Page 2089 - les-miserables

dogs, and it was only covered with besiegers as the cliff is
covered with foam, to re-appear, a moment later, beetling,
black and formidable.
The column, forced to retreat, remained massed in the
street, unprotected but terrible, and replied to the redoubt
with a terrible discharge of musketry. Any one who has seen
fireworks will recall the sheaf formed of interlacing light-
nings which is called a bouquet. Let the reader picture to
himself this bouquet, no longer vertical but horizontal,
bearing a bullet, buck-shot or a biscaien at the tip of each
one of its jets of flame, and picking off dead men one af-
ter another from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was
underneath it.
On both sides, the resolution was equal. The bravery ex-
hibited there was almost barbarous and was complicated
with a sort of heroic ferocity which began by the sacrifice
of self.
This was the epoch when a National Guardsman fought
like a Zouave. The troop wished to make an end of it, in-
surrection was desirous of fighting. The acceptance of the
death agony in the flower of youth and in the flush of health
turns intrepidity into frenzy. In this fray, each one under-
went the broadening growth of the death hour. The street
was strewn with corpses.
The barricade had Enjolras at one of its extremities and
Marius at the other. Enjolras, who carried the whole bar-
ricade in his head, reserved and sheltered himself; three
soldiers fell, one after the other, under his embrasure, with-
out having even seen him; Marius fought unprotected. He

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