Part 5 Book 1 Chapter 1 The Charybdis of the Faubourg Saint-
The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different aspects, of a redoubtable situation, sprang from the earth at the time of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets that history has ever beheld.
It sometimes happens that, even contrary to principles, even contrary to liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its anguish, of its discouragements and its destitutions,of its fevers, of its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that great and despairing body, the rabble, protests against, and that the populace wages battle against, the people.
Beggars attack the common right; the ochlocracy rises against demos.
These are melancholy days; for there is always a certain amount of night even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words which are intended to be insults-- beggars, canaille, ochlocracy, populace--exhibit, alas! Rather the fault of those who reign than the fault of those who suffer; rather the fault of the privileged than the fault of the disinherited.
For our own part, we never pronounce those words without pain and without respect, for when philosophy fathoms the facts to which they correspond, it often finds many a grandeur beside these miseries. Athens was an ochlocracy; the beggars were the making of Holland; the populace saved Rome more than once; and the rabble followed Jesus Christ.
There is no thinker who has not at times contemplated the magnificences of the lower classes.
It was of this rabble that Saint Jerome was thinking, no doubt, and of all these poor people and all these vagabonds and all these miserable people whence sprang the apostles and the martyrs, when he uttered this mysterious saying: "Fex urbis, lex orbis,"-- the dregs of the city, the law of the earth.
The exasperations of this crowd which suffers and bleeds, its violences contrary to all sense, directed against the principles which are its life, its masterful deeds against the right, are its popular coups d'etat and should be repressed. The man of probity sacrifices himself, and out of his very love for this crowd, he combats it. But how excusable he feels it even while holding out against it! How he venerates it even while resisting it! This is one of those rare moments when, while doing that which it is one's duty to do, one feels something which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding further; one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a pain at the heart.
June, 1848, let us hasten to say, was an exceptional fact, and almost impossible of classification, in the philosophy of history. All the words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes a question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy anxiety of toil claiming its rights. It was necessary to combat it, and this was a duty, for it attacked the republic. But what was June, 1848, at bottom? A revolt of the people against itself.
Where the subject is not lost sight of, there is no digression; may we, then, be permitted to arrest the reader's attention for a moment on the two absolutely unique barricades of which we have just spoken and which characterized this insurrection.
One blocked the entrance to the Faubourg Saint Antoine; the other defended the approach to the Faubourg du Temple; those before whom these two fearful masterpieces of civil war reared themselves beneath the brilliant blue sky of June, will never forget them.
The Saint-Antoine barricade was tremendous; it was three stories high, and seven hundred feet wide. It barred the vast opening of the faubourg, that is to say, three streets, from angle to angle; ravined, jagged, cut up, divided, crenelated, with an immense rent, buttressed with piles that were bastions in themselves throwing out capes here and there, powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the faubourg, it reared itself like a cyclopean dike at the end of the formidable place which had seen the 14th of July. Nineteen barricades were ranged, one behind the other, in the depths of the streets behind this principal barricade. At the very sight of it, one felt the agonizing suffering in the immense faubourg, which had reached that point of extremity when a distress may become a catastrophe. Of what was that barricade made? Of the ruins of three six-story houses demolished expressly, said some. Of the prodigy of all wraths, said others. It wore the lamentable aspect of all constructions of hatred, ruin. It might be asked: Who built this? It might also be said: Who destroyed this? It was the improvisation of the ebullition. Hold! take this door! this grating! this penthouse! this chimney-piece! This broken brazier! this cracked pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, ruin everything! It was the collaboration of the pavement, the block of stone, the beam, the bar of iron, the rag, the scrap, the broken pane, the unseated chair, the cabbage-stalk, the tatter, the rag, and the malediction. It was grand and it was petty. It was the abyss parodied on the public place by hubbub. The mass beside the atom; the strip of ruined wall and the broken bowl,--threatening fraternization of every sort of rubbish. Sisyphus had thrown his rock there and Job his potsherd. Terrible, in short. It was the acropolis of the barefooted. Overturned carts broke the uniformity of the slope; an immense dray was spread out there crossways, its axle pointing heavenward, and seemed a scar on that tumultuous facade; an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, to the very summit of the heap, as though the architects of this bit of savagery had wished to add a touch of the