CHAPTER II.
AN OWL'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.
Any being hovering over Paris at this moment, with the wings of abat or an owl, would have had a gloomy spectacle under his eyes. Theentire old district of the markets, which is like a city within acity, which is traversed by the Rues St. Denis and St. Martin, and bya thousand lanes which the insurgents had converted into their redoubtand arsenal, would have appeared like an enormous black hole dug inthe centre of Paris. Here the eye settled on an abyss, and, owing tothe broken lamps and the closed shutters, all brilliancy, life, noise,and movement had ceased in it. The invisible police of the revolt werewatching everywhere and maintaining order, that is to say, night.To hide the small number in a vast obscurity, and to multiply eachcombatant by the possibilities which this obscurity contains, this isthe necessary tactics of insurrection, and at nightfall every window inwhich a candle gleamed received a bullet; the light was extinguished,and sometimes the occupant killed. Hence, nothing stirred; there wasnought but terror, mourning, and stupor in the houses, and in thestreets a sort of sacred horror. Not even the long rows of windows andfloors, the network of chimneys and roofs, and the vague reflectionswhich glisten on the muddy and damp pavement, could be perceived. Theeye which had looked down from above on this mass of shadow mightperhaps have noticed here and there indistinct gleams, which made thebroken and strange lines, and the profile of singular buildings, standout, something like flashes flitting through ruins; at such spots werethe barricades. The rest was a lake of darkness and mystery, oppressiveand funereal, above which motionless and mournful outlines rose,--theTower of St. Jacques, St. Merry church, and two or three other of thosegrand edifices of which man makes giants and night phantoms. All aroundthis deserted and alarming labyrinth, in those districts where thecirculation of Paris was not stopped, and where a few lamps glistened,the aerial observer would have distinguished the metallic scintillationof bayonets, the dull rolling of artillery, and the buzz of silentbattalions which was augmented every moment; it was a formidable belt,slowly contracting and closing in on the revolt.
The invested district was now but a species of monstrous cavern;everything seemed there asleep or motionless, and, as we have seen,each of the streets by which it could be approached only offereddarkness. It was a stern darkness, full of snares, full of unknown andformidable collisions, into which it was terrifying to penetrate andhorrible to remain, where those who entered shuddered before those whoawaited them, and those who awaited shuddered before those who wereabout to come. Invisible combatants were intrenched at the cornerof every street, like sepulchral traps hidden in the thickness ofthe night. It was all over; no other light could be hoped for therehenceforth save the flash of musketry, no other meeting than the suddenand rapid apparition of death. Where, how, when, they did not know,but it was certain and inevitable: there, in the spot marked out forthe contest, the Government and the insurrection, the National Guardsand the popular society, the bourgeoisie and the rioters, were aboutto grope their way toward one another. There was the same necessityfor both sides, and the only issue henceforth possible was to bekilled or conquer. It was such an extreme situation, such a powerfulobscurity, that the most timid felt resolute and the most daringterrified. On both sides, however, there was equal fury, obstinacy,and determination; on one side advancing was death, and no one dreamedof recoiling; on the other, remaining was death, and no one thought offlying. It was necessary that all should be over by the morrow, thatthe victory should be with one side or the other, and the insurrectioneither become a revolution or a riot. The Government understood thisas well as the partisans, and the smallest tradesman felt it. Hencecame an agonizing thought with the impenetrable gloom of this district,where all was about to be decided; hence came a redoubled anxietyaround this silence, whence a catastrophe was going to issue. Only onesound could be heard,--a sound as heart-rending as a death-rattle andas menacing as a male-diction, the tocsin of St. Merry. Nothing couldbe so chilling as the clamor of this distracted and despairing bell asit lamented in the darkness.
As often happens, nature seemed to have come to an understanding withwhat men were going to do, and nothing deranged the mournful harmoniesof the whole scene. The stars had disappeared, and heavy clouds filledthe entire horizon with their melancholy masses. There was a blacksky over these dead streets, as if an intense pall were cast overthe immense tomb. While a thoroughly political battle was preparingon the same site which had already witnessed so many revolutionaryevents,--while the youth, the secret associations, and the schoolsin the name of principles, and the middle classes in the name ofinterests, were coming together to try a final fall,--while everybodywas hurrying up and appealing to the last and decisive hour of thecrisis, in the distance and beyond that fatal district, at the lowestdepths of the unfathomable cavities of that old wretched Paris which isdisappearing under the splendor of happy and opulent Paris, the gloomyvoice of the people could be heard hoarsely growling. It is a startlingand sacred voice, composed of the yell of the brute and the word ofGod, which terrifies the weak and warns the wise, and which at oncecomes from below like the voice of the lion, and from above like thevoice of thunder.