Page 1975 - les-miserables

of chimneys, cupboards, tables, benches, howling topsytur-
veydom, and those thousand poverty-stricken things, the
very refuse of the mendicant, which contain at the same
time fury and nothingness. One would have said that it was
the tatters of a people, rags of wood, of iron, of bronze, of
stone, and that the Faubourg Saint Antoine had thrust it
there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the broom mak-
ing of its misery its barricade. Blocks resembling headsman’s
blocks, dislocated chains, pieces of woodwork with brack-
ets having the form of gibbets, horizontal wheels projecting
from the rubbish, amalgamated with this edifice of anar-
chy the sombre figure of the old tortures endured by the
people. The barricade Saint Antoine converted everything
into a weapon; everything that civil war could throw at
the head of society proceeded thence; it was not combat, it
was a paroxysm; the carbines which defended this redoubt,
among which there were some blunderbusses, sent bits of
earthenware bones, coat-buttons, even the casters from
night-stands, dangerous projectiles on account of the brass.
This barricade was furious; it hurled to the clouds an inex-
pressible clamor; at certain moments, when provoking the
army, it was covered with throngs and tempest; a tumultu-
ous crowd of flaming heads crowned it; a swarm filled it; it
had a thorny crest of guns, of sabres, of cudgels, of axes, of
pikes and of bayonets; a vast red flag flapped in the wind;
shouts of command, songs of attack, the roll of drums, the
sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the
starving were to be heard there. It was huge and living, and,
like the back of an electric beast, there proceeded from it

1975