch near the Barrière du Trône only the following was picked up: "Everything possible 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 near the Point St. Eustache. A man of the name of Aug, chief of the society for the relief of tailors, was supposed to act as central intermediary between the chiefs and the Faubourg St. Antoine. Still, a considerable amount of obscurity hangs over these chiefs, and no fact could weaken the singular pride in the answer made at a later date, by a prisoner brought 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 rumors and hearsays, but other signs arrived ere long. A carpenter, engaged in the Rue de Rueilly in nailing up a fence round a block of ground on which a house was being built, found on the ground a piece of a torn letter, on which the following lines were still legible: "… The Committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections for the different societies;" and as a postscript, "We have learned that there are guns at No. 5, Rue du Faubourg, Poissonnière, to the number of five or six thousand, at a gunmaker's in the yard. The Section possesses no arms." What startled the carpenter, and induced him to show the thing to his neighbors, was that a few paces farther on he found another paper, also torn, and even more significant, of which we reproduce the shape, owing to the historic interest of these strange documents.

Persons at that time on the scent of this discovery did not learn till 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 very characteristic remarks. Thus, "Q. Bannerel, 8 guns, 83 cartridges. A safe 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 found in 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 its purport. It seems that the list was the complete nomenclature of the sections of the fourth arrondissement of the Society of the Rights of Man, with the names and addresses of the chiefs of sections. At the present day, when these obscure facts have become historic, they may be published. We may add that the foundation of the Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to the date on which this paper was found, and so it was possibly only a sketch. After propositions and words 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 contained twenty-six squares of the same gray paper, folded in the shape of cartridges, 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 of gunpowder in the drawer.

A mason, returning home after his day's work, left a small parcel on the bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. It was carried to the guard-house and opened, and from it were taken two printed dialogues signed "Lahautière," a song called "Workmen, combine!" and a tin box full of cartridges. A workman drinking with his comrade bade him feel how hot he was; and the other noticed a pistol under his jacket. In a ditch on the boulevard between Père Lachaise and the Barrière du Trône, some children, playing at the most deserted spot, discovered under a heap of rubbish a bag containing a bullet mould, a mandrel for making cartridges, a pouch in which there were some grains of gunpowder, and an iron ladle on which were evident signs of melted lead. Some police agents suddenly entering at five A.M. the room of one Pardon, who was at a later date a sectionist belonging to the Barricade Merry section, found him sitting on his bed with cartridges in his hand, which he was in the act of making. At the hour when workmen are generally resting, two men were noticed to meet between the Picpus and Charenton barrières, in a lane running between two walls. One took a pistol from under his blouse, which he handed to the other; as he gave it him he noticed 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 in the Rue Beaubourg, used to boast that he had at home seven hundred cartridges and twenty-four gun flints. One day the Government received information that arms and two hundred thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the faubourg, and the next week thirty thousand more cartridges were given out. The remarkable thing was that the police could not seize any of them; but an intercepted letter stated: "The day is not far distant when eighty thousand patriots will be under arms in four hours."

All this fermentation was public, we might almost say calm, and the impending insurrection prepared its storm quietly in the face of the Government. No singularity was lacking in this crisis, which was still subterranean, but already perceptible. The citizens spoke peacefully to the workmen of what was preparing. They said, "How is the revolt going on?" in the same tone as they could have said, "How is your wife?" A furniture broker in the Rue Moreau asked, "Well, when do you attack?" and another shop-keeper said, "They will attack soon, I know it. A month ago there were fifteen thousand of you, and now there are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a pocket pistol which was marked for sale at seven francs. The revolutionary fever spread, and no point of Paris or of France escaped it. The artery throbbed everywhere, and the network of secret societies began spreading over the country like the membranes which spring up from certain inflammations, and are formed in the human body. From the Association of the Friends of the People, which was at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of Man, which dated one of its orders of the day, "Pluviose, year 40 of the republican era," which was destined even to survive the decrees of the Court of Assizes pronouncing its dissolution, and did not hesitate to give to its 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 mother societies: and the sectionists complained of being tormented. Such were the "Gaulish Society" and the "Organizing Committee of the Municipalities;" 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 Equalitarian Workmen divided into three fractions, – the Equalitarians, the Communists, and the Reformers. Then, again, the Army of the Bastilles, a cohort possessing military organization, four men being commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by a sub-lieutenant, and forty by a lieutenant; there were never more than five men who knew each other. This is a creation where precaution is combined with audacity, and which seems to be stamped with the genius of Venice. The central committee which formed the head, had two arms, – the Society of Action and the Army of the Bastilles. A legitimist association, the "Knights of Fidelity," agitated among these republican affiliations, but was denounced and repudiated. The Parisian societies ramified through the principal cities. Lyons, Nantes, Lille, and Marseilles, had their Society of the Rights of Man, The Charbonnière, and the Free Men. Aix had a revolutionary society called the Cougourde. We have already mentioned 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 des Sept Billards in the Rue des Mathurins St. Jacques, served as the gathering-place for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A. B. C. affiliated with the Mutualists of Angers, and the Cougourde of Aix assembled, as we have seen, at the Café Musain. The same young men met, as we have also said, at a wine-shop and eating-house near the Rue Montdétour, called Corinthe. These meetings were secret, but others were as public as possible, and we may judge of their boldness by this fragment from an examination that was held in one of the ulterior trials. "Where was the meeting held?" "In the Rue de la Paix." "At whose house?" "In the street." "What sections were there?" "Only one." "Which one?" "The Manuel section." "Who was the chief?" "Myself." "You are too young to have yourself formed this serious resolve of attacking the Government. Whence came your instructions?" "From the central committee." 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 the tree of liberty was planted, that is to say, a mast surmounted by a red cap.

