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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 fermentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left, now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge.
A picket of 10 national guards is in permanence in the church to keep sight of the clergy. The church Saint-Merry has also been ransacked by the sicaires of the Commune. The vicar, fortunately, had stolen away from their fraternal visit. The church Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs is transformed into a club-house.
It was there that lay the Rue de la Chanvrerie, which ancient deeds spell Chanverrerie, and the celebrated public-house called Corinthe. The reader will remember all that has been said about the barricade effected at this point, and eclipsed, by the way, by the barricade Saint-Merry.
The rest was a lake of obscurity, foggy, heavy, and funereal, above which, in motionless and melancholy outlines, rose the tower of Saint-Jacques, the church of Saint-Merry, and two or three more of those grand edifices of which man makes giants and the night makes phantoms.
At a given moment, every barricade inevitably becomes the raft of la Meduse. They were obliged to resign themselves to hunger. They had then reached the first hours of that Spartan day of the 6th of June when, in the barricade Saint-Merry, Jeanne, surrounded by the insurgents who demanded bread, replied to all combatants crying: "Something to eat!" with: "Why?
"After all," continued Gavroche, "you have the air of an honest man." "Give it to me quick." "Catch hold of it." And he handed the paper to Jean Valjean. "And make haste, Monsieur What's-your-name, for Mamselle Cosette is waiting." Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. Jean Valjean began again: "Is it to Saint-Merry that the answer is to be sent?"
He advanced towards a hackney-coach drawn up on the Cloitre Saint-Merry Square. In this carriage lounged Rodin, wrapped in a cloak. "Well?" said he, in an inquiring tone.
Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set in movement in the streets which were not visible, the intermittent gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing by squads, and the cannonades crossing each other in the labyrinth of Paris, the smokes of battle mounting all gilded above the roofs, indescribable and vaguely terrible cries, lightnings of menace everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a sob, the mildness of the weather, the splendor of the sky filled with sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the houses.
They heard the alarm bell of Saint-Merry, which had not been silent for an instant since the night before; a proof that the other barricade, the great one, Jeanne's, still held out. All these hopes were exchanged between the different groups in a sort of gay and formidable whisper which resembled the warlike hum of a hive of bees. Enjolras reappeared.
The Government, with an army in its hand, hesitated; the night was almost upon them, and the Saint-Merry tocsin began to make itself heard. The Minister of War at that time, Marshal Soult, who had seen Austerlitz, regarded this with a gloomy air.
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