Courfeyrac, while gradually demolishing the public-house, tried to
console the widowed landlady.
"Mother Hucheloup, were you not complaining the other day that you had
been summoned by the police, because Gibelotte shook a counterpane out
of the window?"
"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good gracious! are you going
to put that table too in your horror? Yes, and the Government also
condemned me to a fine of one hundred francs on account of a flower-pot
that fell out of the garret into the street. Is that not abominable?"
"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are going to avenge you."
Mother Hucheloup did not exactly see the advantage accruing to her from
the reparation made her. She was satisfied after the fashion of the
Arab woman who, having received a box on the ears from her husband,
went to complain to her father, crying vengeance, and saying, "Father,
you owe my husband affront for affront." The father asked, "On which
cheek did you receive the blow?" "On the left cheek." The father boxed
her right cheek, and said, "Now you must be satisfied. Go and tell your
husband that he buffeted my daughter, but I have buffeted his wife."
The rain had ceased, and recruits began to arrive. Artisans brought
under their blouses a barrel of gunpowder, a hamper containing carboys
of vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket full of lamps,
"remaining from the king's birthday," which was quite recent, as it
was celebrated on May 1. It was said that this ammunition was sent by
a grocer in the Faubourg St. Antoine named Pépin. The only lantern in
the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and all those in the surrounding streets,
were broken. Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything,
and now two barricades were erected simultaneously, both of which were
supported by Corinth and formed a square; the larger one closed the Rue
de la Chanvrerie, and the smaller the Rue Mondétour on the side of the
Rue du Cygne. This latter barricade, which was very narrow, was merely
made of barrels and paving-stones. There were about fifty workmen
there, of whom three were armed with guns, for on the road they had
borrowed a gunsmith's entire stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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