Wherein Will Appear the Name of Enjolras’ Mistress — Les Misérables

Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to insult the cannon, and each time that the gloomy cloud of grape-shot passed overhead he assailed it with a burst of irony. You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow. That is not thunder, it is a cough. And the bystanders laughed. Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humour increased with the peril, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and, as wine was lacking, they poured out gayety to all. I admire Enjolras, said Bossuet. He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps. The rest of us have mistresses who make us crazy, that is to say, brave. A man without a woman is a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman that sets the man off. Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and yet he manages to be intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man should be as cold as ice and as bold as fire. Enjolras did not appear to be listening, but had any one been near him, that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: Patria.

Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed: News! And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added: My name is Eight-Pounder. In fact, a second piece of ordnance had entered on the scene. The artillery-men placed this second piece in line with the first. This outlined the catastrophe. A few minutes later, the two pieces were firing point-blank at the redoubt. At the same time, two other cannons were riddling the Saint-Merry barricade. One of the two pieces battering the Rue de la Chanvrerie was firing grape-shot, the other balls. The piece which was firing balls was pointed a little high, so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper crest and crumbled the stone down upon the insurgents. The object of this mode of firing was to drive them from the summit and compel them to gather close in the interior. That is to say, this announced the assault.

It is absolutely necessary that the inconvenience of those guns should be diminished, said Enjolras, and he shouted: Fire on the artillery-men! The barricade, which had long been silent, poured forth a desperate fire. The street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the end of a few minutes, two thirds of the gunners could be distinguished lying beneath the wheels of the cannons. Those who were left standing continued to serve the pieces with severe tranquillity, but the fire had slackened. Things are going well now, said Bossuet. Success. Enjolras shook his head and replied: Another quarter of an hour of this success, and there will not be any cartridges left in the barricade. It appears that Gavroche overheard this remark.