Chapter 301 The Dangerous Reef of the Suburb of Saint-Antoine and the Eddy of the Suburb of the Great Temple

The two most memorable barricades that observers of social misery are likely to refer to do not belong to the period in which the story of this book takes place.The two barricades that emerged from the ground during the inevitable June Rising of 1848, one of the largest street battles ever fought, are, in two different ways, It was a sign of that thrilling situation. Sometimes, when there is no way out, the masses of disorderly people, out of their distress, out of their depression, out of their poverty, out of their anxiety, out of their despair, out of their resentment, out of their Out of their ignorance, out of their darkness, rise up against even principle, even against liberty, equality, fraternity, even against universal suffrage, even against a government established by the people for the people, and the rioters sometimes wage war on the people.

The poor attacked the common law, and the mob rose against the common people. Those were dreary days, for even in that riot there was always a measure of law, and in that duel there was something of a suicidal character; In the diatribes of mob, one experiences more often the fault of the ruling class than of the sufferer; of the privileged rather than of the proprietor. As for us, we cannot say these words without pain and respect.For, if one looks philosophically at the facts connected with these words, one often finds much greatness in suffering.Athens is mob politics, the poor established the Netherlands, the mob saved Rome more than once, and the mob followed Jesus Christ.

Thinkers sometimes admire the wonders of the lower classes. When Saint Jerome uttered the mystical words, "The vice of Rome, the law of the world," he probably had in mind the mob, all the poor, the vagabonds, the wretched, from whom the apostles and martyrs descended. generated in the middle. The anger of the people who suffered and shed blood, the arrogance that violates the principles they regard as life, and the atrocities that violate human rights, all of which make the people rise up for a coup, should be stopped.It is for the love of these masses that honest people fight against them.But in the confrontation with them, I feel that they are justifiable!How sublime they are when you resist them!Such moments are really rare, people feel a little embarrassed while doing their duty, almost restrained by some kind of force, telling you not to go any further; you insist, that's a matter of course; but you are satisfied His conscience is gloomy, and his duty is fulfilled, but his heart is miserable.

Let us hasten to say that June 1848 was a singular event, and it is almost impossible to place it in the philosophical category of history.All the words we have mentioned before must be left out in relation to this extraordinary riot in which we felt the righteous indignation of labor demanding rights.It should be suppressed, that is the duty, because it attacks the republic.But, really, what was going on in June, 1848?It was a riot of the people against themselves. As long as you don’t leave the topic, you will not go off topic. Therefore, please allow us to let readers’ attention stay for a while on the two barricades we mentioned earlier. These are two unique barricades. characteristic of that uprising.

