Читать книгу The Complete Works of Emile Zola - Emile Zola - Страница 111

THE ATTACK

M. DE CAZALIS, thanks to his National Guard uniform, had been able to follow all the different phases of the riot. So far back as the morning, when Mathéus left him opposite the Prefecture, he had slipped into the ranks of the first company he had met, which happened to be that of Sauvaire, and the ex-deputy was thus able to be present at the brush with the people in the Rue de la Palud.

He had but a vague idea of the plans formed by Mathéus, and was urged by curiosity to follow all his manoeuvres. After the barricade had been captured he proceeded with Sauvaire’s company to the Cannebière, and witnessed all the unfortunate events that had occurred there. When he saw the procession led by the spy, go by with the corpse, he understood that a fight was inevitable, and remembered the rendezvous his accomplice had given him. But when a panic of terror had dispersed the multitude, he felt much perplexed. Prudence told him not to abandon his new companions-in-arms; so, for over two hours, he remained on the Place de la Revolution with the company, which was awaiting orders to march. What made him particularly uneasy, was not having a better idea of Mathéus’ plans, for the latter had merely told him to join him at the spot where barricades would be thrown up. He was suddenly relieved of his perplexity by an order, brought by a man on horseback, which Captain Sauvaire communicated to the National Guard in these terms:

“My boys, the country has need of us. Forward, march!”

Never had the ex-stevedore made such an eloquent speech. He felt so enthusiastic at himself, that he began to ascend the Cannebière at the head of his men, with the air of a conqueror, hardly giving a thought to the danger he was about to incur.

M. de Cazalis felt very much surprised when the Company turned to the left, instead of going towards the Rue de Rome. His idea was that Mathéus had been making efforts to bring about the struggle near the Cours Bonaparte, and he could not understand how his accomplice would be able to steal Joseph, if the fighting took place in the old town. From that moment he gave up trying to understand, but as the company reached the Grande Rue he caught sight of the barricade and that was sufficient. He said to himself, he had kept the appointment, and he awaited events.

The Cours Belzunce was full of troops. There were two platoons of infantry, and about three hundred artillerymen. As soon as Sauvaire’s company arrived, the major who had received orders to attack the barricade, had a short interview with the captain.

“I was awaiting you,” he said to Sauvaire. “My orders are to show as much consideration as is possible, and it occurred to me that as the sight of the infantry would be likely to exasperate the workmen, it might be best for the National Guard to march on ahead and make a final effort at conciliation. Speak to the rioters as a fellow-townsman.”

From that moment Sauvaire imagined that the destiny of France was in his hands. He formed his company into column and advanced resolutely into the Grande Rue, the tramp of his men ringing out in the silence. The major set his troops in motion behind the National Guard.

When the captain found himself at fifty paces from the barricade, he commanded: “Halt!” and approached it alone. On hearing his word of command, some fifteen rioters showed themselves. The ex-master-stevedore, seeing the musket barrels flashing at his breast, gave a shudder of fright, but out of vanity, put on a good appearance externally.

“Eh! the deuce!” he said, “I’m a friend, don’t fire. We’re all Marseillais boys; we can’t cut each other’s throats in a family circle. There are none but good fellows here. Is it not so? Come now, throw down your arms and let each go his own way.”

There was but one cry in response to these exhortations.

“It is too late!”

“It is never too late to act like reasonable men,” continued Sauvaire. “In your place, I’d return to duty. They must have told you that the Commissary of the Government had admitted the justice of your claims. What more do you want?”

“What we want is blood, withdraw!” screamed the rioters.

Sauvaire, while speaking, had been attentively following the workmen’s movements. Suddenly, he fancied he heard a strange sound and was about to retreat, when a powerful voice shouted from behind the barricade:

“Look out, stoop down!”

Sauvaire let himself fall heavily to the ground, and the men behind him bent themselves.

At the same moment a discharge from the barricades and neighbouring houses, passed over the heads of the attacking party with a terrible roar, but thanks to the warning, which had caused the soldiers to curve their necks, only about a dozen men were wounded. The attack had been so sudden and unexpected, that the National Guards, seized with panic, had fled. Sauvaire threw himself to the left, against the houses, and hurriedly rejoined his company which had reformed a hundred paces further on.

During this time an incident had occurred, behind the barricade. M. Martelly and Abbé Chastanier had remained among the workmen, exhorting them to avoid the effusion of blood. Whilst Sauvaire was speaking, the shipowner had noticed that some of the more furious ones were preparing to fire, and it was he who had shouted to the soldiers:

“Look out, stoop down!”

When the rioters perceived what little effect their discharge had produced, they surrounded M. Martelly in a rage. Philippe, who had come down from the barricade, saw the danger his former employer was running, and, to save him, ordered two of the rioters to put him and the priest under arrest and not to lose sight of them. Ultimately both were taken to the little shop where Mathéus was confined.

The troops, however, advanced again. The major had given the infantry orders to take the barricade by assault, and a few of the National Guards, exasperated at the volley they had received, had mixed with the soldiers. Among these was M. de Cazalis. Having perceived Philippe at the top of the barricade, he had but one thought, to hide behind something or in some doorway, and kill his enemy.

As the new attacking column was about to rush upon the barricade, they were repulsed by a second discharge. This volley was much more murderous than the first. A captain, mortally wounded, was carried in a dying condition into a neighbouring house, and more than thirty men were incapacitated from taking any further part in the fray. The major then understood that the struggle was unequal and that he would never capture the barricade by storming it from the front, as the rioters, hidden behind all sorts of shelter, were able to take deadly aim, whilst those attacking could not do so. From that moment, soldiers and National Guards dispersed in the Grande Rue, and throwing themselves on either side of it, along the walls, opened a skirmishing fire. Shot then followed shot, irregularly, here and there; and as soon as a man showed himself, he was certain to get a bullet whistling at his ears.

Sauvaire had sought refuge under a large doorway. The worthy man began to think the business of a National Guard no joke. His vanity had first of all been tickled, by the importance the rank of captain gave him, in the grave events that were occurring; but, when he saw they were fighting in earnest, his bourgeois pity got the better of him; and he watched the men falling 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, by opening a well-fed fire upon it from the windows. But this fire soon slackened, and the soldiers passing beneath the bullets at the double, found themselves in the centre of the Place aux Œufs. When Marius perceived the uniforms of the conquerors, he understood his brother would be lost if he were not able to place him beyond danger of arrest. He ran to the barricade in the Grande Rue, where Philippe, with his back turned to the square, had been so busy with the defence on that side, that he had not perceived the victory of the military in the rear. Marius soon found him, but as the two brothers set out towards the house where Fine and Joseph were, they saw that they would not have time to reach the door, so they rushed in at another one, which was opposite, and barricaded the entrance in despair, not daring to refer to their mutual alarm at being obliged to abandon the young woman and child.

A frightful tumult reigned on the square. As soon as the rioters saw the soldiers and National Guard advancing to secure the position, they imitated Philippe and Marius and fled for refuge into the adjoining houses. The columns attacking the barricades in the Grande Rue, and the Rue Requis Novis, were at first astounded to see the firing cease. Then, guessing what was taking place, they removed the abandoned obstructions and advanced to join the conquerors. The square was thus full of troops, preparing to besiege the houses amidst a most deafening din. It was at that moment that the man watching over the three prisoners in the little shop, fled. Mathéus slipped into the crowd and disappeared; whilst M. Martelly and Abbé Chastanier, sad and motionless, remained standing on the threshold, in the expectation of terrible reprisals; and, occasionally, the inquisitive head of M. Girousse showed itself at the window, which he had not left since the commencement of the action.