1In the meantime, Gavroche had had an adventure.

2Gavroche, after having conscientiously stoned the lantern in the Rue du Chaume, entered the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, and not seeing “even a cat” there, he thought the opportunity a good one to strike up all the song of which he was capable. His march, far from being retarded by his singing, was accelerated by it. He began to sow along the sleeping or terrified houses these incendiary couplets:—

3“L’oiseau médit dans les charmilles,

4Et prétend qu’hier Atala

5Avec un Russe s’en alla.

6Où vont les belles filles,

7Lon la.

8“Mon ami Pierrot, tu babilles,

9Parce que l’autre jour Mila

10Cogna sa vitre et m’appela,

11Où vont les belles filles,

12Lon la.

13“Les drôlesses sont fort gentilles,

14Leur poison qui m’ensorcela

15Griserait Monsieur Orfila.

16Où vont les belles filles,

17Lon la.

18“J’aime l’amour et les bisbilles,

19J’aime Agnès, j’aime Paméla,

20Lise en m’allumant se brûla.

21Où vont les belles filles,

22Lon la.

23“Jadis, quand je vis les mantilles

24De Suzette et de Zéila,

25Mon âme à leurs plis se mêla,

26Où vont les belles filles,

27Lon la.

28“Amour, quand dans l’ombre où tu brilles,

29Tu coiffes de roses Lola,

30Je me damnerais pour cela.

31Où vont les belles filles,

32Lon la.

33“Jeanne à ton miroir tu t’habilles!

34Mon cœur un beau jour s’envola.

35Je crois que c’est Jeanne qui l’a.

36Où vont les belles filles,

37Lon la.

38“Le soir, en sortant des quadrilles,

39Je montre aux étoiles Stella,

40Et je leur dis: ‘Regardez-la.’

41Où vont les belles filles,

42Lon la. ”56

43Gavroche, as he sang, was lavish of his pantomime. Gesture is the strong point of the refrain. His face, an inexhaustible repertory of masks, produced grimaces more convulsing and more fantastic than the rents of a cloth torn in a high gale. Unfortunately, as he was alone, and as it was night, this was neither seen nor even visible. Such wastes of riches do occur.

44All at once, he stopped short.

45“Let us interrupt the romance,” said he.

46His feline eye had just descried, in the recess of a carriage door, what is called in painting, an ensemble, that is to say, a person and a thing; the thing was a hand-cart, the person was a man from Auvergene who was sleeping therein.

47The shafts of the cart rested on the pavement, and the Auvergnat’s head was supported against the front of the cart. His body was coiled up on this inclined plane and his feet touched the ground.

48Gavroche, with his experience of the things of this world, recognized a drunken man. He was some corner errand-man who had drunk too much and was sleeping too much.

49“There now,” thought Gavroche, “that’s what the summer nights are good for. We’ll take the cart for the Republic, and leave the Auvergnat for the Monarchy.”

50His mind had just been illuminated by this flash of light:—

51“How bully that cart would look on our barricade!”

52The Auvergnat was snoring.

53Gavroche gently tugged at the cart from behind, and at the Auvergnat from the front, that is to say, by the feet, and at the expiration of another minute the imperturbable Auvergnat was reposing flat on the pavement.

54The cart was free.

55Gavroche, habituated to facing the unexpected in all quarters, had everything about him. He fumbled in one of his pockets, and pulled from it a scrap of paper and a bit of red pencil filched from some carpenter.

56He wrote:—

57“French Republic.”

58“Received thy cart.”

59And he signed it: “GAVROCHE.”

60That done, he put the paper in the pocket of the still snoring Auvergnat’s velvet vest, seized the cart shafts in both hands, and set off in the direction of the Halles, pushing the cart before him at a hard gallop with a glorious and triumphant uproar.

61This was perilous. There was a post at the Royal Printing Establishment. Gavroche did not think of this. This post was occupied by the National Guards of the suburbs. The squad began to wake up, and heads were raised from camp beds. Two street lanterns broken in succession, that ditty sung at the top of the lungs. This was a great deal for those cowardly streets, which desire to go to sleep at sunset, and which put the extinguisher on their candles at such an early hour. For the last hour, that boy had been creating an uproar in that peaceable arrondissement, the uproar of a fly in a bottle. The sergeant of the banlieue lent an ear. He waited. He was a prudent man.

