Les Misérables (novel)/Source/Volume 5/Book 1/Chapter 15: Difference between revisions

 

 

Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets.

He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National Guardsmen who were firing, and sang:

 

 

C’est la faute à Voltaire; ‘Tis the fault of Voltaire;

Et bête à Palaiseau, And dull at Palaiseau,

 

Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the fusillade, set about plundering another cartridge-box. There a fourth bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang:

 

 

C’est la faute à Voltaire; ‘Tis the fault of Voltaire;

Misère est mon trousseau, Misery is my trousseau,

 

 

Thus it went on for some time.

One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, finally struck the will-o’-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to stagger, then he sank to the earth. The whole barricade gave vent to a cry; but there was something of Antæus in that pygmy; for the gamin to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth; Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began to sing:

 

 

C’est la faute à Voltaire; ‘Tis the fault of Voltaire;

Le nez dans le ruisseau, With my nose in the gutter,

 

He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken its flight.

 

 

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