The History of a Crime Part 62

Then they saw him slowly descend the dimly-lighted crest of the barricade, paving-stone by paving-stone, and plunge with head erect into the dark street.

From the barricade all eyes followed him with an inexpressible anxiety.

Hearts ceased beating, mouths no longer breathed.

No one attempted to restrain Denis Dus...o...b... Each felt that he was going where he ought to go. Charpentier wished to accompany him. "Would you like me to go with you?" he cried out to him. Dus...o...b.. refused, with a shake of the head.

Dus...o...b.., alone and grave, advanced towards the Mauconseil Barricade.

The night was so dark that they lost sight of him immediately. They could distinguish only for a few seconds his peaceable and intrepid bearing. Then he disappeared. They could no longer see anything. It was an inauspicious moment. The night was dark and dumb. There could only be heard in this thick darkness the sound of a measured and firm step dying away in the distance.

After some time, how long no one could reckon, so completely did emotion eclipse thought amongst the witnesses of this marvellous scene, a glimmer of light appeared in the barricade of the soldiers; it was probably a lantern which was being brought or taken away. By the flash they again saw Dus...o...b.., he was close to the barricade, he had almost reached it, he was walking towards it with his arms stretched out like Christ.

Suddenly the word of command, "Fire!" was heard.

A fusillade burst forth.

They had fired upon Dus...o...b.. when he was at the muzzles of their guns.

Dus...o...b.. fell.

Then he raised himself and cried, "Long live the Republic!"

Another bullet struck him, he fell again. Then they saw him raise himself once more, and heard him shout in a loud voice, "I die with the Republic."

These were his last words.

In this manner died Denis Dus...o...b...

It was not vainly that he had said to his brother, "Your sash will be there."

He was anxious that this sash should do its duty. He determined in the depths of his great soul that this sash should triumph either through the law or through death.

That is to say, in the first case it would save Right, in the second save Honor.

Dying, he could say, "I have succeeded."

Of the two possible triumphs of which he had dreamed, the gloomy triumph was not the less splendid.

The insurgent of the Elysee thought that he had killed a Representative of the People, and boasted of it. The sole journal published by the _coup d'etat_ under these different t.i.tles _Patrie_, _Univers_, _Moniteur_, _Parisien_, etc., announced on the next day, Friday, the 5th, "that the ex-Representative Dus...o...b.. (Gaston) had been killed at the barricade of the Rue Neuve Saint Eustache, and that he bore 'a red flag in his hand.'"

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT WAS DONE DURING THE NIGHT--THE Pa.s.sAGE DU SAUMON

When those on the barricade of the Pet.i.t Carreau saw Dus...o...b.. fall, so gloriously for his friends, so shamefully for his murderers, a moment of stupor ensued. Was it possible? Did they really see this before them?

Such a crime committed by our soldiers? Horror filled every soul.

This moment of surprise did not last long. "Long live the Republic!"

shouted the barricade with one voice, and it replied to the ambuscade by a formidable fire.

The conflict began. A mad conflict on the part of the _coup d'etat_, a struggle of despair on the side of the Republic. On the side of the soldiers an appalling and cold blooded resolution, a pa.s.sive and ferocious obedience, numbers, good arms, absolute chiefs, pouches filled with cartridges. On the side of the People no ammunition, disorder, weariness, exhaustion, no discipline, indignation serving for a leader.

It appears that while Dus...o...b.. was speaking, fifteen grenadiers, commanded by a sergeant named Pitrois, had succeeded in gliding in the darkness along the houses, and, unperceived and unheard, had taken up their position close to the barricade. These fifteen men suddenly formed themselves together with lowered bayonets at twenty paces from the barricade ready to scale it. A volley received them. They fell back, leaving several corpses in the gutter. Major Jeannin cried out, "Finish them off." The entire battalion which occupied the Mauconseil barricade, then appeared with raised bayonets upon the uneven crest of this barricade, and from there without breaking their line, with a sudden, but regulated and inexorable movement, sprang into the street. The four companies, in close order, and as though mingled and hardly visible, seemed like a wave precipitating itself with a great noise from the height of the barricade.

