1Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he assailed it with a burst of irony.

2“You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me, you are wasting your row. That’s not thunder, it’s a cough.”

3And the bystanders laughed.

4Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the peril, like Madame Scarron, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and, as wine was lacking, they poured out gayety to all.

5“I admire Enjolras,” said Bossuet. “His impassive temerity astounds me. He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras complains of his greatness, which binds him to widowhood. The rest of us have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say, brave. When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to fight like a lion. That is one way of taking our revenge for the capers that mesdames our grisettes play on us. Roland gets himself killed for Angélique; all our heroism comes from our women. 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.”

6Enjolras 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.”

7Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed:

8“News!”

9And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added:

10“My name is Eight-Pounder.”

11In fact, a new personage had entered on the scene. This was a second piece of ordnance.

12The artillery-men rapidly performed their manœuvres in force and placed this second piece in line with the first.

13This outlined the catastrophe.

14A few minutes later, the two pieces, rapidly served, were firing point-blank at the redoubt; the platoon firing of the line and of the soldiers from the suburbs sustained the artillery.

15Another cannonade was audible at some distance. At the same time that the two guns were furiously attacking the redoubt from the Rue de la Chanvrerie, two other cannons, trained one from the Rue Saint-Denis, the other from the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, were riddling the Saint-Merry barricade. The four cannons echoed each other mournfully.

16The barking of these sombre dogs of war replied to each other.

17One of the two pieces which was now battering the barricade on the Rue de la Chanvrerie was firing grape-shot, the other balls.

18The piece which was firing balls was pointed a little high, and the aim was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper crest of the barricade, and crumbled the stone down upon the insurgents, mingled with bursts of grape-shot.

19The object of this mode of firing was to drive the insurgents from the summit of the redoubt, and to compel them to gather close in the interior, that is to say, this announced the assault.

20The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls, and from the windows of the cabaret by grape-shot, the attacking columns could venture into the street without being picked off, perhaps, even, without being seen, could briskly and suddenly scale the redoubt, as on the preceding evening, and, who knows? take it by surprise.

21“It is absolutely necessary that the inconvenience of those guns should be diminished,” said Enjolras, and he shouted: “Fire on the artillery-men!”

22All were ready. The barricade, which had long been silent, poured forth a desperate fire; seven or eight discharges followed, with a sort of rage and joy; the street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the end of a few minutes, athwart this mist all streaked with flame, 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.

23“Things are going well now,” said Bossuet to Enjolras. “Success.”

24Enjolras shook his head and replied:

25“Another quarter of an hour of this success, and there will not be any cartridges left in the barricade.”

26It appears that Gavroche overheard this remark.