CHAPTER III.
INCIDENTS OF AN ESCAPE.
This is what occurred on this same night at La Force. An escape hadbeen concerted between Babet, Brujon, Gueulemer, and Thénardier,although Thénardier was in secret confinement. Babet had managedthe affair on his own account during the day, as we heard fromMontparnasse's narrative to Gavroche, and Montparnasse was to helpthem outside. Brujon, while spending a month in a punishment room, hadtime, first, to make a rope, and, secondly, to ripen a plan. Formerly,these severe places, in which prison discipline leaves the prisoner tohimself, were composed of four stone walls, a stone ceiling, a brickpavement, a camp-bed, a grated sky-light, and a gate lined with iron,and were called dungeons; but the dungeon was considered too horrible,so now it is composed of an iron gate, a grated sky-light, a camp-bed,a brick pavement, a stone ceiling, four stone walls, and it is calleda "punishment room." A little daylight is visible about midday. Theinconvenience of these rooms, which, as we see, are not dungeons, isto leave beings to think who ought to be set to work. Brujon thereforereflected, and he left the punishment room with a cord. As he wasconsidered very dangerous in the Charlemagne yard, he was placed in theBâtiment Neuf, and the first thing he found there was Gueulemer, thesecond a nail,--Gueulemer, that is to say, crime; and a nail, that isto say, liberty.
Brujon, of whom it is time to form a complete idea, was, with theappearance of a delicate complexion and a deeply premeditated languor,a polished, intelligent robber, who possessed a caressing look and anatrocious smile. His look was the result of his will, and his smile theresult of his nature. His first studies in his art were directed toroofs; and he had given a great impulse to the trade of lead-stealers,who strip roofs and carry away gutters by the process called _au grasdouble_. What finally rendered the moment favorable for an attemptedescape was that workmen were at this very moment engaged in relayingand re-tipping a part of the prison slates. The St. Bernard was notabsolutely isolated from the Charlemagne and St. Louis yards, for therewere on the roof scaffolding and ladders,--in other words, bridges andstaircases, on the side of deliverance. The Bâtiment Neuf, which wasthe most cracked and decrepit affair possible to imagine, was the weakpoint of the prison. Saltpetre had so gnawed the walls that it had beenfound necessary to prop up and shore the ceilings of the dormitories;because stones became detached and fell on the prisoners' beds. Inspite of this antiquity, the error was committed of confining in therethe most dangerous prisoners, and placing in it the "heavy cases,"as is said in the prison jargon. The Bâtiment Neuf contained foursleeping-wards, one above the other, and a garret-floor called "Le BelAir." A large chimney-flue, probably belonging to some old kitchen ofthe Dues de la Force, started from the ground-floor, passed throughthe four stories, cut in two the sleeping-wards, in which it figuredas a sort of flattened pillar, and issued through a hole in the roof.Gueulemer and Brujon were in the same ward, and had been placed throughprecaution on the ground-floor. Accident willed it that the head oftheir beds rested against the chimney-flue. Thénardier was exactlyabove their heads in the garret called Bel Air.
The passer-by who stops in the Rue Culture Sainte Catherine, afterpassing the fire-brigade station, and in front of the bath-housegateway, sees a court-yard full of flowers and shrubs in boxes, at theend of which is a small white rotunda with two wings, enlivened bygreen shutters,--the bucolic dream of Jean Jacques. Not ten years agothere rose above this rotunda a black, enormous, frightful, naked wall,which was the outer wall of La Force. This wall behind this rotunda waslike a glimpse of Milton caught behind Berquin. High though it was,this wall was surmounted by an even blacker roof, which could be seenbeyond,--it was the roof of the Bâtiment Neuf.
Four dormer-windows protected by bars could be seen in it, and theywere the windows of Bel Air; and a chimney passed through the roof,which was the chimney of the sleeping-wards. Bel Air, the attic-floorof the Bâtiment Neuf, was a species of large hall, closed with triplegratings and iron-lined doors, starred with enormous nails. When youentered by the north end, you had on your left the four dormers, andon your right facing these, four square and spacious cages, separatedby narrow passages, built up to breast-height of masonry, and the restto the roof of iron bars. Thénardier had been confined in solitarypunishment since the night of February 3. It was never discoveredhow, or by what connivance, he succeeded in procuring and concealinga bottle of that prepared wine, invented, so it is said, by Desrues,in which a narcotic is mixed, and which the band of the Endormeursrendered celebrated. There are in many prisons treacherous turnkeys,half jailers, half robbers, who assist in escapes, sell to the police afaithless domesticity, and "make the handle of the salad-basket dance."