street urchin humor to their terror, presented its horseless, unharnessed pole to no one knows what horses of the air. This gigantic heap, the alluvium of the revolt, figured to the mind an Ossa on Pelion of all revolutions; '93 on '89, the 9th of Thermidor on the 10th of August, the 18th of Brumaire on the 11th of January, Vendemiaire on Prairial, 1848 on 1830. The situation deserved the trouble and this barricade was worthy to figure on the very spot whence the Bastille had disappeared. If the ocean made dikes, it is thus that it would build. The fury of the flood was stamped upon this shapeless mass. What flood? The crowd. One thought one beheld hubbub petrified. One thought one heard humming above this barricade as though there had been over their hive, enormous, dark bees of violent progress. Was it a thicket? Was it a bacchanalia? Was it a fortress? Vertigo seemed to have constructed it with blows of its wings. There was something of the cess-pool in that redoubt and something Olympian in that confusion. One there beheld in a pell-mell full of despair, the rafters of roofs, bits of garret windows with their figured paper, window sashes with their glass planted there in the ruins awaiting the cannon, wrecks of chimneys, cupboards, tables, benches, howling topsyturveydom, and those thousand poverty-stricken things, the very refuse of the mendicant, which contain at the same time fury and nothingness. One would have said that it was the tatters of a people, rags of wood, of iron, of bronze, of stone, and that the Faubourg Saint Antoine had thrust it there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the broom making of its misery its barricade. Blocks resembling headsman's blocks, dislocated chains, pieces of woodwork with brackets having the form of gibbets, horizontal wheels projecting from the rubbish, amalgamated with this edifice of anarchy the sombre figure of the old tortures endured by the people. The barricade Saint Antoine converted everything into a weapon; everything that civil war could throw at the head of society proceeded thence; it was not combat, it was a paroxysm; the carbines which defended this redoubt, among which there were some blunderbusses, sent bits of earthenware bones, coat-buttons, even the casters from night-stands, dangerous projectiles on account of the brass. This barricade was furious; it hurled to the clouds an inexpressible clamor; at certain moments, when provoking the army, it was covered with throngs and tempest; a tumultuous crowd of flaming heads crowned it; a swarm filled it; it had a thorny crest of guns, of sabres, of cudgels, of axes, of pikes and of bayonets; a vast red flag flapped in the wind; shouts of command, songs of attack, the roll of drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving were to be heard there. It was huge and living, and, like the back of an electric beast, there proceeded from it little flashes of lightning. The spirit of revolution covered with its cloud this summit where rumbled that voice of the people which resembles the voice of God; a strange majesty was emitted by this titanic basket of rubbish. It was a heap of filth and it was Sinai.
As we have said previously, it attacked in the name of the revolution--what? The revolution. It--that barricade, chance, hazard, disorder, terror, misunderstanding, the unknown-- had facing it the Constituent Assembly, the sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, the nation, the republic; and it was the Carmagnole bidding defiance to the Marseillaise.
Immense but heroic defiance, for the old faubourg is a hero.
The faubourg and its redoubt lent each other assistance. The faubourg shouldered the redoubt, the redoubt took its stand under cover of the faubourg. The vast barricade spread out like a cliff against which the strategy of the African generals dashed itself. Its caverns, its excrescences, its warts, its gibbosities, grimaced, so to speak, and grinned beneath the smoke. The mitraille vanished in shapelessness; the bombs plunged into it; bullets only succeeded in making holes in it; what was the use of cannonading chaos? and the regiments, accustomed to the fiercest visions of war, gazed with uneasy eyes on that species of redoubt, a wild beast in its boar-like bristling and a mountain by its enormous size.
A quarter of a league away, from the corner of the Rue du Temple which debouches on the boulevard near the Chateaud'Eau, if one thrust one's head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, one perceived in the distance, beyond the canal, in the street which mounts the slopes of Belleville at the culminating point of the rise, a strange wall reaching to the second story of the house fronts, a sort of hyphen between the houses on the right and the houses on the left, as though the street had folded back on itself its loftiest wall in order to close itself abruptly. This wall was built of paving-stones. It was straight, correct, cold, perpendicular, levelled with the square, laid out by rule and line. Cement was lacking, of course, but, as in the case of certain Roman walls, without interfering with its rigid architecture. The entablature was mathematically parallel with the base. From distance to distance, one could distinguish on the gray surface, almost invisible loopholes which resembled black threads. These loopholes were separated from each other by equal spaces. The street was deserted as far as the eye could reach. All windows and doors were closed. In the background rose this barrier, which made a blind thoroughfare of the street, a motionless and tranquil wall; no one was visible, nothing was audible; not a cry, not a sound, not a breath. A sepulchre.