One blocked the entrance to the suburb of St. Anthony, the other blocked the passage to the suburb of the Great Temple; and those who saw these two terrible masterpieces built for the Civil War towering under the clear blue sky in June will never forget. Can't do them. The barricade of St. Anthony was a monstrous thing, four stories high and seven hundred feet wide.It blocks a large fork into that suburb, that is to say, from one end to the other, it blocks three intersections in a row, up and down, intermittently, before and after, criss-crossing, in front of and behind. Rows of battlements were built on a large gap, followed by mounds of soil one after another, forming a group of bastions, with many protruding corners protruding forward; Like a huge embankment, it appeared at the bottom of the square where the 14th of July had been witnessed.Nineteen barricades lined the depths of several streets behind this mother barricade.One has only to look at the mausoleum to feel that the misery which prevails in this suburb has reached a desperate degree and is about to turn into a catastrophe.What is this barricade made of?Some say it was built from the scraps of three five-story buildings that were deliberately demolished.Others said it was a miracle of all the anger.It has the poignant image of all buildings—that is, ruins—that hatred creates.One can say, "Who built this?" and one can say, "Who broke this?" It's a passionate improvisation.Yo!This door!This iron gate!The eaves!The door frame!This broken stove!This cracked iron pot!Anything can be brought!You can throw anything!Everything, push it, roll it, dig it, tear it down, overturn it, collapse it!It was a collaboration of paving stones, rubble, posts, iron bars, rags, broken bricks, rotten chairs, cabbage roots, rags, and curses.It is great but also small.It was a chaotic world renovated on the site of hell.A colossus next to the atom; a lone wall and a broken soup-pot; a startling combination of all dross; where Sisyphus casts his rock, and Job casts his rubble. .All in all, terrible.It was the Temple of the Barefoot, and some overturned carts jutted out on the roadside slope; a huge cart, with its axles turned up, lay like a scar on the front of the fangs and claws. a stagecoach, which had been joyously hauled by many arms up the mound, and rested on top of it, with its shafts pointed in the air, as if welcoming some flying celestial horse.The architects of this primitive fortress seem intent on adding a wild child twist to the terror.This colossus, the product of this insurrection, reminds one of revolutions, as Osage is upon Berlion, Ninety-three upon Eighty-nine, Thermidor 9 upon August 10, Brumaire the 18th. The sun is piled on January 21, the Portuguese moon is piled on the pastoral moon, and 1848 is piled on 1830.The square deserved it, and the barricade deserved to be on the site of the destroyed Bastille prison.If the ocean were to build banks, this is how it would be built.Raging waves left their marks on the misshapen heap.What waves?people.We seem to see petrified din.It was like hearing a swarm of aggressive and stealthy bees humming low on their honeycomb-like barricades.Is it a bush of thorns?Is it the Dionysian carnival?Is it a fortress?The building seemed to flap its wings, dizzyingly.The bastion has an ugly side, but also a majesty in the chaos.In this frustrating mess, gabled roof racks, framed attic ceilings, frames with glass windows (set on brick piles awaiting a cannon), dismantled Stoves, chimneys, wardrobes, tables, benches, and a jumble of junk that even a beggar would disdain, contained anger and was empty at the same time.It is like the rags, rotten wood, broken copper and iron, and broken bricks and rubble of the people, all swept up with a huge broom in the suburb of Saint-Antoine, and built with its suffering Barricades.Blocks like guillotines, broken chains and brackets like gallows, and flat wheels protruding from the clutter, gave to the anarchic structure an ancient sense of cruel torment. A grim image of an instrument of torture.The St. Anthony's barricades use everything as a weapon, everything that can be used to shoot society in the civil war is there. It is not a battle, but an explosion of extreme anger.Among the muskets defending the bastion, some of the larger calibers fired splinters of pottery, small bones, buttons of clothes, down to the little wheels on the foot of the bedside table, dangerous projectiles, for they were of copper.The raging barricade, which raises an indescribable cry to the sky, and when it challenges the army, the barricade is filled with a roaring crowd, and a mob of angry men occupy the barricade, crowded like an ant colony, its top is made of knives, guns, Spikes formed by sticks, axes, spears and bayonets, a big red flag crackled in the wind, the shouts of commanders, the battle songs of the attack, the rumbling of war drums, the cries of women and the gloomy faces of hungry men could be heard everywhere. laughing wildly.It is huge and vivid, like an electric beast emitting thunder and sparks from its back.The battle clouds of the revolutionary spirit hung over the tops of the barricades, where the voice of the crowd roared like the voice of God, and a strange majesty emanated from the giant's stone basket.It's a load of rubbish, and this is Sinai too.

As we have said before, it is attacking in the name of revolution, attacking what?to the revolution.It, this barricade, is adventure, confusion and panic, misunderstanding and the unknown, its opposite is the Constituent Assembly, the sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, the state, the republic, which is what Carmagnola gives to " Marseillaise challenge. Dare to take on the challenge, because this old suburb is a hero. Suburbs and bastions support each other, the suburbs support the bastion, and the bastion relies on the suburbs.This vast bastion stretched like a cliff by the sea, where the strategy of the generals who attacked Africa had hit a wall.Its caverns, its tumors, its warts, its hunched figure seemed to wink and sneer in the smoke.The flowering shell disappears in this monster, the shell penetrates, is swallowed up, sinks into the deep pit; the shell only makes a hole; what's the point of bombarding this jumbled pile?Those regiments, having experienced the most dangerous battle scenes, looked at this fortress of beasts with manes bristling like wild boars and huge mountains like mountains in bewilderment, helpless.

A kilometer from here, on the corner of Temple Street leading to the boulevard, near the water tower, if anyone dared to poke his head out of the corner formed by the shop fronts of Dalmany, he would see far away on the other side of the canal. , at the top of the street leading up to the Belleville ramp, a strange wall is as high as the three-storey building in front of the house, which seems to be the connecting line of the two rows of buildings on the left and right, as if the street folded itself into a high wall It seemed that the way was suddenly blocked.The wall is made of paving stones.It is straight, neat, cool, and vertical, and squares, guys, and plumbs are used to achieve this levelness and uniformity.The walls are clearly lacking in cement, but like some Roman walls, it does not detract in the slightest from the solid simplicity of the building itself.From its height, we can guess its depth.Its eaves and wall bases are strictly parallel.On the gray wall we could make out here and there almost imperceptible black lines of holes, spaced at equal distances from one another.There was no one to be seen from the end of the street, all the doors and windows were closed tightly, and this barrier erected in the depth made the street a dead end.The walls stand tall and still, no one is seen, and no sound can be heard.No shouting, no sound, no breathing, this is a grave.

