Page 1444 - les-miserables

This old faubourg, peopled like an ant-hill, laborious, cou-
rageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was quivering with
expectation and with the desire for a tumult. Everything
was in a state of agitation there, without any interruption,
however, of the regular work. It is impossible to convey an
idea of this lively yet sombre physiognomy. In this faubourg
exists poignant distress hidden under attic roofs; there also
exist rare and ardent minds. It is particularly in the matter
of distress and intelligence that it is dangerous to have ex-
tremes meet.
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine had also other causes to
tremble; for it received the counter-shock of commercial
crises, of failures, strikes, slack seasons, all inherent to great
political disturbances. In times of revolution misery is both
cause and effect. The blow which it deals rebounds upon it.
This population full of proud virtue, capable to the highest
degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, prompt
to explode, irritated, deep, undermined, seemed to be only
awaiting the fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float
on the horizon chased by the wind of events, it is impossible
not to think of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and of the for-
midable chance which has placed at the very gates of Paris
that powder-house of suffering and ideas.
The wine-shops of the Faubourg Antoine, which have
been more than once drawn in the sketches which the reader
has just perused, possess historical notoriety. In troublous
times people grow intoxicated there more on words than on
wine. A sort of prophetic spirit and an afflatus of the future
circulates there, swelling hearts and enlarging souls. The

1444 Les Miserables