The dazzling sun of June inundated this terrible thing with light.
t was the barricade of the Faubourg of the Temple.
As soon as one arrived on the spot, and caught sight of it, it was impossible, even for the boldest, not to become thoughtful before this mysterious apparition. It was adjusted, jointed, imbricated, rectilinear, symmetrical and funereal. Science and gloom met there. One felt that the chief of this barricade was a geometrician or a spectre. One looked at it and spoke low.
From time to time, if some soldier, an officer or representative of the people, chanced to traverse the deserted highway, a faint, sharp whistle was heard, and the passer-by fell dead or wounded, or, if he escaped the bullet, sometimes a biscaien was seen to ensconce itself in some closed shutter, in the interstice between two blocks of stone, or in the plaster of a wall. For the men in the barricade had made themselves two small cannons out of two cast-iron lengths of gas-pipe, plugged up at one end with tow and fire-clay. There was no waste of useless powder. Nearly every shot told. There were corpses here and there, and pools of blood on the pavement. I remember a white butterfly which went and came in the street. Summer does not abdicate.
In the neighborhood, the spaces beneath the portes cocheres were encumbered with wounded.
One felt oneself aimed at by some person whom one did not see, and one understood that guns were levelled at the whole length of the street.
Massed behind the sort of sloping ridge which the vaulted canal forms at the entrance to the Faubourg du Temple, the soldiers of the attacking column, gravely and thoughtfully, watched this dismal redoubt, this immobility, this passivity, whence sprang death. Some crawled flat on their faces as far as the crest of the curve of the bridge, taking care that their shakos did not project beyond it.
The valiant Colonel Monteynard admired this barricade with a shudder.--"How that is built!" he said to a Representative. "Not one paving-stone projects beyond its neighbor. It is made of porcelain."--At that moment, a bullet broke the cross on his breast, and he fell.
"The cowards!" people said. "Let them show themselves. Let us see them! They dare not! They are hiding!"
The barricade of the Faubourg du Temple, defended by eighty men, attacked by ten thousand, held out for three days. On the fourth, they did as at Zaatcha, as at Constantine, they pierced the houses, they came over the roofs, the barricade was taken. Not one of the eighty cowards thought of flight, all were killed there with the exception of the leader, Barthelemy, of whom we shall speak presently.
The Saint-Antoine barricade was the tumult of thunders; the barricade of the Temple was silence. The difference between these two redoubts was the difference between the formidable and the sinister. One seemed a maw; the other a mask.
Admitting that the gigantic and gloomy insurrection of June was composed of a wrath and of an enigma, one divined in the first barricade the dragon, and behind the second the sphinx.
These two fortresses had been erected by two men named, the one, Cournet, the other, Barthelemy. Cournet made the Saint-Antoine barricade; Barthelemy the barricade of the Temple. Each was the image of the man who had built it.
Cournet was a man of lofty stature; he had broad shoulders, a red face, a crushing fist, a bold heart, a loyal soul, a sincere and terrible eye. Intrepid, energetic, irascible, stormy; the most cordial of men, the most formidable of combatants. War, strife, conflict, were the very air he breathed and put him in a good humor. He had been an officer in the navy, and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he sprang from the ocean, and that he came from the tempest; he carried the hurricane on into battle. With the exception of the genius, there was in Cournet something of Danton, as, with the exception of the divinity, there was in Danton something of Hercules.
Barthelemy, thin, feeble, pale, taciturn, was a sort of tragic street urchin, who, having had his ears boxed by a policeman, lay in wait for him, and killed him, and at seventeen was sent to the galleys. He came out and made this barricade.
Later on, fatal circumstance, in London, proscribed by all, Barthelemy slew Cournet. It was a funereal duel. Some time afterwards, caught in the gearing of one of those mysterious adventures in which passion plays a part, a catastrophe in which French justice sees extenuating circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthelemy was hanged. The sombre social construction is so made that, thanks to material destitution, thanks to moral obscurity, that unhappy being who possessed an intelligence, certainly firm, possibly great, began in France with the galleys, and ended in England with the gallows. Barthelemy, on occasion, flew but one flag, the black flag.
