Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear that he had not answered the question. He is a man who does good by gun-shots, said Combeferre. Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch know that the National Guard from the suburbs was valiant against insurrections. It was particularly zealous and intrepid in the days of June. A certain good dram-shop keeper, whose establishment had been closed by the riots, became leonine at the sight of his deserted dance-hall, and got himself killed to preserve the order represented by a tea-garden. In that bourgeois and heroic time, in the presence of ideas which had their knights, interests had their paladins. The diminution of a pile of crowns made bankers sing the Marseillaise. They shed their blood lyrically for the counting-house, and they defended the shop, that immense diminutive of the fatherland. At bottom there was nothing in all this that was not extremely serious. It was social elements entering into strife, while awaiting the day when they should enter into equilibrium. Another sign of the times was anarchy mingled with governmentalism. People were for order in combination with lack of discipline. The drum suddenly beat capricious calls. Such and such a captain went into action through inspiration. Such and such National Guardsmen fought for an idea, and on their own account. There existed in the army of order veritable guerilleros, some of the sword, like Fannicot, others of the pen.
Zeal sometimes proceeded to extermination. A platoon of the National Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council of war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes. It was an improvisation of this sort that had slain Jean Prouvaire. On the 6th of June, 1832, a company of the National Guards from the suburbs, commanded by Fannicot, had itself decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice and its own good pleasure. Fannicot, a bold and impatient bourgeois, a fanatical and intractable governmentalist, could not resist the temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition of capturing the barricade alone and unaided, that is to say, with his company. Exasperated by the successive apparition of the red flag and the old coat which he took for the black flag, he loudly blamed the generals who were holding council and who were allowing the insurrection to fry in its own fat. For his part, he thought the barricade ripe, and as that which is ripe ought to fall, he made the attempt. He commanded men as resolute as himself. His company, the same which had shot Jean Prouvaire the poet, was the first of the battalion posted at the angle of the street. At the moment when they were least expecting it, he launched his men against the barricade. This movement, executed with more good will than strategy, cost the Fannicot company dear. Before it had traversed two thirds of the street it was received by a general discharge. Four, the most audacious, who were running on in front, were mown down point-blank at the very foot of the redoubt. This courageous throng, very brave men but lacking in military tenacity, were forced to fall back, after some hesitation, leaving fifteen corpses on the pavement. This momentary hesitation gave the insurgents time to re-load, and a second and very destructive discharge struck the company before it could regain the corner of the street, its shelter. A moment more, and it was caught between two fires, and it received the volley from the battery piece which, not having received the order, had not discontinued its firing.
The intrepid and imprudent Fannicot was one of the dead from this grape-shot. He was killed by the cannon, that is to say, by order. This attack, which was more furious than serious, irritated Enjolras. The fools, said he. They are getting their own men killed and they are using up our ammunition for nothing. Enjolras spoke like the real general of insurrection which he was. Insurrection and repression do not fight with equal weapons. Insurrection, which is speedily exhausted, has only a certain number of shots to fire and a certain number of combatants to expend. An empty cartridge-box, a man killed, cannot be replaced. As repression has the army, it does not count its men, and as it has Vincennes, it does not count its shots. Thus they are struggles of one against a hundred, which always end in crushing the barricade, unless the revolution, uprising suddenly, flings into the balance its flaming archangel's sword. This does happen sometimes. Then everything rises, the pavements begin to seethe, popular redoubts abound. Paris quivers supremely, a wonderful light appears, the yawning maw of force draws back, and the army, that lion, sees before it, erect and tranquil, that prophet, France.
