THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
around him, with a feeling of sorrow and horror. He felt as if he would like to put a stop to the fighting; first of all, so as not to run the risk of receiving a bullet, and then so as to be spared the disagreeable sight of a battle. Personally he would not have killed a fly, he only thought of securing his own safety and of coming to the assistance of friends who might be mixed up in the disturbance.
It happened by chance that he was hiding under the same doorway as M. de Cazalis. Recognising the ex-deputy, he repressed a gesture of astonishment, and being aware of the hatred he bore the Cayols, he rightly attributed his presence, under a disguise, to thoughts of vengeance. He had noticed Philippe on the barricade, and he now began to watch M. de Cazalis, who, with his musket on a level with his hip, seemed to be waiting. The Republican having stood up to reload his weapon, the Legitimist brought his gun sharply to his shoulder and fired, but Sauvaire, feigning to slip, knocked up against him, and the bullet was flattened out against the façade of a house.
M. de Cazalis was exasperated, but did not dare show his temper to the captain, under whose orders he had voluntarily placed himself. He slid another charge into his gun, repressing an outburst of rage, whilst Sauvaire said to himself:
“Eh! the deuce! the Cayols are my friends. Little Marius gave me many a good laugh in the old days with Clairon. I won’t let them be killed like that. We must be on the alert.”
And from that moment, he forgot he was a captain and only thought of affording little Marius pleasure, by saving Philippe.
The latter had no idea of the danger he had just escaped. Excited by the struggle, he fought as one in despair. All his doubts had left him, he imagined he was defending his child. He fired upon the troops, because the troops were firing on the house where Fine and Joseph were. That was his great anxiety. At every instant, he raised his eyes towards the window of the room, and turned pale when he saw a bullet shatter one of the panes of glass to pieces. M. de Girousse, with superb contempt for peril, leant out, every now and then, from an adjoining window to get a better view. He tranquillized Philippe with a wave of the hand and then enjoyed, as an amateur, the sight afforded by the barricade.
The struggle continued thus for nearly half an hour, soldiers and rioters exchanging bullets at distant intervals. There were awful silences of two or three minutes; then came a shot, a cry, followed by another silence which was still more oppressive than the previous one. The soldiers’ red trousers made capital targets for the workmen, who were thus able to kill a great many men. As for themselves they were better sheltered; nevertheless, as soon as ever a shot was fired from a window, that window was at once riddled with bullets. The rioters, who had gone up to the tops of the houses, and from there cast down showers of stones, suffered more. Men were several times seen to topple over from the roofs and come down on the pavement in a co-adjulated mass, picked off like sparrows.
The fighting might have gone on in this manner until the evening. This skirmishing sort of warfare was in reality, much more murderous than a bold, decisive attack would have been, and some thirty corpses were already weltering in pools of blood on the ground.
Marius had descended into the street at the first shot. Not having been able to prevent the struggle, he wished at least to assist those who were fighting. By his care, an ambulance was established in a shop on the square, and he displayed great activity in seeing that the wounded were carried there. At one moment as he was passing behind the barricade, a man fell beside him mortally struck. He leant over him, and was astonished to find it was Charles Blétry, the dishonest clerk of the firm of Daste and Degans. The unfortunate fellow recognised him also, and seeing the young man hastening to attend to him, he said with a faint smile:
“It’s useless, Monsieur Marius, it’s all over, I am going to die. Ah! Heaven is good indeed to have sent you to me!”
He continued with an effort, his fingers already becoming rigid:
“I swear to you I never discharged my gun. I was led astray by friends, I had to do as others did. Listen, I want you to render me a service. Promise me you will perform my last wish.”
Blétry raised himself, painfully, and unfastened a belt round his waist. While handing it to Marius, he was seized with a convulsion, and as the belt fell to the ground a few pieces of money came out of it. As soon as the former clerk was in a condition to speak, he said:
“That belt contains a hundred francs. Kindly hand it to Messrs. Daste and Degans, and tell them it is not my fault if I have not been able to reimburse them all the money I turned to such bad account.”
And as Marius looked at him in astonishment, he murmured in a voice that was dying away:
“You don’t know. They let me off two years. I have now been out of prison for three years, and during that time have been working as a navvy. On the hundred and thirty francs I have been earning each month, I have made a point of handing a hundred, regularly, to my former employers. I have not been able to refund more than three thousand and a few hundred francs, but I had hopes of earning more later on, and I had intended devoting all my life to the repayment of my debt. Death has come too soon.”
The words were distorted in his throat. He had a short death struggle, and expired, his features convulsed and his limbs rigid.
Marius had felt a sort of respect in presence of this terrible death. The wretched being who was lying there, seemed so full of grief and remorse. He picked up the belt and was going away with it, when he heard a dreadful noise in the direction of the Rues de la Lime d’Or and Vieille Monnaie. All at once he saw the soldiers and National Guards advance from those streets and invade the square.
During the few minutes Marius had spent with Blétry serious events had been occurring. While the firing continued at the barricade in the Grande Rue, two other bodies of troops had attacked the rioters by the narrow thoroughfares in the old town.
A column came to lay siege to the Place aux Œufs by the Rue Requis Novis, but on reaching the Rue Pierre qui Rage, and perceiving the barricade the rioters had erected there, it halted. A police commissary, who was at the head, then advanced, and exhorted the workmen to return peacefully to their occupations. The only answer they gave was that the people had been provoked; and, almost at the same moment, he had his arm broken with a bullet. He had barely time to withdraw, when firing became general, and was accompanied by an avalanche of stones and tiles falling on the soldiers’ heads. There was a noise like the rumbling sound of thunder, and the street became full of smoke. The soldiers in surprise, threw themselves on either side, along the houses; and a skirmishing warfare commenced as in the Grande Rue. These encounters at cross roads are terrible, for a few men are often able to keep an army at bay.
While firing was thus proceeding at two points, another column, destined to be more fortunate, advanced towards the barricade, blocking up the Grande Rue, from the side of the Law Courts. This column which had come from the Hôtel de Ville, did not approach very near. As soon as one of the sentinels had fired, it withdrew; and seeing it was impossible to carry the entrenchment without artillery, decided on turning the position.
It, therefore, entered the Rue Belzunce, where it found some thirty rioters who fired and then ran away, some into the Rue des Marquises, the others into the Rues Sainte Marthe, Sainte Barbe and Moulin d’Huile. The soldiers followed them at double quick time, receiving a few shots to which they answered, and searching, moreover, two or three houses where they arrested a certain number of people; but they did not dare enter the Rue des Marquises, which would have led them straight to the Place aux Œufs. This street, which they supposed to be barricaded, seemed to them narrow and dangerous and they feared being crushed beneath an avalanche of objects cast from the roofs and windows.
The column continued turning the stronghold. On reaching the Place Sainte Martin, it divided: one part going into the Rue de la Lune d’Or and the other into the Rue de la Vieille Monnaie. The idea was to issue in a body on the Place aux Œufs, where as a matter of fact, two of the detachments arrived almost simultaneously.
The soldiers rushed on to the barricades, which on this side had been less solidly built, and the rioters, surprised at this irresistible charge, fled in disorder, seeking refuge in the houses. There they stopped the column, for a few moments,