Page 2037 - les-miserables

He was put to the sword. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a wom-
an fired on the National Guard from behind a lowered
blind. The slats of the blind could be seen to tremble at every
shot. A child fourteen years of age was arrested in the Rue
de la Cossonerie, with his pockets full of cartridges. Many
posts were attacked. At the entrance to the Rue Bertin-Poi-
ree, a very lively and utterly unexpected fusillade welcomed
a regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal
General Cavaignac de Barague. In the Rue Planche-Mibray,
they threw old pieces of pottery and household utensils
down on the soldiers from the roofs; a bad sign; and when
this matter was reported to Marshal Soult, Napoleon’s old
lieutenant grew thoughtful, as he recalled Suchet’s saying
at Saragossa: ‘We are lost when the old women empty their
pots de chambre on our heads.’
These general symptoms which presented themselves at
the moment when it was thought that the uprising had been
rendered local, this fever of wrath, these sparks which flew
hither and thither above those deep masses of combusti-
bles which are called the faubourgs of Paris,—all this, taken
together, disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to
stamp out these beginnings of conflagration.
They delayed the attack on the barricades Maubuee, de
la Chanvrerie and Saint-Merry until these sparks had been
extinguished, in order that they might have to deal with
the barricades only and be able to finish them at one blow.
Columns were thrown into the streets where there was fer-
mentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right
and left, now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge. The

2037