#lm 5.1.7

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 2, Matchup 27: I.v.5 vs V.i.7

[secretmellowblog]

I love how Combeferre is a doctor and a pacifist— but he arrived at the barricade with multiple guns and responded to the approach of a cannon by infodumping all his extremely in-depth knowledge about artillery and cannonfire.

He’s the living embodiment of

[cliozaur]

“Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault,” says Hugo. And then he provides anthropological observations likely made during his assault on barricades in June 1848. It is quite uncomfortable to read. For example, he states that left-handed people are especially sought after for inconvenient positions, and then brings up an example straight from 1848: one about an insurgent “firing from the top of a terrace” while sitting in a “reclining chair.” It’s such a strange collection of random facts about barricades.

Team Enjolras has a peculiar reaction to the arrival of the cannon, which is going to destroy their barricade. First, they applaud (“Bravo for the cannoneers!” says Bossuet). Then Combeferre lectures about this model of the cannon, and Bossuet adds a historical detail to that.

When the cannon fires, Gavroche enters the barricade. In other circumstances, it would have been a joyous event, but I think we all agree that it would have been better if he had been lost for longer than that. Meanwhile, the cannonball just got stuck in the guts of the barricade. Good.

[thebrickinbrick]

The Situation Becomes Aggravated, Part 1

The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened, not a door stood ajar; it was the dawn but not the awaking. The end of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, opposite the barricade, had been evacuated by the troops, as we have stated, it seemed to be free, and presented itself to passers-by with a sinister tranquillity. The Rue Saint-Denis was as dumb as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being in the crossroads, which gleamed white in the light of the sun.

Nothing is so mournful as this light in deserted streets. Nothing was to be seen, but there was something to be heard. A mysterious movement was going on at a certain distance. It was evident that the critical moment was approaching. As on the previous evening, the sentinels had come in; but this time all had come.

The barricade was stronger than on the occasion of the first attack. Since the departure of the five, they had increased its height still further.

On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of the Halles, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came to a serious decision. He had the small gut of the Mondétour lane, which had been left open up to that time, barricaded. For this purpose, they tore up the pavement for the length of several houses more.

In this manner, the barricade, walled on three streets, in front on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, to the left on the Rues du Cygne and de la Petite Truanderie, to the right on the Rue Mondétour, was really almost impregnable; it is true that they were fatally hemmed in there. It had three fronts, but no exit.—“A fortress but a rat hole too,” said Courfeyrac with a laugh.

Enjolras had about thirty paving-stones “torn up in excess,” said Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wine-shop.

The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his post of battle.

An allowance of brandy was doled out to each.

Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault. Each man selects his place as though at the theatre. They jostle, and elbow and crowd each other. There are some who make stalls of paving-stones. Here is a corner of the wall which is in the way, it is removed; here is a redan which may afford protection, they take shelter behind it. Left-handed men are precious; they take the places that are inconvenient to the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be at ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, an insurgent who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the top of a terrace upon a roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for his use; a charge of grape-shot found him out there.

As soon as the leader has given the order to clear the decks for action, all disorderly movements cease; there is no more pulling from one another; there are no more coteries; no more asides, there is no more holding aloof; everything in their spirits converges in, and changes into, a waiting for the assailants. A barricade before the arrival of danger is chaos; in danger, it is discipline itself. Peril produces order.

As soon as Enjolras had seized his double-barrelled rifle, and had placed himself in a sort of embrasure which he had reserved for himself, all the rest held their peace. A series of faint, sharp noises resounded confusedly along the wall of paving-stones. It was the men cocking their guns.

Moreover, their attitudes were prouder, more confident than ever; the excess of sacrifice strengthens; they no longer cherished any hope, but they had despair, despair,—the last weapon, which sometimes gives victory; Virgil has said so. Supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions. To embark in death is sometimes the means of escaping a shipwreck; and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank of safety.

As on the preceding evening, the attention of all was directed, we might almost say leaned upon, the end of the street, now lighted up and visible.

