m, 'Who pays?' 'Death,' was the
answer. And in truth some hours afterwards he had received seventeen
bayonet thrusts.
"They have not broken the gas-pipes--always for the sake of not doing
unnecessary damage. They confine themselves to requisitioning the
gasmen's keys, and the lamplighters' winches in order to open the pipes.
In this manner they control the lighting or extinguishing.
"This group of barricades is strong, and will play an important part. I
had hoped at one moment that they would attack it while I was there. The
bugle had approached, and then had gone away again. Jeanty Sarre tells
me 'it will be for this evening.'
"His intention is to extinguish the gas in the Rue du Petit-Carreau and
all the adjoining streets, and to leave only one jet lighted in the Rue
du Cadran. He has placed sentinels as far as the corner of the Rue Saint
Denis; at that point there is an open side, without barricades, but
little accessible to the troops, on account of the narrowness of the
streets, which they can only enter one by one. Thence little danger
exists, an advantage of narrow streets; the troops are worth nothing
unless massed together. The soldier does not like isolated action; in
war the feeling of elbow to elbow constitutes half the bravery. Jeanty
Sarre has a reactionary uncle with whom he is not on good terms, and who
lives close by at No. 1, Rue du Petit-Carreau.--'What a fright we shall
give him presently!' said Jeanty Sarre to me, laughing. This morning
Jeanty Sarre has inspected the Montorgueil barricade. There was only one
man on it, who was drunk, and who put the barrel of his gun against his
breast, saying, 'No thoroughfare.' Jeanty Sarre disarmed him.
"I go to the Rue Pagevin. There at the corner of the Place des Victoires
there is a well-constructed barricade. In the adjoining barricade in the
Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, the troops this morning made no prisoners.
The soldiers had killed every one. There are corpses as far as the Place
des Victoires. The Pagevin barricade held its own. There are fifty men
there, well armed. I enter. 'Is all going on well?' 'Yes.' 'Courage.' I
press all these brave hands; they make a report to me. They had seen a
Municipal Guard smash in the head of a dying man with the butt end of
his musket. A pretty young girl, wishing to go home, took refuge in the
barricade. There, terrified, she remained for an hour. When all danger
was over, the chef of the barricade caused her to b
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