At the barricade of the Pet.i.t Carreau they noted the manoeuvre, and had paused in their fire. "Present," cried Jeanty Sarre, "but do not fire; wait for the order."

Each put his gun to his shoulder, then placed the barrels between the paving-stones, ready to fire, and waited.

As soon as it had quitted the Mauconseil redoubt, the battalion rapidly formed itself into an attacking column, and a moment afterwards they heard the intermittent sound of an advance at the double. It was the battalion which was coming upon them.

"Charpentier," said Jeanty Sarre, "you have good eyes. Are they midway?"

"Yes," said Charpentier.

"Fire," said Jeanty Sarre.

The barricade fired. The whole street was filled with smoke. Several soldiers fell. They could hear the cries of the wounded. The battalion, riddled with b.a.l.l.s, halted and replied by platoon firing.

Seven or eight combatants whose bodies reached above the barricade, which had been made hastily and was too low were hit. Three were killed on the spot. One fell wounded by a ball in his stomach, between Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier. He shrieked out with pain.

"Quick, to the ambulance:" said Jeanty Sarre.

"Where?"

"In the Rue du Cadran."

Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier picked up the wounded man, the one by the feet, the other by the head, and carried him to the du Cadran through the pa.s.sage in the barricade.

During all this time there was continued file firing. There no longer seemed anything in the street but smoke, the b.a.l.l.s whistling and crossing each other, the brief and repeated commands, some plaintive cries, and the flash of the guns lighting up the darkness.

Suddenly a loud void died out, "Forwards!" The battalion resumed its double-quick march and threw itself upon the barricade.

Then ensued a horrible scene. They fought hand to hand, four hundred on the one side, fifty on the other. They seized each other by the collar, by the throat, by the mouth, by the hair. There was no longer a cartridge in the barricade, but there remained despair. A workman, pierced through and through, s.n.a.t.c.hed the bayonet from his belly, and stabbed a soldier with it. They did not see each other, but they devoured each other. It was a desperate scuffle in the dark.

The barricade did not hold out for two minutes. In several places, it may be remembered, it was low. It was rather stridden over than scaled.

That was all the more heroic. One of the survivors[28] told the writer of these lines, "The barricade defended itself very badly, but the men died very well."

All this took place while Jeanty Sarre and Charpentier were carrying the wounded man to the ambulance in the Rue du Cadran. His wounds having been attended to, they came back to the barricade. They had just reached it when they heard themselves called by name. A feeble voice close by said to them, "Jeanty Sarre! Charpentier!" They turned round and saw one of their men who was dying leaning against a wall, and his knees giving way beneath him. He was a combatant who had left the barricade. He had only been able to take a few steps down the street. He held his hand over his breast, where he had received a ball fired at close quarters.

He said to them in a scarcely audible voice, "The barricade is taken, save yourselves."

"No," said Jeanty Sarre, "I must unload my gun." Jeanty Sarre re-entered the barricade, fired a last shot and went away.

Nothing could be more frightful than the interior of the captured barricade.

The Republicans, overpowered by numbers, no longer offered any resistance. The officers cried out, "No prisoners!" The soldiers billed those who were standing, and despatched those who had fallen. Many awaited their death with their heads erect. The dying raised themselves up, and shouted, "Long live the Republic!" Some soldiers ground their heels upon the faces of the dead, so that they should not be recognized.

There, stretched out amongst the corpses, in the middle of the barricade, with his hair in the gutter, was seen the all-but namesake of Charpentier, Carpentier, the delegate of the committee of the Tenth Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, who had been killed, and had fallen backwards, with two b.a.l.l.s in his breast. A lighted candle which the soldiers had taken from the wine-shop was placed on a paving stone.