They had not long to wait. A stir began distinctly in the Saint-Leu quarter, but it did not resemble the movement of the first attack. A clashing of chains, the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click of brass skipping along the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar, announced that some sinister construction of iron was approaching. There arose a tremor in the bosoms of these peaceful old streets, pierced and built for the fertile circulation of interests and ideas, and which are not made for the horrible rumble of the wheels of war.

The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity of the street became ferocious.

A cannon made its appearance.

Artillery-men were pushing the piece; it was in firing trim; the fore-carriage had been detached; two upheld the gun-carriage, four were at the wheels; others followed with the caisson. They could see the smoke of the burning lint-stock.

“Fire!” shouted Enjolras.

The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche of smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men; after a few seconds, the cloud dispersed, and the cannon and men reappeared; the gun-crew had just finished rolling it slowly, correctly, without haste, into position facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling a telescope.

“Bravo for the cannoneers!” cried Bossuet.

And the whole barricade clapped their hands.

A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action. A formidable pair of jaws yawned on the barricade.

[dolphin1812]

There’s an element of spectacle to protest just as there is to crime, with the theatrical metaphor returning to describe positions on the barricade. Here, though, the people are compared to the audience rather than the actors, creating a fascinating juxtaposition between the action of being on a barricade and fighting and the desire to rest comfortably because it could be one’s final rest. 

There’s also this interesting line:

“Supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions. To embark in death is sometimes the means of escaping a shipwreck and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank of safety.”

This desperation fueling resourcefulness has most recently been made clear with Marius and the barrel, but the two specific examples given here are best connected to another character: Jean Valjean. His “death” from the Orion gave him a sort of freedom, just as his coffin escape did. Since he lives in constant desperation, he’s incredibly resourceful; he has to be. 

Such resourcefulness also serves, of course, to assure us that hope is not entirely gone. It doesn’t look good for our group of friends who “barely missed becoming historic,” but they’re not absolutely doomed. There’s always hope for a miracle.

The cannon should, logically, dampen that hope, but the Amis deal with it with humor. I love that Bossuet and Courfeyrac cope by cheering for the cannon, even though it could kill them. It probably helps keep morale up, and it’s also funny to read. Combeferre’s cannon knowledge seemingly contradicts his pacifist ideals, but it shows that he’s studied to prepare for this fight and can possibly reassure the other people of the cannon’s weaknesses. We’ve returned to the Waterloo digression, too, with Combeferre insisting that the cannon’s flaws illustrate the “superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.”

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 5.1.7 “The Situation Grows Serious”

It was rapidly growing light. But not a window was opened, not a door stood ajar; it was the dawn, not the hour of awakening.

With Enjolras’s speech, we seemed to be at the height of the visionary magic of this text. Now, two chapters later, it’s visibly fading. Dawn, one of our most potent magical symbols, has diverged from it’s symbolic meaning: It’s nothing now but an hour of the day.

Now that it’s light out, an hour when people are certainly awake and would normally be out and about, we see for certain that no one is coming. All the doors are shut to the insurgents the way they were to Valjean at the beginning.

This barricade was never as ephemeral as barricades should be in a fight where that form of warfare is going well: they’re a guerrilla tactic, quickly thrown together and quickly discarded for a new barricade and a new position. Which would have been the case had the city risen, but as it is, they’ve been stuck in this spot.

Now that they know that there’s no retreat and no aid, Enjolras has them wall themselves in on the remaining sides, trapping them between four walls. “Between four walls” has long been the darkest of this book’s images.

In the barricade’s final preparations, we may be seeing a metaphor for misery more generally. If society reached out to misérables (as we’ve been told and shown over and over), they would become part of society. If the community reached out to the insurgents, they would either have help in their fight or help in their retreat and opportunity to fight another day; they would vanish back into society. When society does nothing, the insurgents/misérables need to build up their own ugly, dangerous, destructive, short-sighted defenses to preserve their lives--which is a bad situation for everyone. It’s particularly dire for the misérables themselves, but it was also the least worst of their available options. Valjean’s “cultivate the nettle” doesn’t feel that far off right now from “open your door to those in need.”

But there’s no bishop to do that this time.