On this very night, then, when little Gavroche picked up the twostraying children, Brujon and Gueulemer, who knew that Babet, who hadescaped that same morning, was waiting for them in the street withMontparnasse, gently rose, and began breaking open with a nail whichBrujon had found the stove-pipe against which their beds were. Therubbish fell on Brujon's bed, so that it was not heard; and the gustsof wind mingled with the thunder shook the doors on their hinges, andproduced a frightful and hideous row in the prison. Those prisoners whoawoke pretended to fall asleep again, and left Brujon and Gueulemer todo as they pleased; and Brujon was skilful, and Gueulemer was vigorous.Before any sound had reached the watchman sleeping in the grated cellwhich looked into the ward, the wall was broken through, the chimneyescaladed, the iron trellis-work which closed the upper opening of theflue forced, and the two formidable bandits were on the roof. The rainand the wind were tremendous, and the roof was slippery.
"What a fine sorgue [night] for a bolt!" said Brujon.
An abyss of six feet in width and eighty feet deep separated themfrom the surrounding wall, and at the bottom of this abyss they couldsee a sentry's musket gleaming in the darkness. They fastened to theends of the chimney-bars which they had just broken the rope whichBrujon had woven in the cell, threw the other end over the outerwall, crossed the abyss at a bound, clung to the coping of the wall,bestraddled it, glided in turn along the rope to a little roof whichjoins the bath-house, pulled their rope to them, jumped into the yardof the bath-house, pushed open the porter's casement, close to whichhung his cord, pulled the cord, opened the gate, and found themselvesin the street. Not three quarters of an hour had elapsed since theywere standing on the bed, nail in hand, and with their plan in theirheads; a few minutes after, they had rejoined Babet and Montparnasse,who were prowling in the neighborhood. On drawing the cord to themthey broke it, and a piece had remained fastened to the chimney on theroof, but they had met with no other accident beyond almost entirelyskinning their fingers. On this night Thénardier was warned, thoughit was impossible to discover how, and did not go to sleep. At aboutone in the morning, when the night was very black, he saw two shadowspassing, in the rain and gusts, the window opposite his cage. Onestopped just long enough to give a look; it was Brujon. Thénardier sawhim, and understood,--that was enough for him. Thénardier, reported tobe a burglar, and detained on the charge of attempting to obtain moneyat night by violence, was kept under constant watch; and a sentry,relieved every two hours, walked in front of his cage with a loadedmusket. Bel Air was lighted by a sky-light, and the prisoner had onhis feet a pair of fetters weighing fifty pounds. Every day at four inthe afternoon, a turnkey, escorted by two mastiffs,--such things stillhappened at that day,--entered his cage, placed near his bed a blackloaf of two pounds' weight, a water-jug, and a bowl of very weak brothin which a few beans floated, inspected his fetters, and tapped thebars. This man with his dogs returned twice during the night.
Thénardier had obtained permission to keep a sort of iron pin which heused to nail his bread to the wall, in order, as he said, "to preserveit from the rats." As Thénardier was under a constant watch, this pindid not seem dangerous; still it was remembered at a later day that aturnkey said, "It would have been better only to leave him a woodenskewer." At two in the morning the sentry, who was an old soldier, waschanged, and a
recruit substituted for him. A few minutes after, theman with the dogs paid his visit, and went away without having noticedanything, except the youthful and peasant look of the "tourlourou."Two hours after, when they came to relieve this conscript, they foundhim asleep, and lying like a log by the side of Thénardier's cage.As for the prisoner, he was no longer there; his severed fetters layon the ground, and there was a hole in the ceiling of his cage, andanother above it in the roof. A plank of his bed had been torn out andcarried off; for it could not be found. In the cell was also found thehalf empty bottle, containing the rest of the drugged wine with whichthe young soldier had been sent to sleep. The soldier's bayonet haddisappeared. At the moment when all this was discovered, Thénardierwas supposed to be out of reach; the truth was, that he was no longerin the Bâtiment Neuf, but was still in great danger. Thénardier, onreaching the roof of the Bâtiment Neuf, found the remainder of Brujon'srope hanging from the chimney-bars; but as the broken cord was much tooshort, he was unable to cross the outer wall as Brujon and Gueulemerhad done.
