THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
to come. When the two brothers emerged from the Grande Rue, he merely shrugged his shoulders and murmured:
“I was sure of it.”
Then, he never lost sight of them. He followed them in the crowd, and saw Marius run up to find Fine, whilst Philippe mixed with the rioters.
“Come, that’s perfect,” he murmured again. “I shall, perhaps, be obliged to kill the little young man. As to the great booby, his business is settled, if the National Guards don’t send him to rot in the ground, we’ll see that the assizes send him to rot in prison.”
He descended and went and turned round Philippe out of curiosity. The hour for him to act had not arrived. He thought himself at a play, his instincts were gently tickled at the hope of being present at a massacre. While waiting to accomplish the abduction he had undertaken, he resolved to amuse himself by seeing people kill each other.
The rioters in the meanwhile, had returned to the barricades. Little by little, they had piled up a fairly large quantity of material on the square, comprising a pellmell of all sorts of objects which they distributed as well as possible among the six barricades in course of erection. They formed a chain, passing planks, paving stones, everything they came across, from hand to hand, each ran about on his own account, and returning, threw what he had found on the heap. It was a feverish coming and going, a sort of immense workshop of revolt, where every labourer hurried along zealously yet gloomily at the task, with a threat on his lips and vengeance in his heart.
Whilst the majority brought materials, others, no doubt wheelwrights and carpenters, had undertaken to strengthen the barricades. Having neither nails nor hammers, they confined themselves to dovetailing the objects one with the other.
The two principle barricades were thrown up at the entrance to the Grande Rue, on the side of the Cours, and at the entrance to the Rue Requis Novis. These, notwithstanding the efforts of the rioters, were nothing, in reality, but a mass of objects offering but little resistance and forming in no way a serious obstruction. Four barricades of still less importance, were raised across the Rues de la Vieille Cuiraterie, Lune-Blanche, Vieille-Monnaie and Lune-d’Or. One street only remained open, the Rue des Marquises, which was necessary to the rioters for communication with the Rue Belzunce, the Place des Prêcheurs, and all the narrow crooked lanes of the old quarter, where they intended to fly and lose themselves in case of defeat. The Place aux Œufs, thus fortified, would have been an impregnable stronghold if the barricades had been stronger.
As soon as Philippe found himself amidst the Republicans, he had put his hand to work without hesitation. He had laboured like the others, carrying all that he could find to the scene of action. He forgot Marius’ sober words and thought no more of his child, all his passion was bursting within him, and urging him forward.
As he was dragging a barrel along, he all at once heard an ironical voice say:
“Shall I help you, my friend?”
He raised his head and recognised M. de Girousse, who, with his hands in his pockets, was observing him with a delightful air of curiosity.
M. de Girousse had reached Marseille on the previous evening. Feeling there was something serious in the air, he had hastened there so as not to lose the opportunity of dispelling the dreadful weariness under which he laboured. He had been awaiting a drama ever since the Republic had been proclaimed. He absolutely forgot that he belonged to the nobility and watched the outburst of the people’s anger as a disinterested observer. Searching at the bottom of his heart, he found he had more sympathy for the Democratic cause than for that of the Legitimists to which he was fatally attached by name. At Aix nobody made any ceremony about saying, that M. de Girousse was a regular “original” who found pleasure in shaking hands with workmen, and the nobility would, perhaps, have closed their mansions to him had he not borne one of the oldest names of Provence.
He had been running about the streets of Marseille since the morning, watching the progress of the riot, occupying the most advantageous positions as a spectator, right in the middle of the scrimmage, so as not to lose the least detail. One thing, only, had disgusted him, the shot fired at the General. Otherwise, he found that the people generously risked their lives, that their anger was superb and their violence magnificent.
As soon as he had heard that the rioters were making barricades at the Place aux Œufs, he hastened there. He wanted to be present at the catastrophe. He penetrated within the barricades, mixed with the fighting men and firmly intended not to move until all was over.
Philippe stared at him in amazement. The Count stood there before him, attired in a black frock coat, with a soft felt hat on his head and smiling in a bantering manner. Under his arm, he carried a huge sabre, all rusty and covered with dust.
“What! you here!” exclaimed Philippe. “Are you one of us?”
M. de Girousse glanced at his weapon.
“Look, isn’t it a fine sabre?” he said without answering. “They have just entrusted me with it for the defence of Liberty.”
And then he related in a jeering way, how he had just been enrolled among the rioters. The latter, in need of arms, sought to procure them by all possible means. A locksmith had made the remark in the midst of one of the groups that the dealers in secondhand goods in the Rue Belzunce and the Rue Sainte Barbe must have some old arms in their shops. A band had at once set out to secure them. M. de Girousse, urged on by curiosity, had followed the band and gone with them into the shops. It was in one of these that a workman had handed him the huge sabre which he carried under his arm.
“He gave it me,” he added, “and made me swear to plunge it into the enemies of our country. I don’t think I shall abide by my oath. But as I find the sabre looks very well under my arm, I’ll keep it. Do you think any one of my ancestors, any one of those doughty warriors of the past, cut a better figure than I do at this moment?”
Philippe could not keep from laughing.
“I asked you a stupid question a little time ago,” he said to the Count, with some bitterness. “I asked you if you were one of us. I forgot that you could only be here out of curiosity. You have come to see if the people know how to die. Well! I think you’ll be satisfied with them.”
The Republican had drawn himself up, and pointed out to the nobleman the burning, active crowd of workmen.
“Look at them,” he resumed. “There is the flock your fathers sheared, and branded with a red-hot iron. For the third time in sixty years the flock is getting angry. I predict to you, that it will end by eating up the shepherds. Instead of urging it on to revolt, it would have been better to have given it liberty, and bread, which it requires to live. All the energies it is expending at this hour, in raising barricades, would then have been devoted to useful labour.”
M. de Girousse no longer jeered. He had become grave. Philippe continued with violence:
“Your place is not here. You have come amidst our barricades as the patricians of ancient Rome went to the arena to see slaves die. Ah! notwithstanding your goodness, cruel blood runs in your veins. You are pestered with the curiosity of the wearied master; I see it, and our insurrection, this insurrection which will cause us tears, is merely a show for you. Believe me, you will do better to go away. We are not actors, we have no need of the pit.”
The old Count had turned pale. He remained for an instant motionless; then, as Philippe stooped down to take up his barrel, he said to him in a peaceful tone.”
“My friend, will you allow me to help you?”
He grasped the barrel at one end, and Republican and Legitimist carried it together to the barricade and threw it down there.
“The deuce!” said M. de Girousse, “it wasn’t heavy, but my sabre inconvenienced me considerably.”
He rubbed his hands to get rid of the dust, and found himself face to face with Marius. After the first words of surprise, he resumed, smiling:
“Your brother has just been advising me to go away. He is right, I am only an inquisitive old fellow. I wish you would