The blinding June sun enveloped the monster. This is the barricade on the outskirts of Damiao. When you arrive at the scene and see it, the bravest of people will inevitably think about it when they see this mysterious thing appear before their eyes.The barricade has been decorated, mortised, and arranged in imbricate tiles, straight and symmetrical, but eerie.There is both science and darkness here.We feel that the leader of this barricade is a geometer or a ghost.Everyone who saw it whispered. Sometimes if someone—soldier, officer, or representative of the people—has ventured across the quiet street, we hear a sharp, low whistling sound, and the passer-by falls, is wounded, or dies, and if he survives, we Just see a bullet go into a closed shutter, a crevice in the gravel, or the sand in a wall.Sometimes it is a solid cannonball, because the people in the barricades made two small cannons from two pig iron gas pipes, and plugged one end with hemp rope and refractory mud.There were dead bodies lying here and there, and there were pools of blood on the paving stones.I remember a white butterfly flying up and down the street, showing that summer still reigns supreme.

Nearby gates were packed with wounded people. Here one feels targeted by an invisible person and knows the whole street is being targeted. The arched bridge of the canal forms a hump at the entrance to the outskirts of the Great Temple, behind which the attacking ranks are densely packed, and the soldiers are solemnly and intently watching the still, gloomy, indifferent bastion from which death will spring.A few crept up to the heights of the arched bridge, taking care not to show the brims of their caps. The brave Colonel Montena admired the barricade, saying to a representative: "How well built! There is not a single protruding stone, it is very delicate." At this time, a bullet shattered the cross on his chest. , he fell down.

"Cowards!" someone said, "show your face if you can! Let others see them! They don't dare! They can only hide and hide!" The barricade on the outskirts of Damiao was defended by 80 men, and it withstood the attack of 10,000 people. It persisted for three days.On the fourth day, the barricades were conquered by penetrating through the houses and attacking from the roofs, using the method used in Zaacha and Constantine.None of the eighty cowards attempted to escape, and all were killed except the chief, Barthelemy.About Barthelemy, we will tell soon. The barricades of St. Anthony were furious, and the barricades on the outskirts of the Temple were silent.The two bastions were not alike in horror and spookiness, the one roaring with fury, the other deceitful.

Taking this great and disastrous June uprising as a combination of anger and mystery, we feel a dragon in the first barricade and a sphinx behind the second. These two fortresses were built by two men, one named Kurnai and the other Bathelemi.Cournay built the barricades of St. Anthony, Barthelemy the barricades of the Great Temple.Every fort bears the image of its builder. Kurnai was tall, broad-shouldered, rosy-complexioned, strong-fisted, brave and loyal, with sincere and frightening eyes.He is fearless, persevering, irritable, furious, sincere to people, and not soft on enemies.War, fighting, and conflict are his daily routine and make him happy.He had been a naval officer, and by his voice and manner one could guess that he was from sea and storm; in battle he insisted on fighting like a hurricane.Except for his genius, Kurnai is a bit like Danton, just as except for his divinity, Danton is a little bit like Hercules. Barthelemy was thin and small, pale and taciturn, like a miserable waif.He was once slapped by a policeman, so he watched at all times, waiting for an opportunity, and finally killed the policeman, so he was put in prison at the age of seventeen.The barricade was built after he was released from prison. Both Bartlemi and Kurnai were later exiled to London, and Bartlemi killed Kurnai in a tragic duel, as fate would have it.Soon after, he was implicated in a bizarre murder case, which inevitably involved love.Such a misfortune might have been mitigated by the French jurisprudence, but the English jurisprudence deemed the death penalty.Barthelemy hanged on the gallows.Such is the dark social structure, due to material deprivation and moral depravity, that this unfortunate man - intelligent, certainly strong, perhaps not very great - begins in prison in France and ends in hanging in England .Barthelemy, under such circumstances, hoisted only one flag—the black flag.