观察社会疾苦的人可能会提到的那两座最使人难忘的街垒，并不属于本书所述故事发生的时期。这两座街垒是在一八四八年那次无法避免的六月起义期间从地下冒出来的，那是一次有史以来规模最大的巷战，从两个不同的方面看，这两座街垒都是那次惊险局势的标志。
有时，广大的乱民，在走投无路的时候，是会从他们的苦恼中，从他们的颓丧中，从他们的贫困中，从他们的焦灼中，从他们的绝望中，从他们的怨气中，从他们的愚昧中，从他们的黑暗中，起来反抗，甚至反对原则，甚至反对自由、平等、博爱，甚至反对普选，甚至反对由全民拥立为治理全民的政府，乱民有时会向人民发动战争。
穷棒子冲击普通法，暴民起来反对平民。
那是一些阴惨的日子，因为即使是在那种暴乱中，总还有一定程度的法律，在那种决斗中还有着自杀的性质；并且，不幸的是，从穷棒子、乱民、暴民、群氓这些带谩骂意味的字眼中，人们体验到的往往是统治阶层的错误而不是受苦受难者的错误；是特权阶层的错误，而不是一无所有者的错误。
至于我们，当我们说着这些字眼时，心里总不能不感到痛苦，也不能不深怀敬意。因为，如果从哲学方面去观察和这些字眼有关的种种事实，人们便常常能发现苦难中有不少伟大之处。雅典便是暴民政治，穷棒子建立了荷兰，群氓曾不止一次拯救了罗马，乱民跟随着耶稣基督。
思想家有时也都会景仰下层社会的奇观异彩。
当圣热罗姆说“罗马的恶习，世界的法律”①这句神秘的话时，他心里想到的大概就是那些乱民，所有那些穷人，那些流浪汉，那些不幸的人，使徒和殉道者就是从他们中间产生的。
①“罗马的恶习，世界的法律”，原文为拉丁文 Fex urbis，lex orbis。
那些吃苦流血的群众的激怒，违反他们视作生命原则的蛮横作风以及侵犯人权的暴行，这些都使民众起来搞政变，是应当制止的。正直的人，苦心孤诣，正是为了爱护这些群众，才和他们进行斗争。但在和他们对抗中，又觉得他们情有可原！在抵制他们时又觉得他们是多么崇高可敬！这样的时刻真是少有，人们在尽他们本分的同时也觉得有些为难，几乎还受了某种力量的牵制，叫你不要再往前走；你坚持，那是理所当然的；但是得到了满足的良心是郁郁不乐的，完成了职责，但内心却又感到痛苦。
让我们赶快说出来，一八四八年六月是一次独特的事件，几乎不可能把它列入历史的哲学范畴中去。在涉及这次非常的暴动时，我们前面提到的那些字眼，应当一概撇开；在这次暴动中，我们感到了劳工要求权利的义愤。应当镇压，那是职责，因为它攻击共和。但是，究其实，一八四八年六月到底是怎么回事？是一次人民反对自己的暴乱。
只要不离开主题，话就不会说到题外去，因此，请允许我们让读者的注意力暂时先在我们前面提到的那两座街垒上停留一会儿，这是两座绝无仅有的街垒，是那次起义的特征。
一座堵塞了圣安东尼郊区的入口处，另一座挡住了通往大庙郊区的通道；亲眼见过这两座为内战而构筑的骇人杰作耸立在六月晴朗的碧空下的人们，是永远忘不了它们的。