When you turn out of the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du Roi deSicile, you notice almost directly on your right a dirty hollow. Inthe last century a house stood here, of which only the back wallexists, a perfect ruin of a wall which rises to the height of a thirdstory between the adjacent buildings. This ruin can be recognizedby two large square windows, still visible. The centre one, the onenearest the right-hand gable, is barred by a worm-eaten joist adjustedin the supporting rafter; and through these windows could be seen,formerly, a lofty lugubrious wall, which was a portion of the outerwall of La Force. The gap which the demolished house has left in thestreet is half filled up with a palisade of rotten planks, supportedby five stone pillars, and inside is a small hut built against thestill standing ruin. The boarding has a door in it which a few yearsago was merely closed with a latch. It was the top of this ruinwhich Thénardier had attained a little after three in the morning.How did he get there? This was never explained or understood. Thelightning-flashes must at once have impeded and helped him. Did heemploy the ladders and scaffolding of the slaters to pass from roofto roof, over the buildings of the Charlemagne yard, those of the St.Louis yard, the outer, and thence reach the ruined wall in the Rue duRoi de Sicile? But there were in this passage breaks of continuity,which seemed to render it impossible. Had he laid the plank from hisbed as a bridge from the roof of Bel Air to the outer wall, and crawledon his stomach along the coping, all round the prison till he reachedthe ruin? But the outer wall of La Force was very irregular; it roseand sank; it was low at the fire-brigade station, and rose again atthe bath-house; it was intersected by buildings, and had everywheredrops and right angles; and then, too, the sentries must have seen thefugitive's dark outline,--and thus the road taken by Thénardier remainsalmost inexplicable. Had he, illumined by that frightful thirst forliberty which changes precipices into ditches, iron bars into reeds, acripple into an athlete, a gouty patient into a bird, stupidity intoinstinct, instinct into intellect, and intellect into genius, inventedand improvised a third mode of escape? No one ever knew.
It is not always possible to explain the marvels of an escape; theman who breaks prison is, we repeat, inspired. There is somethingof a star, of the lightning, in the mysterious light of the flight.The effort made for deliverance is no less surprising than thesoaring toward the sublime, and people say of an escaped robber, "Howdid he manage to scale that roof?" in the same way as they say ofCorneille, "Where did he find his _qu'il mourût?_" However this may be,Thénardier, dripping with perspiration, wet through with rain, withhis clothes in rags, his hands skinned, his elbows bleeding, and hisknees lacerated, reached the ruin-wall, lay down full length on it,and then his strength failed him. A perpendicular wall as high as athree-storied house separated him from the street, and the rope he hadwas too short. He waited there, pale, exhausted, despairing, thoughjust now so hopeful, still covered by night, but saying to himself thatday would soon come; horrified at the thought that he should shortlyhear it strike four from the neighboring clock of St. Paul, the hourwhen the sentry would be changed, and be found asleep under the hole inthe roof. He regarded with stupor the wet black pavement, in the lightof the lamps, and at such a terrible depth,--that desired and terrificpavement which was death and which was liberty. He asked himselfwhether his three accomplices had succeeded in escaping, whether theywere waiting for him, and if they would come to his help? He listened:excepting a patrol, no one had passed through the street since hehad been lying there. Nearly all the market carts from Montreuil,Charonne, Vincennes, and Bercy came into town by the Rue St. Antoine.
Four o'clock struck, and Thénardier trembled. A few minutes after, thestartled and confused noise which follows the discovery of an escapebroke out in the prison. The sound of doors being opened and shut, thecreaking of gates on their hinges, the tumult at the guard-room, andthe clang of musket butts on the pavement of the yards, reached hisears. Lights flashed past the grated windows of the sleeping wards; atorch ran along the roof of the Bâtiment Neuf, and the firemen werecalled out. Three caps, which the torch lit up in the rain, came andwent along the roofs, and at the same time Thénardier saw, in thedirection of the Bastille, a livid gleam mournfully whitening the sky.He was on the top of a wall ten inches wide, lying in the pitilessrain, with a gulf on his right hand and on his left, unable to stir,suffering from the dizziness of a possible fall and the horror of acertain arrest, and his mind, like the clapper of a bell, went fromone of these ideas to the other: "Dead if I fall; caught if I remain."In this state of agony he suddenly saw in the still perfectly darkstreet a man, who glided along the walls and came from the Rue Pavée,stop in the gap over which Thénardier was, as it were, suspended. Thisman was joined by a second, who walked with similar caution, then by athird, and then by a fourth. When these men were together, one of themraised the latch of the paling gate, and all four entered the enclosurewhere the hut is, and stood exactly under Thénardier. These men hadevidently selected this place to consult in, in order not to be seen bypassers-by, or the sentry guarding the wicket of La Force a few pacesdistant. We must say, too, that the rain kept this sentry confinedto his box. Thénardier, unable to distinguish their faces, listenedto their remarks with the desperate attention of a wretch who feelshimself lost. He felt something like hope pass before his eyes, whenhe heard these men talking slang. The first said, in a low voice, butdistinctly, something which we had better translate:--
"Let us be off. What are we doing here?"
