At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves with the skeleton of the staircase, a score of assailants made an irruption into the apartment on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet. Enjolras. Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand now but the barrel of his gun, whose stock he had broken over the heads of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between himself and them, and retreated into the corner. He was still so alarming that an empty space formed around him. He is the leader. It was he who slew the artillery-man. Let us shoot him down on the spot. Shoot me, said Enjolras. And flinging away his bit of gun-barrel, and folding his arms, he offered his breast. The din of strife ceased. This young man, who alone had not a wound, seemed to constrain the room to kill him respectfully. There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo. A National Guardsman who had taken aim lowered his gun. It seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower. Twelve men formed into a squad. Take aim, shouted a sergeant. An officer intervened. Wait. Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged. No. Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant. Yes.
Grantaire had waked up a few moments before. He had been asleep ever since the preceding evening in the upper room, seated on a chair and leaning on the table, dead drunk. Nothing had had any effect upon that slumber, neither the fusillade, nor the cannon-balls, nor the grape-shot through the window. He had replied to the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. Many corpses were strewn around him, and at the first glance there was nothing to distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death. Noise does not rouse a drunken man. Silence awakens him. The halt in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to that heavy slumber. Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, rubbed his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood. The soldiers, their eyes fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed him. The sergeant was preparing to repeat Take aim, when a strong voice shouted beside them: Long live the Republic. I'm one of them. Grantaire crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. Finish both of us at one blow. And turning gently to Enjolras, he said: Do you permit it. Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.
This smile was not ended when the report resounded. Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt. A few moments later the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents at the top of the house. They fired into the attic through a wooden lattice. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the windows. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. The barricade was captured. The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the fugitives.
Coming Up in Chapter 322
Marius was, in fact, a prisoner. The hand which had seized him from behind, at the moment of his fall, was that of Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had taken no other part in the combat than to expose himself in it.