圣安东尼街垒是个庞然大物，它有四层楼房高，七百尺宽。它挡住进入那一郊区的一大片岔路口，就是说，从这端到那端，它连续遮拦着三个街口，忽高忽低，若断若续，或前或后，零乱交错，在一个大缺口上筑了成行的雉堞，紧接着又是一个又一个土堆，构成一群棱堡，向前伸出许多突角；背后，稳如磐石地靠着两大排凸出的郊区房屋，象一道巨大的堤岸，出现在曾经目击过七月十四日的广场底上。十九个街垒层层排列在这母垒后面的几条街道的纵深处。只要望见这母垒，人们便会感到在这郊区，遍及民间的疾苦已经到了绝望的程度，即将转化为一场灾难。这街垒是用什么东西构成的？有人说是用故意拆毁的二座五层楼房的废料筑成的。另一些人说，这是所有的愤怒创造出来的奇迹。它具有仇恨所创造的一切建筑棗也就是废墟的那种令人痛心的形象。人们可以这么说：“这是谁建造的？”也可以这么说：“这是谁破坏的？”它是激情迸发的即兴创作。哟！这板门！这铁栅！这屋檐，这门框！这个破了的火炉！这只裂了的铁锅！什么都可以拿来！什么也都可以丢上去！一切一切，推吧，滚吧，挖吧，拆毁吧，翻倒吧，崩塌吧！那是铺路石、碎石块、木柱、铁条、破布、碎砖、烂椅子、白菜根、破衣烂衫和诅咒的协作。它伟大但也渺小。那是在地狱的旧址上翻修的混沌世界。原子旁边的庞然大物；一堵孤立的墙和一只破汤罐；一切残渣废物的触目惊心的结合；西绪福斯①在那里抛下了他的岩石，约伯也在那里抛下了他的瓦碴。总而言之，很可怕。那是赤脚汉的神庙，一些翻倒了的小车突出在路旁的斜坡上；一辆巨大的运货马车，车轴朝天，横亘在张牙舞爪的垒壁正面，象是那垒壁上的一道伤疤；一辆公共马车，已经由许多胳膊兴高采烈地拖上了土堆，放在它的顶上，辕木指向空中，好象在迎接什么行空的天马。垒砌这种原始堡垒的建筑师们，似乎有意要在制造恐怖的同时，增添一点野孩子趣味。这一庞然大物，这种暴动的产物，使人想起历次革命，犹如奥沙堆在贝利翁上②，九三堆在八九上③，热月九日堆在八月十日上④，雾月十八日堆在一月二十一日上⑤，萄月堆在牧月上⑥，一八四八堆在一八三○上⑦。这广场无愧此举，街垒当之无愧地出现在被摧毁的巴士底监狱原址上。如果海洋要建堤岸，它就会这般修建。狂怒的波涛在这畸形的杂物堆上留下了痕迹，什么波涛？民众。我们好象见到石化了的喧嚣声。犹如听见一群激进而又隐蔽的大蜜蜂，在它们这蜂窝似的街垒上嗡嗡低鸣。是一丛荆棘吗？是酒神祭日的狂欢节吗？是堡垒吗？这建筑物似乎振翅欲飞，令人头昏目眩。这棱堡有丑陋的一面，而在杂乱无章之中也有威严之处。在这令人见了灰心失望的一堆混乱物中，有人字屋顶架、裱了花纸的阁楼天花板、带玻璃窗的框架（插在砖瓦堆上等待着架炮）、拆开了的炉子烟囱、衣橱、桌子、长凳以及横七竖八乱成一团的连乞丐都不屑一顾的破烂货，其中含有愤怒，同时又空无所有。就象是民众的破烂、朽木、破铜烂铁、残砖碎石，都是圣安东尼郊区用一把巨大的扫帚扫出来的，用它的苦难筑成的街垒。有些木块象断头台，断链和有托座的木架象绞刑架，平放着的一些车轮在乱堆中露出来，这些都给这无政府的建筑物增添了一种残酷折磨人民的古老刑具的阴森形象。圣安东尼街垒利用一切作为武器，一切内战中能够用来射击社会的都在那儿出现了，这不是一场战斗，而是极度愤恨的爆发。在防卫这座棱堡的短枪中，有些大口径的枪发射出碎的陶器片、小骨头、衣服纽扣、直至床头柜脚上的小轮盘，这真是危险的发射物，因为同属铜质。狂暴的街垒，它向上空发出无法形容的叫嚣，当它向军队挑战时，街垒充满了咆哮的人群，一伙头脑愤激的人高据街垒，拥塞其中犹如蚁聚，它的顶部是由刀枪、棍棒、斧子、长矛和刺刀形成的尖峰，一面大红旗在风中劈啪作响，到处听得到指挥员发令的喊声、出击的战歌、隆隆的战鼓声、妇女的哭声以及饿汉们阴沉的狂笑。它庞大而又生动，好象一只电兽从背部发出雷电火星。革命精神的战云笼罩着街垒顶部，在那里群众的呼声象上帝的声音那样轰鸣着，一种奇异的威严从这巨人的乱石背篓里流露出来。这是一堆垃圾，而这也是西奈⑧。
