Page 2031 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XII

DISORDER A PARTISAN

OF ORDER

Bossuet muttered in Combeferre’s ear:
‘He did not answer my question.’
‘He is a man who does good by gun-shots,’ said Combe-
ferre.
Those who have preserved some memory of this al-
ready distant epoch know that the National Guard from
the suburbs was valiant against insurrections. It was par-
ticularly zealous and intrepid in the days of June, 1832. A
certain good dram-shop keeper of Pantin des Vertus or la
Cunette, whose ‘establishment’ had been closed by the ri-
ots, became leonine at the sight of his deserted dance-hall,
and got himself killed to preserve the order represented by
a tea-garden. In that bourgeois and heroic time, in the pres-
ence of ideas which had their knights, interests had their
paladins. The prosiness of the originators detracted noth-
ing from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of
a pile of crowns made bankers sing the Marseillaise. They
shed their blood lyrically for the counting-house; and they

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