Now that there’s imminent danger, suddenly everything is order and discipline and doing what Enjolras says. Thank goodness for Courfeyrac and Bossuet, who are also following orders now--but they haven’t stopped cracking jokes.

Combeferre is, of course, being weird under pressure. He goes on a nerdy infodump about ballistics--presumably extreme nerdery is his stress response--which he then ends by asserting the superiority of Jesus Christ (representing divine design and the speed of light here) over Napoleon (standing in for human ballistic technology). It’s not exactly wrong, it’s just off, the way he usually is in matters of killing. He clearly has a fascination with weapons and war and killing (though that may well be a coping strategy for dealing with his decision to do it). He’s researched enough to be giving this speech in what may well be a dissociative fugue. But he also keeps feeling the need to catch himself mid-infodump with some variant of “but I don’t hold with that”: in this case with Jesus/the speed of light/divine design, and earlier with “I don’t hold with the use of the sword myself” after his long eulogy of important assassins. Those asides feel like a fig leaf to cover the fact that it’s the war part of all this that he can’t look away from, morbid though his fascination is.

In short, he’s an absolute mess, which is understandable. Bless Bossuet, who’s cheerfully participating in the nerdery.

We get a sharp juxtaposition between divine grace and their current priorities right as Combeferre finishes speaking:

“[...]A cannonball travels only two thou­ sand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon."

"Reload arms," said Enjolras.

And then, just a moment later, we get another:

The gun went off; the detonation burst. "Present!" cried a cheerful voice. And at the same time as the cannonball hit the outside, Gavroche tumbled into the barricade.

Gavroche’s return is not a *good* development exactly, it’s horrifying to have him back here to die.

But I think it IS another juxtaposition of the guns and grace. As of this point in the story, we’re still ending on grace: The cannonball makes almost no impact on the barricade--not nearly as much as Gavroche does. Doom is not yet here.

We started this chapter with the feeling that the magic had gone out entirely. With Gavroche’s return, I think we got a little of it back.

[fremedon]

Brickclub 5.1.7, 5.1.8, and 5.1.9

I don’t have much to add to @everyonewasabird‘s writeups here (5.1.7, 5.1.8, 5.1.9), so I’m just going to make a roundup of random observations.

--There are a surprising number of astronomy images in 5.1.7, in what feels like a pre-echo of Combeferre’s upcoming line about people who study the rules of honor as they study the stars--an especially bitter line, given that one of the opposition figures who didn’t show up was Arago, whose lectures on optics Comberferre canonically attended. Here, besides the lines about the speed of light, we have the artillery sergeant aiming the cannon “with the gravity of an astronomer training a telescope” and the “étoile mobile” as the name of a portable caliber gauge.

--Gavroche, returning to the barricade, replies to Marius’s “what are you doing here” with “Well, and what about you?” GOOD QUESTION, GAVROCHE.

--He also “lies abominably” when asked whether he delivered the letter to Cosette herself--and says confidently that he has never seen Valjean.

I am going to be judging Marius for so much after the barricade, but not for his genuine confusion about whether Valjean was there.

--”On the alert, Enjolras thought he detected that distinctive sound made when canister-shells are taken out of ammunition chests.”

We don’t get any details about what any of the Amis were doing in 1830, but I would take that line as confirmation that Enjolras was there for it.

--Combeferre is, to a lesser extent, doing what Valjean is doing here: seeing through a sort of moral tunnel vision that reduces the problems in front of him to Yes/No, with no thought for consequences. His protests over the killing of the artillery sergeant are the most obvious example, but also, when Enjolras commands that they need to block up the gap with a mattress--because without one, the barricade won’t last fifteen minutes--he answers “We have none spare; the wounded are lying on them.”

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

Round 1, Matchup 76: II.i.13 vs V.i.7

[lmchaptertitlebracket]

V.i.7 La situation s’aggrave

The Situation Grows Serious: Wilbour, FMA

The Situation Becomes Aggravated: Wraxall, Hapgood

The Situation Becomes More Serious: Gray

The Situation Deteriorates: Denny

The Situation Gets Worse: Rose

The Situation Worsens: Donouger