①据希腊神话，西绪福斯（Sisyphe）原是科林斯王，为人残忍苛刻，死后在地狱中被罚推一巨石上山，到了山顶，巨石滚回山脚，还要再推上山。
②奥沙（Ossa）和贝利翁（Pélion）是希腊的两座山，神话中的巨人想上天，就把奥沙堆在贝利翁上面。
③九三指一七九三年，这一年法国资产阶级大革命达到高潮。八九指一七八九年，法国资产阶级大革命开始。
④热月九日即一七九四年七月二十七日，吉伦特派与王党勾结，组织反革命叛乱，处死罗伯斯庇尔等二十二人。八月十日指一七九二年八月十日巴黎人民起义，君主政体被推翻。
⑤雾月十八日即一七九九年十一月九日，拿破仑由埃及返法，推翻督政府。一月二十一日即一七九三年一月二十一日，法王路易十六被处死刑。
⑥萄月十三日指一七九五年十月五日，保王党暴动分子进攻国民公会，拿破仑指挥共和军击败了保王党人。牧月一日指一七九五年五月二十日，人民起义反对国民公会，要求肃清自热月九日后一直存在的反动势力。
⑦一八三○年七月革命，推翻了波旁王朝。一八四八年巴黎二月革命，宣布成立第二共和国。
⑧西奈（SinaiD），在埃及。《圣经》记载，上帝在西奈向摩西传授十戒。
正如我们以前讲到过，它以革命的名义进攻，向什么进攻？向革命。它，这街垒，是冒险、紊乱和惊慌，是误解和未知之物，它的对立面是制宪议会、人民的主权、普选权、国家、共和政体，这是《卡玛尼奥拉》向《马赛曲》的挑战。
狂妄而又勇敢的挑战，因为这老郊区是一个英雄。
郊区和棱堡是相互支援的，郊区支持棱堡，棱堡也凭借郊区。这广阔的棱堡象伸展在海边的悬崖，攻打非洲的将军们的策略在那儿碰了壁。它的岩穴，它的那些肿瘤，那些疣子，以及弯腰驼背的怪态，似乎在烟幕中挤眉弄眼，嘲弄冷笑。开花炮弹在这怪物中消失了，炮弹钻进去，被吞没了，沉入深坑；炮弹只能打个窟窿；炮轰这杂乱的一堆有什么意义呢？那些联队，经历过最凶险的战争场面，却惶惑不安地望着这只鬃毛竖得象野猪、巨大如山的猛兽堡垒而束手无策。
离此一公里，在通往林荫大道、挨近水塔的大庙街转角上，如果有人胆敢在达尔麻尼商店铺面所形成的角上把头伸出去，他准会远远看到在运河那一边，在向上通往贝尔维尔坡道的街的顶端，一堵怪墙有房子正面的三层楼那么高，好象是左右两排楼房的连接线，就象这条街自动折叠起来成为一片高墙似的，突然堵塞了去路。这墙是铺路石砌成的。它笔直、整齐、冷酷、垂直，是用角尺、拉线和铅锤来达到这一平正和划一的。墙上显然缺乏水泥，但正象某些罗马的墙壁，对建筑物本身的坚固朴实却丝毫无损。看了它的高度，我们可以猜到它的深度。它的檐部和墙基是严格平行的。在那灰色的墙面上，我们可以辨别出这儿那儿有一些几乎看不出来的黑线条似的枪眼，以相等的距离相互间隔着。街上望到头也不见一个人影，所有的门窗都紧闭着，在纵深处竖起的这块挡路牌使街道变成了死胡同。墙壁肃立，静止，不见人影，也听不见任何声音。没有叫喊，没有声音，没有呼吸，这是一座坟。
六月眩目的阳光笼罩着这怪物。
这就是大庙郊区的街垒。
当你到达现场见到了它，最勇敢的人，见到这神秘的东西出现在眼前，都免不了会沉思默想起来。这街垒经过修饰、榫合，呈叠瓦状排列，笔直而对称，但阴森可怕。这里既有科学又有黑暗。我们感到这个街垒的首领是一个几何学家或一个鬼怪。见到的人都窃窃私语。
