Page 949 of 1181 CHAPTER IV. GAVROCHE'S EXCESS OF ZEAL - Les Misérables

This gayety was troubled by one bitter reflection.

"Yes," said he, "I'm splitting with laughter, I'm twisting with delight, I abound in joy, but I'm losing my way, I shall have to take a roundabout way. If I only reach the barricade in season!"

Thereupon he set out again on a run.

And as he ran:--

"Ah, by the way, where was I?" said he.

And he resumed his ditty, as he plunged rapidly through the streets, and this is what died away in the gloom:--

"Mais il reste encore des bastilles,

Et je vais mettre le hola

Dans l'orde public que voila.

Ou vont les belles filles,

Lon la.

"Quelqu'un veut-il jouer aux quilles?

Tout l'ancien monde s'ecroula

Quand la grosse boule roula.

Ou vont les belles filles,

Lon la.

"Vieux bon peuple, a coups de bequilles,

Cassons ce Louvre ou s'etala

La monarchie en falbala.

Ou vont les belles filles,

Lon la.

"Nous en avons force les grilles,

Le roi Charles-Dix ce jour la,

Tenait mal et se decolla.

Ou vont les belles filles,

Lon la."[57]

[57] But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put a stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at skittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ball rolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre where the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. On that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.

The post's recourse to arms was not without result. The cart was conquered, the drunken man was taken prisoner. The first was put in the pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils of war as an accomplice. The public ministry of the day proved its indefatigable zeal in the defence of society, in this instance.

Gavroche's adventure, which has lingered as a tradition in the quarters of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memories: "The nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment."

[The end of Volume IV. "Saint Denis"]

VOLUME V

JEAN VALJEAN

BOOK FIRST.--THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS

		"''Healing,'' Papa would tell me, ''is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.''" Wystan Hugh Auden