The second replied,--
"It is raining hard enough to put out the fire of hell. And then thepolice will pass soon; besides, there is a sentry on. We shall getourselves arrested here."
Two words employed, _icigo_ and _icicaille_, which both mean "here,"and which belong, the first to the flash language of the barrières, andthe second to that of the Temple, were rays of light for Thénardier. Bythe _icigo_ he recognized Brujon, who was a prowler at the barrières,and by _icicaille_ Babet, who, among all his other trades, had beena second-hand clothes-dealer at the Temple. The antique slang of thegreat century is only talked now at the Temple, and Babet was the onlyman who spoke it in its purity. Had it not been for the _icicaille_,Thénardier could not have recognized him, for he had completely alteredhis voice. In the mean while the third man had interfered.
"There is nothing to hurry us, so let us wait a little. What is thereto tell us that he does not want us?"
Through this, which was only French, Thénardier recognizedMontparnasse, whose pride it was to understand all the slang dialectsand not speak one of them. As for the fourth man, he held histongue, but his wide shoulders denounced him, and Thénardier did nothesitate,--it was Gueulemer. Brujon replied almost impetuously, butstill in a low voice:--
"What is that you are saying? The innkeeper has not been able to bolt.He doesn't understand the dodge. A man must be a clever hand to tearup his shirt and cut his sheets in slips to make a rope; to make holesin doors; manufacture false papers; make false keys
; file his fettersthrough; hang his rope out of the window; hide and disguise himself.The old man cannot have done this, for he does not know how to work."
Babet added, still in the correct classic slang which Poiailler andCartouche spoke, and which is to the new, bold, and colored slangwhich Brujon employed what the language of Racine is to that of AndréChénier,--
"Your friend the innkeeper must have been taken in the attempt. Oneought to be wide awake. He is a flat. He must have been bamboozled bya detective, perhaps even by a prison spy, who played the simpleton.Listen, Montparnasse; do you hear those shouts in the prison? You sawall those candles; he is caught again, and will get off with twentyyears. I am not frightened. I am no coward, as is well known; but theonly thing to be done now is to bolt, or we shall be trapped. Do notfeel offended; but come with us, and let us drink a bottle of old winetogether."
"Friends must not be left in a difficulty," Montparnasse growled.
"I tell you he is caught again," Brujon resumed, "and at this momentthe landlord is not worth a farthing. We can do nothing for him, so letus be off. I feel at every moment as if a policeman were holding me inhis hand."
Montparnasse resisted but feebly; the truth is, that these four men,with the fidelity which bandits have of never deserting each other, hadprowled the whole night around La Force, in spite of the peril theyincurred, in the hope of seeing Thénardier appear on the top of somewall. But the night, which became really too favorable, for the rainrendered all the streets deserted, the cold which attacked them, theirdripping clothes, their worn-out shoes, the alarming noises which hadbroken out in the prison, the hours which had elapsed, the patrols theyhad met, the hope which departed, and the fear that returned,--allthis urged them to retreat. Montparnasse himself, who was perhapsThénardier's son-in-law in a certain sense, yielded, and in a momentthey would be gone. Thénardier gasped on his wall as the shipwreckedcrew of the "Méduse" did on their raft, when they watched the shipwhich they had sighted fade away on the horizon. He did not dare callto them, for a cry overheard might ruin everything; but he had an idea,a last idea, an inspiration,--he took from his pocket the end ofBrujon's rope which he had detached from the chimney of the BâtimentNeuf, and threw it at their feet.
"A cord!" said Babet
"My cord!" said Brujon.
"The landlord is there," said Montparnasse. They raised their eyes andThénardier thrust out his head a little.
"Quiet," said Montparnasse. "Have you the other end of the rope,Brujon?"
"Yes."
"Fasten the two ends together. We will throw the rope to him; he willattach it to the wall, and it will be long enough for him to come down."
Thénardier ventured to raise his voice,--
"I am wet through."
"We'll warm you."
"I cannot stir."
"You will slip down, and we will catch you."
"My hands are swollen."
"Only just fasten the rope to the wall."
"I can't."
"One of us must go up," said Montparnasse.
"Three stories!" Brujon ejaculated.