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 the population. This was the stitch in the side. This old faubourg, peopled like an ant-heap, laborious, courageous, and passionate as a hive of bees, quivered in expectation and the desire of a commotion. All was agitation there, but labor was not suspended on that account. Nothing could give an idea of these sharp and sombre faces; there were in this faubourg crushing distress hidden under the roofs of houses, and also ardent and rare minds. It is especially in the case of distress and intelligence that it is dangerous for extremes to meet. The Faubourg St. Antoine had other causes for excitement, as it received the counter-stroke of commercial crisis, bankruptcies, stoppages, and cessation of work, which are inherent in all political convulsions. In revolutionary times misery is at once the cause and the effect, and the blow which it deals falls upon itself again. This population, full of haughty virtue, capable of the highest amount of latent caloric, ever ready to take up arms, prompt to explode, irritated, profound, and undermined, seemed to be only waiting for the fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float about the horizon, driven by the wind of events, we cannot help thinking of the Faubourg St. Antoine and the formidable chance which has placed at the gates of Paris this powder-magazine of sufferings and ideas.

The wine-shops of the Antoine suburb, which have been more than once referred to in this sketch, possess an historic notoriety. In times of trouble people grow intoxicated in them more on words than wine; and a species of prophetic spirit and an effluvium of the future circulates there, swelling hearts and ennobling minds. These wine-shops resemble the taverns on the Mons Aventinus, built over the Sibyl's cave and communicating with the sacred blasts of the depths, – taverns in which the tables were almost tripods, and people drank what Ennius calls the Sibylline wine. The Faubourg St. Antoine is a reservoir of the people, in which the revolutionary earthquake makes fissures, through which the sovereignty of the people flows. This sovereignty can act badly, it deceives itself like other things, but even when led astray it remains grand. 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 it was the day of fanaticism or enthusiasm, savage legions or heroic bands issued from this faubourg. Savage, – let us explain that word. What did these bristling men want, who, in the Genesis of the revolutionary chaos, rushed upon old overthrown Paris in rags, yelling and ferocious, with uplifted clubs and raised pikes? They wanted the end of oppression, 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 Edenization of the world, and progress; and this holy, good, and sweet thing called progress, they, driven to exasperation, claimed terribly with upraised weapons and curses. They were savages, we grant, but the savages of civilization. They proclaimed the right furiously, and wished to force the human race into Paradise, even were it through trembling and horror. They seemed barbarians, and were saviors; they demanded light while wearing the mask of night. Opposite these men, – stern and frightful we admit, but stern and frightful for good, – there are other men, smiling, embroidered, gilded, be-ribboned, in silk stockings, with white feathers, yellow gloves, and kid shoes, who, leaning upon a velvet-covered table near a marble chimney-piece, gently insist on the maintenance and preservation of the past, of the middle ages; of divine right, of fanaticism, of ignorance, of slavery, of the punishment of death, and of war; and who glorify in a low voice and with great politeness the sabre, the pyre, and the scaffold. For our part, were we compelled to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized of barbarism, we would choose the barbarians. But, thanks be to Heaven, another choice is possible; no fall down an abyss is required, 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.