Page 1875 - les-miserables

wearing the jacket of a street porter, which was very thread-
bare on the shoulders, who gesticulated and vociferated,
and who had the look of a drunken savage. This man, whose
name or nickname was Le Cabuc, and who was, moreover,
an utter stranger to those who pretended to know him, was
very drunk, or assumed the appearance of being so, and had
seated himself with several others at a table which they had
dragged outside of the wine-shop. This Cabuc, while mak-
ing those who vied with him drunk seemed to be examining
with a thoughtful air the large house at the extremity of the
barricade, whose five stories commanded the whole street
and faced the Rue Saint-Denis. All at once he exclaimed:—
‘Do you know, comrades, it is from that house yonder
that we must fire. When we are at the windows, the deuce is
in it if any one can advance into the street!’
‘Yes, but the house is closed,’ said one of the drinkers.
‘Let us knock!’
‘They will not open.’
‘Let us break in the door!’
Le Cabuc runs to the door, which had a very massive
knocker, and knocks. The door opens not. He strikes a
second blow. No one answers. A third stroke. The same si-
lence.
‘Is there any one here?’ shouts Cabuc.
Nothing stirs.
Then he seizes a gun and begins to batter the door with
the butt end.
It was an ancient alley door, low, vaulted, narrow, sol-
id, entirely of oak, lined on the inside with a sheet of iron

1875