有时候如果有人棗士兵、军官或民众代表棗冒险越过这静悄悄的街心，我们就会听见尖锐而低低的呼啸声，于是过路人倒下、受伤或死去，如果他幸免了，我们就看见一颗子弹射进关着的百叶窗、碎石缝或墙壁的沙灰里去。有时是一个实心炮弹，因为街垒中的人把两段生铁煤气管制成两门小炮，一端用麻绳头及耐火泥堵塞起来，丝毫不浪费火药，几乎百发百中。到处躺着一些死尸，铺路石上有一摊一摊的鲜血。我记得有只白粉蝶在街上飞来飞去，可见夏日依然君临一切。
附近的大门道里，挤满了受伤的人。
在这儿，人感到被一个看不见的人所瞄准，并且知道整条街都被人瞄准着。
运河的拱桥在大庙郊区的入口处形成一个驼峰式的地势，它后面密集着进攻的队伍，士兵们严肃而聚精会神地观察着这座静止、阴沉、无动于衷的棱堡，而死亡将从中产生。有几个匍匐前进直至拱桥的高处，小心翼翼地不露出军帽的边缘。
勇敢的蒙特那上校对这座街垒赞美不已，他向一个代表说：“建筑得多么好！没有一块突出的石头，真太精致了。”这时一颗子弹打碎了他胸前的十字勋章，他倒下了。
“胆小鬼！”有人说，“有本事就露面吧！让人家看看他们！他们不敢！只能躲躲藏藏！”大庙郊区的街垒，八十个人防御，经受了一万人的攻打，它坚持了三天。第四天，采用了曾在扎阿恰和君士坦丁①的办法，打穿了房屋，从屋顶上攻进去，才攻克了街垒。八十个胆小鬼没有一个打算逃命，除了首领巴特尔米之外全被杀死了。关于巴特尔米的事，我们即将叙及。
圣安东尼的街垒暴跳如雷，大庙郊区的街垒鸦雀无声。就可怕和阴森而言两座棱堡各不相同，一个狂暴怒吼，另一个却以假相欺人。
①扎阿恰（Zaatcha），阿尔及利亚沙漠中的绿洲，君士坦丁（Constantine），阿尔及利亚的城市，两处都曾被法军攻占。
如把这次巨大而阴惨的六月起义作为愤怒和谜的结合，我们感到第一个街垒里有条龙，而第二个背后是斯芬克司。
这两座堡垒是由两个人修建起来的，一个名叫库尔奈，另一个叫巴特尔米。库尔奈建造了圣安东尼的街垒，巴特尔米建造了大庙区的街垒。每个堡垒都具有修建者的形象。库尔奈个子魁伟，两肩宽阔，面色红润，拳头结实，生性勇敢，为人忠实，目光诚恳而炯炯骇人。他胆大无畏，坚韧不拔，急躁易怒，狂暴激烈，对人诚挚，对敌手不软。战争、武斗、冲突是他的家常便饭，使他心情愉快。他曾任海军军官，根据他的声音和举动，可以猜出他是来自海洋和风暴；在战斗中他坚持飓风式的战斗作风。除了天才这一点，库尔奈有点象丹东，正如除了神性这一点，丹东略似赫拉克勒斯。
巴特尔米瘦弱而矮小，面色苍白，沉默寡言，他象一个凄惨的流浪儿。他曾被一个警察打过一记耳光，于是他随时窥伺，等待机会，终于把这个警察杀死，因此他十七岁就被关进监狱。出狱后建成了这座街垒。
后来巴特尔米和库尔奈两人都被放逐到伦敦，巴特尔米杀死了库尔奈，这是命中注定的，是一场悲惨的决斗。不久以后，他被牵连进一桩离奇的凶杀案里去，其中不免涉及爱情。这种灾祸根据法国的裁判有可能减罪，而英国的司法则认为该处死刑。巴特尔米上了绞架。阴暗的社会结构就是如此这般，由于物质的匮乏和道德的沦丧，致使这不幸的人---他有才智，肯定很坚强，也许不很伟大---在法国从监狱开始，在英国以绞刑结束。巴特尔米，在这样情况下，只举起了一面旗---黑旗。