62The mad rattle of the cart, filled to overflowing the possible measure of waiting, and decided the sergeant to make a reconnaisance.

63“There’s a whole band of them there!” said he, “let us proceed gently.”

64It was clear that the hydra of anarchy had emerged from its box and that it was stalking abroad through the quarter.

65And the sergeant ventured out of the post with cautious tread.

66All at once, Gavroche, pushing his cart in front of him, and at the very moment when he was about to turn into the Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes, found himself face to face with a uniform, a shako, a plume, and a gun.

67For the second time, he stopped short.

68“Hullo,” said he, “it’s him. Good day, public order.”

69Gavroche’s amazement was always brief and speedily thawed.

70“Where are you going, you rascal?” shouted the sergeant.

71“Citizen,” retorted Gavroche, “I haven’t called you ‘bourgeois’ yet. Why do you insult me?”

72“Where are you going, you rogue?”

73“Monsieur,” retorted Gavroche, “perhaps you were a man of wit yesterday, but you have degenerated this morning.”

74“I ask you where are you going, you villain?”

75Gavroche replied:—

76“You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. You ought to sell all your hair at a hundred francs apiece. That would yield you five hundred francs.”

77“Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going, bandit?”

78Gavroche retorted again:—

79“What villainous words! You must wipe your mouth better the first time that they give you suck.”

80The sergeant lowered his bayonet.

81“Will you tell me where you are going, you wretch?”

82“General,” said Gavroche “I’m on my way to look for a doctor for my wife who is in labor.”

83“To arms!” shouted the sergeant.

84The master-stroke of strong men consists in saving themselves by the very means that have ruined them; Gavroche took in the whole situation at a glance. It was the cart which had told against him, it was the cart’s place to protect him.

85At the moment when the sergeant was on the point of making his descent on Gavroche, the cart, converted into a projectile and launched with all the latter’s might, rolled down upon him furiously, and the sergeant, struck full in the stomach, tumbled over backwards into the gutter while his gun went off in the air.

86The men of the post had rushed out pell-mell at the sergeant’s shout; the shot brought on a general random discharge, after which they reloaded their weapons and began again.

87This blind-man’s-buff musketry lasted for a quarter of an hour and killed several panes of glass.

88In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, halted five or six streets distant and seated himself, panting, on the stone post which forms the corner of the Enfants-Rouges.

89He listened.

90After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and thrust it forward three times, as he slapped the back of his head with his right hand; an imperious gesture in which Parisian street-urchindom has condensed French irony, and which is evidently efficacious, since it has already lasted half a century.

91This gayety was troubled by one bitter reflection.

92“Yes,” said he, “I’m splitting with laughter, I’m twisting with delight, I abound in joy, but I’m losing my way, I shall have to take a roundabout way. If I only reach the barricade in season!”

93Thereupon he set out again on a run.

94And as he ran:—

95“Ah, by the way, where was I?” said he.

96And he resumed his ditty, as he plunged rapidly through the streets, and this is what died away in the gloom:—

97“Mais il reste encore des bastilles,

98Et je vais mettre le

99Dans l’ordre public que voilà.

100Où vont les belles filles,

101Lon la.

102“Quelqu’un veut-il jouer aux quilles?

103Tout l’ancien monde s’écroula

104Quand la grosse boule roula.

105Où vont les belles filles,

106Lon la.

107“Vieux bon peuple, à coups de béquilles,

108Cassons ce Louvre où s’étala

109La monarchie en falbala.

110Où vont les belles filles,

111Lon la.

112“Nous en avons forcé les grilles,

113Le roi Charles-Dix ce jour-là,

114Tenait mal et se décolla.

115Où vont les belles filles,

116Lon la. ”57

117The post’s recourse to arms was not without result. The cart was conquered, the drunken man was taken prisoner. The first was put in the pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils of war as an accomplice. The public ministry of the day proved its indefatigable zeal in the defence of society, in this instance.

118Gavroche’s adventure, which has lingered as a tradition in the quarters of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memories: “The nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment.”

119[THE END OF VOLUME IV “SAINT DENIS”]