and said to the cannon:

"You are growing diffuse, my good fellow."

One gets puzzled in battle, as at a ball. It is probable that this
silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy,
and to make them fear some unexpected incident, and that they felt the
necessity of getting a clear view behind that heap of paving-stones, and
of knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall which received
blows without retorting. The insurgents suddenly perceived a helmet
glittering in the sun on a neighboring roof. A fireman had placed his
back against a tall chimney, and seemed to be acting as sentinel. His
glance fell directly down into the barricade.

"There's an embarrassing watcher," said Enjolras.

Jean Valjean had returned Enjolras' rifle, but he had his own gun.

Without saying a word, he took aim at the fireman, and, a second later,
the helmet, smashed by a bullet, rattled noisily into the street. The
terrified soldier made haste to disappear. A second observer took his
place. This one was an officer. Jean Valjean, who had re-loaded his
gun, took aim at the newcomer and sent the officer's casque to join the
soldier's. The officer did not persist, and retired speedily. This time
the warning was understood. No one made his appearance thereafter on
that roof; and the idea of spying on the barricade was abandoned.

"Why did you not kill the man?" Bossuet asked Jean Valjean.

Jean Valjean made no reply.

CHAPTER XII--DISORDER A PARTISAN OF ORDER

Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear:

"He did not answer my question."

"He is a man who does good by gun-shots," said Combeferre.

Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch
know that the National Guard from the suburbs was valiant against
insurrections. It was particularly zealous and intrepid in the days of
June, 1832. A certain good dram-shop keeper of Pantin des Vertus or
la Cunette, whose "establishment" had been closed by the riots, became
leonine at the sight of his deserted dance-hall, and got himself killed
to preserve the order represented by a tea-garden. In that bourgeois and
heroic time, in the presence of ideas which had their knights, interests
had their paladins. The prosiness of the originators detracted nothing
from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns
made bankers sing the Marseillaise. They shed their blood lyrically for
the counting-house; and they defended the sho