An old plaster conduit pipe, which had served for a stove formerly, litin the hut, ran along the wall almost to the spot where Thénardier waslying. This pipe, which at that day was full of cracks and holes, hassince fallen down, but its traces may be seen. It was very narrow.
"It would be possible to mount by that," said Montparnasse.
"By that pipe?" Babet exclaimed. "A man? Oh no, a boy is required."
"Yes, a boy," Brujon said in affirmative.
"Where can we find one?" Gueulemer said.
"Wait a minute," Montparnasse said; "I have it."
He gently opened the door of the paling, assured himself that therewas no passer-by in the street, went out, shut the gate cautiouslyafter him, and ran off in the direction of the Bastille. Seven oreight minutes elapsed, eight thousand centuries for Thénardier; Babet,Brujon, and Gueulemer did not open their lips; the door opened again,and Montparnasse came in, panting and leading Gavroche. The raincontinued to make the street completely deserted. Little Gavrochestepped into the enclosure and looked calmly at the faces of thebandits. The rain was dripping from his hair, and Gueulemer said tohim,--
"Brat, are you a man?"
Gavroche shrugged his shoulders, and replied,--
"A child like me is a man, and men like you are children."
"What a well-hung tongue the brat has!" Babet exclaimed.
"The boy of Paris is not made of wet paste," Brujon added.
"What do you want of me?" said Gavroche.
Montparnasse answered,--
"Climb up that pipe."
"With this rope," Babet remarked.
"And fasten it," Brujon continued.
"At the top of the wall," Babet added.
"To the cross-bar of the window," Brujon said, finally.
"What next?" asked Gavroche.
"Here it is," said Gueulemer.
The gamin examined the rope, the chimney, the wall, and the window,and gave that indescribable and disdainful smack if the lips whichsignifies, "What is it?"
"There is a man up there whom you will save," Montparnasse continued.
"Are you willing?" Brujon asked.
"Ass!" the lad replied, as if the question seemed to him extraordinary,and took off his shoes.
Gueulemer seized Gavroche by one arm, placed him on the roof of thepent-houses, where mouldering planks bent under the boy's weight, andhanded him the rope which Brujon had joined again during the absenceof Montparnasse. The gamin turned to the chimney, which it was an easytask to enter by a large crevice close to the roof. At the momentwhen he was going to ascend, Thénardier, who saw safety and lifeapproaching, leaned over the edge of the wall. The first gleam of daywhitened his dark forehead, his livid cheek-bones, his sharp savagenose, and his bristling gray beard, and Gavroche recognized him.
"Hilloh!" he said, "it's my father. Well, that won't stop me."
And taking the rope between his teeth, he resolutely commenced hisascent. He reached the top of the wall, straddled across it like ahorse, and securely fastened the rope to the topmost cross-bar of thewindow. A moment after, Thénardier was in the street. So soon as hetouched the pavement, so soon as he felt himself out of danger, he wasno longer wearied, chilled, or trembling. The terrible things he hadpassed through were dissipated like smoke, and all his strange andferocious intellect was re-aroused, and found itself erect and free,ready to march onward. The first remark this man made was,--
"Well, whom are we going to eat?"
It is unnecessary to explain the meaning of this frightfullytransparent sentence, which signifies at once killing, assassinating,and robbing. The real meaning of "to eat" is "to devour".
"We must get into hiding," said Brujon. "We will understand each otherin three words, and then seperate at once. There was an affair thatseemed good in the Rue Plumet,--a deserted street; an isolated house;old rust-eaten railings looking on a garden, and lone women."
"Well, why not try it?" Thénardier asked.
"Your daughter Éponine went to look at the thing," Babet answered.
"And has told Magnon it is 'a biscuit,'" Brujon added; "there's nothingto be done here."
"The girl's no fool," said Thénardier; "still we must see."
"Yes, yes," Brujon remarked; "we must see."
Not one of the men seemed to notice Gavroche, who, during thiscolloquy, was sitting on one of the posts. He waited some minutes,perhaps in the hope that his father would turn to him, and then put onhis shoes again, saying,--
"Is it all over? You men don't want me any more, I suppose, as I've gotyou out of the scrape? I'm off, for I must go and wake my cubs."
And he went off. The five men left the enclosure in turn. When Gavrochehad disappeared round the corner of the Rue des Ballets, Babet tookThénardier on one side.
"Do you notice that kid?" he asked him.
"What kid?"
"The one who climbed
up the wall and handed you the rope."
"Not particularly."
"Well, I don't know; but I fancy it's your son."
"Bah!" said Thénardier; "do you think so?"
BOOK VII.
SLANG.