Employment of the Old Talents of a Poacher and That Infallible Marksmanship Which Influenced the Condemnation Of — Les Misérables

Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could not hold out a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the blows. We must place a mattress there, said Enjolras. We have none, said Combeferre, the wounded are lying on them. Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post at the corner of the tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to that moment, taken no part in anything that was going on. He did not appear to hear the combatants saying around him that here was a gun that was doing nothing. At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose.

An old woman, foreseeing the bullets, had placed her mattress in front of an attic window on the roof of a six-story house a little beyond the barricade. The mattress hung on two ropes, which at that distance looked like two threads, like hairs against the sky. Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle? Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him. Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired. One of the mattress ropes was cut. The mattress now hung by one thread only. He fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and fell into the street. The barricade applauded. Here is a mattress! Yes, said Combeferre, but who will go and fetch it? The mattress had fallen outside, between besiegers and besieged. The death of the sergeant of artillery having exasperated the troop, the soldiers were lying flat behind their paving-stones, and had opened fire. The insurgents did not reply, in order to spare their ammunition. The street, which the fusillade filled, was terrible.

Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress, hoisted it upon his back, and returned to the barricade. He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixed it there against the wall in such a manner that the artillery-men should not see it. That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot. It was not long in coming. The cannon vomited forth its package of buckshot with a roar. But there was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen had been attained. The barricade was saved. Citizen, said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, the Republic thanks you. Bossuet admired and laughed. It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power. Triumph of that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon.