Night of the Barricades

          --She’s a neat chick, said Carson.

He was sitting on the window of Richard the Lionhearted’s garret room, looking down on the neo-classic columns of the backside of the Madeleine.  Madeleine also happened to be the name of Volodar’s girl friend.

          --That’s all you ever think about, said Richard sulkily when Carson mentioned this coincidence.

He had been trying to catch up on his sleep for the last week.

          --Hey, Dick, that’s not true, protested Carson.  I went with you to the meeting last night.

          --Yeah.

          --I wish I understood more French.

Richard did not answer.  He had been on every march since last Friday when he had escaped from the Sorbonne.  First he had thought he should not go because Max had been wrong, and the police had gone into the Sorbonne anyway.  Then he figured if Max had been wrong about that, maybe he was wrong about other things.  Sometimes it looked like the whole situation had changed in some way which made it all right for everybody to go down in the street with red flags and march all over town.  Maybe most of them were French, but some of them must have been foreigners.  So he had gone out to watch and a girl had called out to him, “Come join us,” or “Venez avec nous,” or “Dans la rue avec nous”  or something like that.  He’d waited until she’d gone by before deciding and, as usual, he never saw her again, but he had fallen in with a line of people who’d all started running and shouting, “Che Che Guevara”  and “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh” right past a triple line of cops who had just stood there doing nothing.  He dug that.  In Edgar Snow’s The Other Side of the River, they had swung across rivers on ropes.  This was the nearest thing to it here in Paris. 

          --Hey, where are we going to today?

Carson had turned up yesterday afternoon, said he’d been on the march Wednesday, and since then had stuck to Richard like a leech.  They had gone to the meeting last night with Max and June, both of whom had gone home right afterwards, and Carson had dragged him to a cafe somewhere where he’d picked up a girl, a real pig in Dick’s opinion; she hadn’t even known there was a meeting--but Carson had brought her back to the room without even asking and laid her right on the floor next to the bed.  Since Erwin had gone back, Carson had his own room on the other side of town, but he said he didn’t like to be alone.  This was the first time he’d done that though.  If he wanted that kind of girl, then he could damn well take her to his own place next time.  Dick liked his room and had fixed it up very nicely and didn’t want Carson fucking on his floor again.

          --I wish you wouldn’t bring girls up here, he said.

          --Gee, Dick, I’m sorry, said Carson.  Is that why you’re pissed?  Man, I was so drunk last night, I didn’t know what I was doing.

          --If you hadn’t insisted on going out after the meeting--

          --I’d made a date with a guy to score in that cafe, and I didn’t want to let him down.

          --Are you on hash now?

          --No, man, not me--I like to drink too much.  This was for Sean.

Sean was a Marine deserter that Dick’s brother had met on the Tiajuana border and advised to go to Paris.  He’d seemed like a nice enough guy, but if this was the way he was beginning, Dick decided his opinion would go through some quick changes.

          --That’s not revolutionary behavior, he said to Carson.

Carson was contrite.

          --I’m sorry, Dick, he repeated.  Honest.  Sometimes I just lose my head.  Hey, I won’t do it again.  Promise.  So don’t stay mad, okay?

Dick sighed.  Carson always got around him.  Unlike some of the other deserters, he never minded admitting he was wrong.

          --I’m not mad now, but I wish you’d quit.

          --Okay, Dick, from now on.

Carson concluded with a power check.

          --How about this thing at six-thirty?  We going?

          --Sure, said Dick.  I want to keep up with the movement.

He’d just as soon have someone to go on the march with him, but he sure as hell intended to throw him out tonight and get some sleep.

They got out of the subway at Denfert at six-thirty.  There had been some rumors that the subways were going on strike in which case he was ready to walk over to the left bank if they couldn’t get a ride, but it was all right, and the subway was full of people who all looked like they were going there too.  In fact, it looked like all Paris was there, thousands and thousands of people, all standing around talking and relaxed.  There was a big stone lion in the middle of the Place with a lot of guys on it, and a red flag stuck between its paws.

          --That would be pretty cool to be up there, wouldn’t it?  said Carson.

          --I guess those are the leaders of the demonstration, said Dick.

He wouldn’t have put it past Carson to climb up there himself, but they’d both been pretty impressed by the guys at the meeting last night, and he didn’t think Carson would want to push in on the revolutionary direction up on the lion any more than he would have climbed up on the stage at the meeting.

          --The redhead’s Cohn-Bendit, said Carson.

          --Dany Cohn Bendit, added Dick.

He was glad Carson seemed to have some idea of what was going on and who was doing it.

          --They do this a lot in Paris, huh?  Carson added.  Marching around and protesting--you remember that day on the Boulevard Saint Michel when they renamed all the streets with Vietnamese names?  That was pretty cool too.

          --I think there’s more going on now, said Dick.

He’d been annoyed because he’d missed out on that demonstration.

          --You think it will be bigger this afternoon?  asked Carson.

          --Wednesday was bigger already, said Dick.

          --Yeah, but it was different.  There were all those old guys from the Communist Party leading the march.

          --How do you know they were from the Communist Party?

          --Well, first their age.  Then they were saying Peace in Vietnam  instead of FLN vaincra.

          --How do you know all that?

          --Henri told me.   

It seemed like Carson really had been on the march then and was not just bull-shitting.  Maybe they could get a real deserter movement going here if he was getting ready to involve himself.

          --But I saw Cohn-Bendit at the head, said Richard.

If they pooled their information, they might understand the whole thing more.

          --And Krivine, he added, remembering that Alex, in their usual brief encounter, had pointed out the JCR leader to him.

          --I don’t know, said Carson.  The hearts of the people didn’t seem to be in it as much.

          --Maybe everyone was just tired after the trip over to the Arc de Triomphe the other night.

          --You don’t think it is the end, do you, Dick?  asked Carson anxiously.

          --The end of what?

          --I don’t know.  The Revolution maybe.

A flutter of white printed leaflets flew like startled pigeons over their heads.  Carson picked one up.  So did a few other people, but in general no one bothered.  The two Americans looked at one another, skipping over the closely-printed prose to the signature.

          --Communist Party of Montrouge, translated Dick.  Wonder why they throw them in the air instead of handing them out?

          --They must have money, remarked Carson, letting the leaflet drop.  Look, they even put a picture on it.  The student stuff is just mimeographed.

Cohn-Bendit began to talk into the loudspeaker.

          --Hey, we’re not going to understand this, said Carson.

          He turned to a girl holding a wooden pole parallel to a second wooden pole held by a boy.  The two were connected by a banner reading Comités d’Action Lyceènnes.

          --What’s he saying?  he asked the girl.

          --Que dit-il?  added Richard.

The girl smiled and nudged the girl next to her.

          --Tu parles anglais, toi?

The second girl leaned forward.

          --He says, she began.  The bridges are cut.  so we don’t cross the Seine.  Now we discuss where we go.

          --Where do we go?  asked Carson.

The place was suddenly silent, considering the 30,000 potential voices, but a slight breeze blew words in one direction or another, the loudspeaker was amplified only by its own built-in battery, and the demonstrators discussed the various information and propositions immediately they were voiced, often covering the next speaker.

          --This is direct democracy, added the high school girl.  We all decide.

          --All of us here?  asked Dick.

          --Why not?  asked Carson.  That’s what we needed in the military.

Cohn-Bendit continued talking.  People repeated what he said to each other, the high school girl to Carson and Richard.

          --He says we must have no SO--service d’ordre--for this demonstration, for now we double the mise--we show that all Paris is against the Ministry that closes the universities and keeps students and workers prisoners.  Every demonstrator must be active and assumer his own defense because, in any case, the SO is not competent to protect all the manifs against the flics.  Now he opens to suggestions as to our trajet.

Cohn-Bendit handed the loudspeaker to the student next to him.

          --What’s a trajet?  asked Carson.

          --Trajectory.

Carson nudged the girl again and smiled at her.

          --Would you mind going on?  What’s this guy saying?

          --He ees saying we are bourgeois because we go to the Champs-Elysées all the time.

A shout arose from the crowd--Non Non came through loud and clear.  Carson threw up his hands too and shouted Non.

          --Non, he is not right, agreed their translator.

          --About what?

          --He wants we should break into small groups to go to the workers quarters.  Belleville, for example, to explain what we do for the workers.  But people say Pas question that we do not stay together.

She paused and added:  We are for the workers, you understand, but we realize the necessity to stay as a whole.

On their right, the huge stone walls of the Santé prison, squared off in barred windows, loomed up above the sentinels of chestnut trees lining the Boulevard Saint Jacques.  Dark faces peered out, raised fists through the bars, a white cloth fluttered.

          --Algerians, huh?  remarked Carson.  It’s always the blacks get fucked everywhere, you notice?

          --Emily should see this, said Richard.

Emily was a black American Muslim who had surfaced the year before during Stokely’s speech, helped organize a SNCC support committee in Paris, and rushed back to the States when Martin Luther King was shot.

A hissing, shushing, sibilant swell was swept by 30,000 voices in progressive waves initiated from the front of the cortège, now passing the Hospital Sainte Antoine, through the middle of the demonstration at the Santé, to the end just leaving the Place Denfert -Rocherau.

          --No noise, we are passing a hospital, said the girl.

          At group began to whistle the International.

          --That’s their theme song, said Carson.  Max knows it in English.

The demonstrators began to run.

          --Ho ho ho Chi Minh...Che Che Guevara...

          --We’d make an awful lot of small groups, said Richard.  It wouldn’t take the police long to--

          --I can dig that, said Carson.  I mean, we should explain to the workers.

          --You are Chinese?  asked the girl.

          --Why?

But another student had the loudspeaker.  The CAL cortège began to move forward slowly.

          --What did she mean, am I Chinese?

          --It’s a political group, said Richard.  After Mao Tse Tung.

The last groups of the demonstration had started to move, massive, ordered, falling into twenty people lines around the Place Denfert -Rocherau.      

          --Where are we going?  asked Carson.

They had lost the CAL group and were with others carrying the UNEF banners.

          --I don’t know, said Richard.  As long as we’re moving, it’s okay by me.

          --Hey, there’s Nguyen--hey, Nguyen--

The Vietnamese Frenchman turned around and smiled.  One of the organizers, he had run back from the Hospital Sainte Antoine along the sidewalk. 

          --Where are we going? asked Richard.

          --We are passing the Santé, and then I don’t know.

The running rhythm swept down to the last groups who ran all the way from the Gobelins down the rue Monge and into the rue des Ecoles.

The sidewalks were crowded with people watching.

          --Venez avec nous!  shouted Dick.

Joining, dropping out, and running ahead went the demonstrators.

          --Hey, there’s Alex.

Broken-field running, a slight figure was weaving in and out of cars and observers.  Richard and Carson broke ranks after it, but were blocked by standing, shifting figures.

          --Maybe  it wasn’t her, said Carson breathlessly.

          --I’d know Alex anywhere, said Richard.

Integrated back into the demonstration, they joined the chant of CRS-SS sweeping down the demonstrators now passing a block of heavy, close-ranked CRS wearing helmets, holding guns, their faces protected by transparent shields.

          --Poor suckers, said Carson.  What can they do against all of us?

To their right, along the quays, other police helmets glittered in the sunset.  The huge cortège moved between them, rounded the corner of the Boulevard Saint Germain, and started u the Boulevard Saint Michel.

          --Going to the Sorbonne, eh? said Carson.

          --I don’t see how we can go to it if it’s closed, said Richard.  Besides, the CRS are blocking it off.

          Halfway up the Boul’ Mich’ the cortege stopped.

          --I’m glad I didn’t have any beer today, said Carson.

          --Some guy wanted to piss on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, said Richard.  But they stopped him.

          --I don’t see why, said Carson.  It might be fun.

          --It’s stupid, said Richard.  You wouldn’t catch Chinese revolutionaries doing that.

          --Hey, are you Chinese?

          They both laughed.

          --Okay, said Carson.  Maybe not on the tomb of the Unknown Soldiers--it’s n not his fault they put him there.  But not De Gaulle's--why not?

---

          --He’s not dead yet, Richard pointed out.

          --He might as well be, said Carson.

          People around them were beginning to sit down.

          --What’s happening?

          --Ask someone, said Richard.

          --Parla inglese?  asked Carson.

          Dick laughed.

          --This isn’t Rome.

          --Que passe?  amended Carson to the student next to him.

          --Ceux d’avant parlementent avec les flics.

          --Anglais?  asked Richard.

          --They speak with the police.  So we can pass.

          --I didn’t know pigs could speak, said Carson.  The American pigs sure don’t.  Let’s go see.

Richard wasn’t sure.  If everyone got up to see what was happening, the demonstration would get messed up.  However, since most of the people were sitting down, smoking and talking, it didn’t look like any panic was about to start.

          --I wonder where that girl we talked to before is, said Carson.

          --We’ll probably never see her again, said Richard.

          --I don’t know.  It shouldn’t be hard to find her.  She was holding that CAL banner.

The two Americans broke ranks and moved carefully through the rows of sitting demonstrators to the sidewalk.  Carson climbed on a 403 and looked down the boulevard.

          --Wow!  Come up here, Dick.  I mean, we/re really massed.

As he grabbed Kit’s hand, Richard wondered who owned the car.

The entire length of the Boulevard Saint Michel was covered with people, studded with red flags and banners.  There was no discernible order of priority:  UNEF was undoubtedly at the head since they couldn’t see that banner any more, but SNES-UP, FEN, CGT, CFDT, JCR, UJC-ML, and PCF groups all had flags flying.

          --I don’t see the CAL, said Carson.

          --We can’t see them all, said Dick.  There’s too many.

The car roof cracked under their feet.

          --We’re gonna bust this car if we don’t get off.

          --Anyone leaving his car on the street these days probably wants it to become part of a barricade.

          --Maybe he doesn’t know.

          --Then he’s against us.

          --Outside the stream of history, said Richard.

          --Yeah, man.

The first ranks of the cortège had broken around the fountain of the Medicis and were spread out on the rue Gay Lussac and the boulevards running along the Luxembourg Gardens.  People were walking around talking.  A lot of them had kerchiefs around their necks.

          --Maybe we’ll find Alex, said Richard.

          --Hold it, said Carson.  There’s a girl I met in Rouen when I went to talk to the CVN.

He stopped a tall thin girl strolling arm in arm with a small blonde.

          --Hey, Juliette, he said.  Remember me?  Rouen?

Juliette seemed unsurprised to see him.

          --Salut, she said casually.

          --What gives now?

She began talking in French, but Carson put up his hand to stop her and said, Non capito.

Juliette smiled.

          --Parlo italiano, she offered.

          --Well, try it in English, said Carson.  Do me a favor, huh?

          --The flics want us to go back up the boulevard to where we came from.  If you walk over to the Luxembourg, there you will see the flics.  They close up the quartier behind us.  But what we want is they open the Sorbonne.  So we say we stay here till they do.  We go explain to everyone here we stay until the government agrees to open up the Sorbonne.  Now the Chintoks go to explain to flics, but I am not optimistic about success.  At the same time--parallel tactics--we will dig up the paving stones for weapons and barricades.  It is clear the flics will not stand still all night.  Neither do they leave as long as we are all here.  Consequently, it is logical they charge.  So we build barricades to protect us and create cover for riposte.  You know?

          --I get the picture, said Carson.  Where are they building the barricades?

          --All over, said Juliette.  Here.

She handed him some baking soda.

          --You smear on your face against tear gas burns.

          --Let’s go help with the barricades, said Dick.

The demonstrators, still almost the full 30,000, had peopled the quarter from the Boul’ Mich’ around the fountain and up the rue Gay Lussac, digging up paving stones, moving cars, unearthing grills around trees.  Supply dumps of paving stones were stacked at various points.  The shops and cafes were closed, tables stacked inside, book boxes locked.  Masses of people spontaneously organized themselves within a one mile radius drawn to a circumference where police formations waited for orders.

          --It’s like a maze, said Carson.  Except I can’t figure out where they are and where they aren’t.  I know where we are, but every street we take we come out on a different side of the cops.

          --That’s why we’re building barricades.

          --Yeah.  But does anyone have an overall plan?

          --Somebody must.  Maybe Cohn-Bendit.

          --Everybody seems to be doing their thing.

          --I guess we’d better join them making the barricades.

One barricade going up on the rue Gay Lussac was being extended to the Impasse Royer Collard at right angles.

          --Pretty neat, said Richard.

They got in a chain of students handing heavy objects like tree grills, car seats, garbage cans, down to the people working to block the impasse.

          --They’ll need a bull dozer to knock this one down, said Richard.

Carson straightened up and smiled.

          --You know, I don’t want to be critical.  But why are we blocking off this street?

          --To the cops.

          --But it looks like a dead end.  I can see the houses right across it on the other side of the barricade.

          --You think so?  Maybe there’s a little street running across.

          --I think I’ll go down and take a look.  What’s impasse mean?

          --Ask a girl, said Richard shortly and went back to the chain.

Carson came back a few minutes later and said he was right.

          --Well, try to get through to somebody, suggested Richard, stepping out of the line.  There’s no point blocking a dead end.

          --I did, I did, believe me.  But everyone was so busy building I couldn’t find anyone to listen.

          --Maybe they have a reason we don’t know about.

          --Lookit, said Carson.  We’re all doing this, aren’t we?  You or me have just as much right to give our opinion as Cohn-Bendit.  Okay, as strategy I don’t know the situation the way they do, but as far as tactics go, this is a lousy tactic.  If we all group behind a barricade across a dead end, then where do we retreat to when it’s knocked down?

          --Maybe the police won’t charge.

          --Have you ever known the police not to charge?  Sure they’ll charge sooner or later.  If we didn’t think so, we wouldn’t be building the barricades in the first place.

          --You want to leave?

          --Hell no, I’m with the masses, man.  I just want it to work.

          --So do I, said Richard.

He looked once more at the buildings blocking the street at one end, the rapidly rising barricade blocking the other end, and stepped back into line.  They were passing down a cafe table.

          --Barricades all over the street show we mean business, he said slowly.  After all, if anyone had thought out the Long March beforehand, they probably wouldn’t have made it.

          --Yeah, sure, said Carson.  Think of all the dumb things the Army had us do, and we did them.

When that barricade was built, they went over and started working on another.  This one practically blocked the junction of the rue Gay Lussac and the rue Saint Jacques.  Off to one side, three students were de-paving the street.  A middle-aged man suddenly grabbed one of them by the arm.  Carson and Richard stopped to watch.

          --The order to disperse has been given, said the middle-aged man.

          --Not by us, said the student.

          --It has been given, and I am here to see it is executed.

          --Well, we’re not listening to your orders, said a second student.

          --The only responsible action is to go home and let those qualified to deal with the authorities handle it, said the middle-aged man.

One of the students started to speak, but the newcomer grabbed his crowbar, simultaneously giving him a push with his left hand.

          --I wouldn’t mind a fight, remarked Carson, if I knew what it was about.

          --Yeah, they’re three of them. I don’t think he’s gonna get very far.

          --If he hits one of them with that crowbar, he will.

While two of the diggers were wrestling with the crowbar, the third took a short running start and hit the middle-aged man in the paunch with his head.  Heavy on his feet, the man staggered but did not fall.  However, he dropped the crowbar and, without his weapon, gave up direct physical action and began exhorting the small group which had collected around the struggle.

          --Orders have been given to disperse, he shouted.  You are provoking the police to take violent action.  Everyone disperse!

The group laughed at him and went back to the barricades.  From another part of the street came a shout and the disperser dispersed himself.

          --Qui est?  asked Carson.

          --Une crapule stalinienne, said a student.

          --What’s that?

The student shrugged his shoulders and offered Carson a gaullouise.

May days are long in Paris.  It was ten o’clock before the street lights went on.

          --Nice of them, said Carson.  I was afraid they’d leave us in the dark.

          --We would have found flashlights somewhere, said Richard.

They were sitting on the curb sharing a sandwich someone had given them.

          --It’s like a whole new world, isn’t it?  said Carson.  I mean, when you think about it, it is fantastic.  Here we are, hemmed in by pigs, sitting and eating sandwiches and talking about street lights.

          --It’s a great life, said Richard, if it goes on like this.

          --Why shouldn’t it?  All we gotta do is push back the police and take over Paris.  We are the people.

Farther down the street, a radio truck was surrounded by students.

          --The center seems to be over there, said Richard.  Let’s go see what they’re doing.

He clapped Carson on the shoulder and stood up.

          --We’re representing the deserter movement.  After all, I don’t see Botts or Arthur or any of those guys around here.

          --Hey, you’re right.  They’re the big revolutionaries.  Where are they?

          --Probably at Pastor Rangoon's place listening to the radio.

The radio truck transmitting at the end of the street was surrounded by students who shifted to let Carson and Richard pass.  Now the quarter was closed off completely by the police; its spatial isolating had created an atmosphere through which the remaining 15,000 militants moved like fish in water.  The radio announcer was holding out a microphone to a dark-haired student talking over him to the crowd. Every now and then he would stop and a radioed voice would come through from outside.

          --Think how it sounds to the guys out there listening, said Carson. Armed camp in the Latin Quarter.  The revolutionaries fight the pigs from behind the barricades.

          --Shush, said Richard. Go get us a girl translator so we know what they’re saying.

Since the situation was no longer Carson beating his time with the girls, but both of them doing their best to keep up with things in a revolutionary situation, he didn’t mind Carson being the speaker.  Of course, that didn’t mean he always had to pick girls to translate, but that was the way he was.

Carson winked at him, leaned forward and tapped a tall young man with long hair listening to the exchange going on over the radio.

          --Do you speak English?  he asked. Parlay-vous anglay?

          --Ja, said the young man absently.  What do you want to know?

          --Hey, Gunther, it’s me! exclaimed Richard excitedly.  Remember me.  I was the guy Henri brought over to see you--

Gunther smiled vaguely and held out his hand.

          --You are the American deserter.

          --Yeah, that’s right.  Henri brought me to your place...

          --Nice night, isn’t it?  proposed Gunther.

          --Fantastic.  Look, would you mind filling us in a little?  You see, we’re on the march and everything, and we’ve been helping to build the barricades, but we aren’t really up on all the details.

          --That’s right, said Carson.  We’d appreciate it.

Richard was very pleased that they had found someone he knew.

          --What do you want to know?  asked Gunther.  You know the police are surrounding us, for example?

          --Sure, we know that.  That’s why we’re helping them get ready.

          --Normally, the proper procedure for you would be to go home, said Gunther. As you are American deserters and are not protected very well by French law.

          --We have residence permits, said Carson.

          --Nun ja, agreed Gunther doubtfully.  However, today is a day consecrated in theory to the theme, Down with the Oppression of workers and Foreigners.  So it is applicable to you.  Therefore it is correct you be here in spite of possible danger.

          --Always in the front lines, said Carson.  That’s us.

          --The Foreign Legion, added Dick.  Modern style.

          --There are many workers here too, said Gunther.  Although the radio broadcast is insisting very much on the presence of high school students.

          --Yeah, we were with them for awhile, said Carson nonchalantly.  That’s CAL mostly, isn’t it?

          --Correct, said Gunther.

          --We saw a worker too, actually.  At least he looked like a worker.

          --There are many more than one worker, said Gunther stiffly.

          --Yeah, we know.  But this guy was telling everybody to go home.  What’s a crapule stalinienne?

          --Hard to translate, said Gunther.

          --Some sort of insult, huh?

          --”Stalinist toady” would be the nearest thing in English.

          --A little toad.  That’s not so bad.

          --In English it also means “To flatter people to get ahead.”  But I am not so sure that meaning carries over into the French.

          --Well, this guy wanted everybody to leave, but he didn’t explain why.  He just said it was orders from somewhere.  In fact, he didn’t even say from where.  I can’t see it myself.  I mean, the police are provoking us.  All we want is the Sorbonne opened, right?

          --The situation in general is so:  all punishments towards those arrested in the last week must be cancelled.  Those in jail must be freed.  The police must leave the universities and surroundings and these same must be opened.   The government has paid no attention to these claims before we are all massed here tonight.  Now the Rector of the University, Roche, is asking the Student Union representatives to discuss the reopening of courses.  Nothing is being said about any of the other points which, for us, are the most important.  The Stalinist you saw was undoubtedly for the reopening of courses solution and as a guarantee to the government that the Unions can control the masses, their purpose was to disperse us.

          -- I don’t belong to any union, said Carson.  Unless you count the American Servicemen’s Union.

          --But this has been going on for a week, said Richard.  Why didn’t the Unions get involved before if they wanted to represent us?

          --They were saying that without them we could or would do nothing.  But this has not been the case.

          --Who’s the guy being interviewed?

          --He is Alan Guysmar.  He is speaking for the revolutionaries.

          --That’s our guy, said Carson.

          --At present, he is having a broadcast conversation with another rector, Chalen, who is representing the government.

          --That’s the little voice we hear coming in?

          --Yes.

          --What is Guysmar saying?  asked Dick.

          --Guysmar has said that the revolutionaries do not accept to leave the Latin Quarter and go somewhere to negotiate.  Neither do we permit the CGT or CFDT to negotiate in our name.

          --You’re with the SDS, aren’t you?  asked Richard.

          --The SDS is a student revolutionary group in Germany, Said Gunther.  Not a union.

          --I didn’t mean it as a criticism, said Richard.  What happens now?

          --Now we negotiate, said Gunther.  I will listen and tell you.

In the neighborhood, the sound of a hand drill rat tat tating came through as it de-paved the street.  Background discussions floated in from the nearest barricade.

          --The Rector has offered to lift all sanctions against the students, said Gunther.  But Guysmar has answered that this is only a beginning.  We do not accept only students to be released because what will be the case of the workers and foreigners like yourselves?  The students belong from bourgeois families, and the government does not want to trouble their parents.  If the students are released, then the government will go after the workers.

          --I get it, said Carson.  So what does Guysmar say?

          --He tells the Rector to contact the Minister of the Interior and present our demands to him.

          --Is he going to?

Gunther smiled.

          --He has said he will call back in a few minutes.  We will see.

          --I guess we’d better get back to the barricades, said Carson.

The two Americans took up positions next to the supply depot on the rue Gay Lussac.  Many militants were sitting and smoking, waiting too.  Every now and then a messenger was sent out on reconnaissance towards the police lines.  A transistor cracked on, and a shout went up from the Boulevard Saint Michel.

          --Police?

          --No, said Gunther, the FER.

A large company of Federated Revolutionary young men and women students had marched into the rue Gay Lussac.  Stopped by the occupiers, they broke up into component parts, some of whom walked over to the Gay Lussac fortifications.

          --Boy, we got reinforcements, said Carson.

But the newcomers did not join them.  After some minutes of discussion, one of them broke loose and came over to the two Americans.

          --Il faut disperser, he said shortly. 

          --Oh no, not again, said Carson.

          --Crapule stalinienne, said Richard.

The newcomer broke into a flood of French and took a step towards Richard who was sitting on neatly stacked blocks of paving stones.

          --I think he’s gonna hit you, said Carson.

          --I don’t care, said Richard.  I’ll hit him back.

The newcomer let hand fall on his open palm, striking it repeatedly to emphasize each sentence.  One of the militants on the barricades came over and said something about Americans and let the newcomer, still gesticulating, away

          --You get all kinds of crapules staliniennes, don’t you?  remarked Carson.

The FER moved out of the enclave.  The student who had intercepted the newcomer came back.

          --Everything okay?  he asked.

          --Sure.

          --That was the FER.  They want us to disperse.

          --We gathered that.  Are they crapule staliniennes?

The student smiled.

          --They don’t think so.  They call us gardeners because we are building barricades.

          --What do they want us to do?

          --Go home.

          --You must be kidding!

          --They say we are petty bourgeois and we must wait for the workers to come down in the street.  They say tonight we are just leading everyone to a massacre.

          --Thanks for the encouragement, said Carson.

          --I don’t see anyone forcing anyone to do anything, said Richard. If the workers decide to join us, it won’t be because we all went home.  Are they the guys wanted us to go out to the suburbs before?

          --No, that was the UJCML.

          --Where are they?

          --They went back to the Ecole Normale on the rue d’Ulm.

          --Why don’t they stay and help?

          --They say the Sorbonne is a heap of stone which means nothing to the workers and is not worthy to fight for.  Our position is that it may be a heap of stone to them, but the workers know it is a place they can’t sent their kids to, and if we come out against privileges for the bourgeois, they know we are on their side.

          --Nothing is gonna change if we go home.

          --So the Communist Party and the FER are on the same side?  With the Chinese halfway between us and them because they didn’t exactly go home but went back to the rue d’Ulm?

          --More or less, said the student.  Although none of them would see it quite that way.  In various degrees, they all talk Left and act like Right wing opportunists.  What I came over to tell you was the plan of defense.  We only attack if the police attack first.  We don’t want to provoke them, and there is no possibility that we could beat them in an open fight.  We’re to defend our positions and try to keep them from moving in.

          --Right on.

          --Okay then.

          --Hey, how come you speak such good English?

          --I’m an American, but I’ve been over here a long time.

He walked away.  Richard and Carson sat down again on the pile of stacked stones.

          --It must be an advantage to speak the language like that, remarked Carson.  I wonder what he’ll do if the Army gets him?

          --I wonder if Alex is still around someplace, said Richard.

          --Do you think the Rector ever called back?

A sound like a sky rocket winged in from beyond the barricade, cut short by a clash against metal.

          --I guess he said no, said Dick, jumping up.  Come on, let’s go.

Climbing up on the corner of the barricade, they saw a police line coming down the street in formation.  A tear gas grenade was smoking on top of a 2 CV integrated into the fortification.  Using a crowbar as driver, a student sent it back in the direction of the police.  Covered by the car motor, he stayed crouched on top.

          --God, he’ll be mowed down when the police come, said Carson.

Leaning down, he picked up a paving stone and winged it out at the first cop in the line.

          --Attend, shouted a voice.  Attend qu’ils approchent.

          --Hold it, said Richard.

          --Fuck it, said Carson.  You think that line is going to stop advancing because I threw a stone?

A barrage of stones from behind them rained over their heads and landed on the front line.  White faces under helmets stood out as targets.  Hit from a certain angle, the helmets pried off like bottle caps.  A front liner was hit and was pulled over against the wall by the cops on each side of him.  The line as a whole kept on advancing.  A volley of tear gas grenades crashed into the barricades.  Crying, the militant behind the 2 CV jumped out in front about fifteen meters before the police advance, momentarily halted by their own tear gas blown back by a revolutionary breeze from behind the barricades.  Several students were picking up the unexploded grenades and throwing them back at the police.  This broke the center of the first police line, filled in by reserves from the second.  A steady cover of paving stones and bottles provided cover for the revolutionaries twelve feet out from the barricade.  The student vanguard with plastic shields of garbage can covers advanced in sporadic sallies.

From the rue Saint Jacques, steel against concrete mounted like a ground swell under the explosives.  A bulldozer had been brought down from the direction of the Pantheon, moving the entire barricade forward in a mass.  The defenders joined the militants on the rue Gay Lussac.  Flanking actions advanced along the walls of buildings, salvaging ammunition from the moving mass of the barricade.  The police action was concentrating on the junction of the rues Saint Jacques and Gay Lussac to push the revolutionaries over the barricades and into other police detachments closing off the Latin Quarter.  But the police had reckoned without the inhabitants of the quarter.

          --They can push down the barricades, but they can’t push down the houses.

The two Americans were caught up in the left lateral defense unit nearest to the advancing bulldozer, and surged past it up the street where, at the far end, coming around the corner of the rue Sufflot, a police battalion was waiting for the bulldozer to finish wiping out the barricade so that the police forces could move in.  It had not occurred to them that the revolutionaries would surge back in its wake, using the debris as ammunition.  For ten minutes the police stood and occasionally dropped under an assorted barrage of elements from the broken fortification.  Clearing the way with tear gas, they started moving compactly forward.  The revolutionaries aim steadily improved.  A barrage of flower pots from a second story window dented the police line.  Hundreds of students, workers, foreigners, and high school students had entered the opened doors of the buildings and been welcomed into apartments.  Lacking ammunition, they were often offered what was available.  They moved the battle into guerrilla warfare while the cops stood below in formation.  No orders had been given to search the houses.  The cops kept to the street, kept in formation; the revolutionaries broke through their lines and flooded the dikes, surged past and above the destroyers.  They merged with the inhabitants of the quartier who merged with them.  The two were indissoluble.  Once the police battalions, bulldozers, and tear gas penetrated the defenses, the defenders tactically retreated.  The apartments were safe.  Infrequent police attempts to gain admittance were repulsed.  Private property was still sacred.  No orders had been given to break down the doors.

The Lion-Hearted Richard and Kit Carson had been long since separated.  The circumference of the closed Latin Quarter narrowed as the police moved in one street, around another, trying to trap the slippery revolutionaries.  Richard found himself coming out near the Vth Arrondissement police station, and backtracked before a vista of massed police cars arriving, departing, loading and unloading prisoners of the night. A bulldozer blocked the rue Clothilde, debris dripping from its jaws.  An ambulance clanged and stopped.  The driver got out and began arguing with the cops, who wouldn’t move the bulldozer to let the ambulance pass.  Richard had already seen two students bleeding against the wall where they had been pulled to safety.  He wanted to go over and help the ambulance driver talk to the cops, but what could he do?  He couldn’t even say anything.  If the streets had been clear, he could have diverted the cop and let the ambulance get through.  He was not afraid of getting arrested any more.  So many people were being picked up tonight.  He was exhausted.  As long as he was fighting, he was okay, but stopping for breath had exhausted him.  He swayed and caught himself leaning against the wall. I’ll try to get back, he thought.  But the street he had just taken was blocked.  He remembered Gunther’s house was somewhere near here and thought he’d try to get over there.

It turned out to be easy.  All the buildings down the street were awake and opened.  Even those that were shuttered and shut on top.  In a second story window, a small girl was holding her smaller brother’s hand and looking down in the street.  Richard waved and went into the entrance.  At the top of the stairs, the apartment door was open. A woman in a bathrobe carried coffee into the living room.

          --Hello, Gunther, said Richard.

          --Salut, said Gunther.  Have some coffee?

Bombs?  Rockets?  Grenades?  burst in a near distance.

          --How about this?  said Dick.

He sat on the floor, and Gunther’s wife handed him a cup of coffee.

A lot of students were sitting around.  The walls were lined with posters.  Berlin.  Paris.  Liege.

          --How’s it going?  asked Gunther.

          --They stopped an ambulance.

          --It won’t matter, said Gunther.  They’ll let everyone out.

The French students were talking in low voices.  The apartment was a little like an extension of the street just before the battle had started.  Richard thought he had better go back.

          --Are you coming out with us?  asked Gunther.

          --Sure.

          --About five minutes.

          --Can I make a phone call?

Gunther gestured to the hall.  Richard went back and called June’s number.  A sleepy voice answered.  Richard suddenly found all his strength.

          --You’re asleep!  he exclaimed.  I thought you’d be out there--it’s fantastic.  I’ve never seen anything like it--we’ve been fighting all night.  Didn’t you hear the explosions?

A silence on the other end.  Richard listened to the grenades going off on the boulevard.

          --What time is it?

          --I don’t know.

Silence.

          --It’s five o’clock.

          --Gee, he said.  I thought you’d be out there.

He broke the connection as Gunther and the others filled the entrance.

          --We’re going down the rue Lhomond, said Gunther.  There’s still a barricade standing.

Dawn broke.  A bakery was handing out hot loaves to a group of thirty or forty very young revolutionaries.  Gunther and Richard and their friends began talking to him.  The baker beckoned to Dick and asked him how many?

          --Nous sommes six, he said.

The baker handed him six entire loaves.

          --The barricades fell about half an hour ago, said Gunther.  No wounded and no arrests.  The whole neighborhood opened their doors.

A siren wailed, an ambulance passed, empty, going towards the rue Gay Lussac.  All around them piles of everything--former weapons and ammunition metamorphosed into jetsam piled in corners, strewn like comet tails petered out on the pavement.  Richard looked up at the sky.  The battle was over.

          --Let’s go for a walk through the Quartier, suggested Gunther.

          --Sure, said Richard.

With five new comrades in arms, he retraced the trajectory of the night’s battle.

          --It looks like a disaster area.

          --It was a disaster, said Gunther.  For them.

          --What about the guys who were arrested?  asked Richard.

          --They’ll be let out.

          --Workers and foreigners too?

          --Everyone.

          --So we won.

          --We won.

          --Gee, I didn’t know that.

          --Look at the flics.

Cleanup divisions guarded by--and even manned by--police, were desultorily sweeping and piling up debris on street corners.  But the streets themselves were void of traffic, peopled sparsely by small groups of individuals like themselves, wandering around in an atmosphere of silence.  A stunned wonder floated overhead in the spring sky.  The summer solstice was still a month away.  The flotsam piled high took diverse forms:  a police van abandoned in the center of the street, overturned and half-burnt cars, remnants of barricades, plastic shields, broken chairs, night-sticks, and crowbars wavering in the late dawn’s light were reminiscent of underwater films where casual fish swim in and out the portholes of a once formidable galleon, wrecked in harmless sand.

          --They certainly look pitiful this morning, said Richard, gesturing to the cops who were half-heartedly cleaning up and trying to ignore the shoals of ex-combatants, observers, and early risers.

          --They know they’ve lost, said Gunther.  The orders they received were as contradictory as the conversations we heard between Roche and Guysmar:  yes, no, charge, don’t charge.  They’ve been up all night too.  Now they’re thinking it’s a bad way to make a living.  Nobody loves them this morning.

          --It’s a funny sensation, walking around here.  I’ve never seen the Latin Quarter like this.

They made a long circuit.  From the rue de l’Estrapade across to the rue Lhomond where one of the last barricades had stood, down the rue Lhomond and by the rue Pierre and Marie Curie to the junction of the rue Saint Jacques and Gay Lussac and across the rue Roger Collard, past the impasse cleared of its illogical fortification, and down the Boulevard Saint Michel to the Luxembourg Gardens.  The gates were open, the black trees of the night releafed in green.

          --Let’s get some coffee, said Gunther.

The Wimpys at the corner of the rue Soufflot was still behind locked glass doors.  Beyond it, a small cafe was open, the proprietor himself working the expresso machine.  There they saw the first discussion groups starting up at the small tables or in front of the bar.

          --I’m really part of it, thought Richard, drifting along with the moment, a group with his five comrades.

He drew a deep breath.  Under the scent of the cherry blossoms, the air was infused with a slight odor of the night’s battle, a few fumes of tear gas.  It was the morning of his life.

                                                          The End

         

         

         

 

           

         

         

May '68--Sorbonne

          --So you see, I don’t know.

          --Slowly, slowly.  What is it exactly they want you to do?

          --I just told you, said Richard resentfully.

          --Well, tell me again.  Uncle Max needs time to think.  The last I heard, you were supposed to go out to Nanterre to speak about Resistance Inside the Army, and I had many doubts on that subject.  I’m all in favor of bringing the good word to the students, but I consider it a very secondary priority compared with getting the word out to the GI’s.  And if you get sent to jail, bud, we’ll all really feel the loss.  I don’t want you to get swell-headed or anything--

          --Okay, okay.  That’s exactly what I’m asking you, Max.

          --I don’t know what you’re asking me.  I’m trying to find out.

          --I just told you.  Henri says Nanterre has been closed, and they’re moving the meeting to the Sorbonne.

          --Oh, the Sorbonne!  Well, why didn’t you say so!  I feel much better about the Sorbonne.  The Sorbonne is perfectly okay.  Sure.

          --It is?

          --Look, bud, I’ll give you a short lesson on French history.  Capsule size.  The Sorbonne is one of the oldest universities in Europe.  Along with Bologna, I think.  Bologna’s in Italy.  Both were established sometime in the 12th century.  Shortly afterwards--or at least by the 16th century, says Uncle Max, dismissing 400 years of history with a flicker--the students got--were given, theoretically, but possibly because of their own pressure on the authorities--they were given an independent status in many respects.  Now how this affects you is that the Sorbonne is the one place the police can’t go.  I mean, there is practically a four hundred year precedent.  Whereas Nanterre is a new creation and does not benefit from this tradition.  Maybe it does in theory, but it ain’t the Sorbonne.  At any rate, the cops were certainly out at Nanterre the other day.  Besides, it’s a big sprawling campus and who knows where it begins or ends.  Wide open to police cars.  But the Sorbonne is a building right in the middle of the Latin Quarter, and there has never been any question of the police blundering into it “by mistake.”  Or on purpose.  The inviolability of the Sorbonne is one of those traditions of French politics like not invading a church was in the Middle Ages.  A tacit agreement.  Like where you demonstrate.  The Left demonstrates in the Latin Quarter and around the Bastille and the Republique; the Right on the Champs-Elysées.  At various times in the past, before the last war, for example, the Right got control of the Latin Quarter--national fascist groups calling themselves the Camelots du Roi or Action Francaise, but after the Liberation, the Left students re-established themselves on what had been traditionally their home ground, the Latin Quarter--so named because students in the Middle Ages spoke or at least studied mainly from the Latin texts--and it’s been pretty much that way ever since.  The Right, of course, doesn’t put much emphasis on demonstrations.  Every 14th of July they drag out their armed might and march in front of the reviewing stands along the Champs-Elysées, but that’s about it.  Where was I?

          --You said it was okay if I spoke in the Sorbonne.

          --Sure.  I’m much less worried about you there.  We’ll see if you’re questioned about it the next time you get to the Prefecture to get your carte de séjour  renewed.  When did you say the meeting is?

          --It’s against imperialism.

          --I didn’t say what.  I asked when?

          --Oh, on May 3rd.  I think it’s a Friday.

          --Fine.  I won’t go myself, but it’s okay if you go.

                   §                                    §                                    §

          Richard had pretty much gotten used to the idea that there was nothing doing with Alex, June’s daughter.  He didn’t hold it against Henri, who was French and a revolutionary and a much more impressive character than he considered himself, especially to a young Franco-American girl.  His reaction was to start growing a beard and smoking Cuban cigars.  He didn’t really care as much as all that, but the first thing he asked Henri when he met him at the foot of the statue in the square before the Sorbonne was:

          --Is Alex going to be there?

Then he thought it hadn’t been the right thing to say because Henri answered very shortly that he didn’t know.  Richard wondered if Henri was mad he’d asked about Alex, and they walked down to the Sorbonne without speaking.

As for Henri, he had no idea at all of Richard’s preoccupations and had never been aware of his feelings for Alex.  At no time would it have disturbed him, and particularly not today when he had far more important things to think about.  He was one of the leaders responsible for the SO, the Service d’Ordre or guards of the JCR, the Young Communist Revolutionaries, a Trotskyist youth group composed mainly of high school and university students.  His preoccupations were about rumors of a fascist attack against the Sorbonne that very afternoon.  In fact, he had completely forgotten about Richard and that they had invited him to speak at their meeting on imperialism.  The original meeting for Nanterre on April 29th had been planned with Cohn-Bendit’ March 22nd group.  On April 28th, Cohn-Bendit, a German-Jewish national, had been arrested and menaced with expulsion from France;  he had, however, been let out the same night and a wave of meetings had engulfed Nanterre--in support of Cohn-Bendit, against police interference in student affairs, and against imperialism.  Then the University closed Nanterre completely, and all activity there, including the JCR meeting on imperialism, had been moved to the Sorbonne.  The fascists raided the F-GEL, the student government office, beat up a few isolated students they ran into on the streets, and then announced they were coming into the Sorbonne on May 3rd to stop the anti-imperialist meeting.  All the Left groups had organized a defense squadron and were not waiting in the courtyard of the Sorbonne for the fascists.  So Henri had forgotten about Richard.  If Richard had not called out to him as he was passing in the statue in front of the Sorbonne, he never would have thought of looking for him.

          --Well, come along, he said.  But there may be some trouble.

          He would have liked to explain in more detail, but his English was not up to it, especially when he had other things on his mind.

Richard wondered what the trouble was.  Max had said there wouldn’t be any police, and that was the only thing which would have worried him.  He didn’t want to get kicked out of France.

The courtyard of the Sorbonne was flooded with sun, and pretty French girls were sitting around against walls and pillars trying to get tan.  Guys were putting up posters and selling papers like Revolte and Jeunesse Avant Garde.  A loudspeaker system kept announcing a meeting which he supposed was where he was going.

          --That’s us, said Henri, pointing to two columns of young men lining the stairs going up to the second floor.

 They were listening to someone reading an article.  Henri saw that they were all ready, holding their helmets, some with long sticks at their sides.  He nodded at Volodar, recently out of jail himself after his unsuccessful attempt to blow up American Express.  Volodar was now recognized by all the defense groups as the expert on urban guerrilla.  A few nights ago at Nanterre, he had had a confrontation with one of the Chinese groups.  The Chinese group had wanted to put catapults on the roof and spread oil on the streets so that the police cars would skid.  These tactics had been used with great success at the University of Peking, they said.  In the beginning, the student assembly had been greatly impressed until Volodar had asked where they were planning to get the catapults and the oil.  These practical considerations had been dismissed light-heartedly by the Chinese, but the majority of the students had finally voted for Volodar and the Young Communist Revolutionaries to take charge of defense.  The Chinese had walked out of the meeting and no one had seen them since.  Henri looked around the courtyard, but he didn’t see any Chinese today either.  Typical, he thought.

          --Look, he said to Richard.  Let’s go over with the comrades.

Richard thought that was fine.  He didn’t know why they were all armed for battle, but it looked like a safe place to be.

          --And this agitation is not only against the interests of the majority of students but encourages provocation by the fascists.  As if this were not enough, these same pseudo revolutionaries are now trying to give lessons to the working class movement.  From time to time, they turn up in front of the factories and in centers for immigrant workers to give out leaflets and other propaganda material.  It is up to all of us to unmask these pseudo-revolutionaries because, objectively, they are agents of the Gaullist government and the big capitalist monopolies.

The Young Revolutionary militant stopped reading aloud.

          --What did he say?  asked Richard.

          --He was reading a letter in Humanité.  That is the Communist Party newspaper.

          --I know, said Richard.

          --It is a letter written by George Marchais, the Party secretary, against revolutionary groups.

          --The Communist Party isn’t for the revolution?

          --Hardly, said Henri.

          --So the JCR has nothing to do with the Communist Party?

          --They expelled us.

          --They expelled me too, said Richard.

But Henri had turned away to talk to a very young and very short girl who was telling him something very rapidly.  Richard caught the words fafs

and flics.

          --What about the police?  he asked.

          The small girl looked at him.

          --He’s an American, said Henri.

          --Should I go back again?  she asked.

          --I don’t think so.  Just stick around in case we need you for something else.

The small girl went over and joined the girls sunning themselves, their legs bare under short skirts or jeans rolled up above the knee.

          --What did she say about the police?  asked Richard.

          --She’s an estafette, said Henri.  We had her out to watch for the arrival of the fafs, the fascists.  But they do not seem to be coming.  It seems there is a police blockade on the boulevard, so the fascists turned back.

          --Why is there a police blockade?

Henri shrugged.

          --The police are all over the quarter these days.

Richard looked back at the two armed columns on the stairs.  They were all talking, and one of them was passing that Humanité article around.  Well, if they weren’t disturbed, then he wouldn’t be.  Of course, maybe Esther Fett had not told anyone but Henri about the police blockade.  It looked as if Henri had had the same idea because he started over towards the others.  Richard followed.  He heard Henri telling them what Esther had told him.  He could recognize the words flics and fafs and even some of the others.  His French must be getting better.  Another student arrived and said something quietly to Henri.  The armed revolutionaries all commented loudly and one of them handed the loud speaker to the student who repeated whatever it was to the entire courtyard.  Everyone started shouting.  Richard couldn’t find anyone who looked free to translate.  Henri was in the middle of the courtyard with a small group that seemed to be listening to a redheaded guy who took over.  People began dividing up into groups and sitting down and listening to whoever was explaining something at the moment, then questioning him, or getting up to speak themselves.  It was obviously a discussion of some sort but too complicated for him to follow.  He supposed it all had to do with Esther’s information about the police blockade.  But he didn’t think it could be too serious because the Service d”Ordre of the JCR had split up and joined various other groups.  They still kept their helmets and sticks though.

In the meantime he had lost Henri.  He picked out Esther Fett, getting to her feet with a bunch of the girls who had been sunning themselves before.  He went over to them.  They were all looking towards the entrance.

          --Anyone speak English?  he asked, trying a laugh.

The discussion groups suddenly all flowed into the center of the courtyard.  Some of the young revolutionaries had put on their helmets. Was there going to be a fight?

          --What’s happening?  he asked Esther.

          --The police.

          --Ils ont bloqué les portes.       

          He got that, loud and clear.

          --Will they come in?

They were in.  He could see them blocking the exits.

          --Look, he said to Esther.  I’m a deserter.  An American.  Un déserteur.  Je dois pas--

          --I understand, she said.  Come on.

Henri was lost in the crowd near the entrance to the courtyard.

          --Follow, said Ester Fett and Richard followed.

He followed her into the building, half-running after her around a circular stairwell.  It was deserted except for a tall and well-dressed man, striding towards them, who said something to Esther at once, shaking his head and gesturing angrily towards a closed door.  Esther cut him short and pushed Richard forward.

          --This is an American deserter, she said in French.  You must get him out of here with you before the police get any farther.

          --Is it true the police have entered the courtyard?  he asked.

          --It looks like it, she said.  I didn’t wait to see.  I want to get him out.  Can you take care of him?

          --I’ll try, said the man.  But the Rector has locked all the classrooms without telling any of us.  I couldn’t give my lecture.

          --Get him out a window then, said Esther, turned and disappeared the way they had come.

Richard wondered if he would ever see her again.

          --Come with me, said the Professor in English.

He started down the curved corridor at a half-run.  Richard ran after him.  They certainly run fast, these French people, he thought, but, of course they know where they are going. At the end of the corridor, the Professor pushed open a small door, and they found themselves in a sort of box with a door on each side and one high window on the opposite wall.  The Professor twisted the knobs of each door perfunctorily, one with his right, one with his left hand, and then turned to Richard.

          --Climb up and see what’s out the window, he said.  Here, I’ll make you a stirrup.

The Professor bent over, Richard put his combat boot into the clasped hands and hitched himself up into the window.  He smacked it with the heel of his hand, and it banged open against the outside stone.

          --What do you see?  asked the Professor in a strained voice.

          --Cops, said Richard.  They’re getting out of one, two, three, four, a lot of police vans.

          --Get down, said the Professor.

He opened his hands, and Richard slid down to the floor.

          --We’ll have to think of something else, said the Professor.  Follow me.

Turning quickly, he hurried out of the boxlike room with Richard sprinting along behind.  Back in the curved corridor again and out another door which led into the large stone vestibule void of people, the entire student population having by then erupted into the courtyard, the Professor, with Richard after him, pushed into a small space against the wall.

Everyone was watching the activity in the middle of the courtyard, discussing inflow voices.  They seemed to be surprised.  So was Richard.  A line of police had invaded the courtyard of the Sorbonne, turning it into a gigantic trap.  There was no room for a fight even if you could fight the police unarmed, which seemed to Richard impossible.  The Professor was talking to two of the girls.  Richard looked for Esther, but she was nowhere to be seen.  The three of them, the Professor and the two girls, were looking at him.

          --You see, I will explain, said the Professor quickly to Richard.  The police have decided to let all the girls go and just arrest the boys.  So we thought, the best thing is for you to leave with the girls.

          --The girls?  But how?  They’ll know.

Instinctively he put his hand to his growing beard.

          --Well, these two girls and some others will make a group around you.  You are not very tall--so bend down a little.  But you must go right away, very quickly, so you will be in a crowd--invisible.

The two girls got on either side of Richard and pulled him through the crowd of students.  Boys were already being coerced into groups on either side of the entrance.  Suddenly Richard found himself up against the police.  The students were suddenly blacked out behind a double line of cops in combat uniform with night sticks much longer than the ones the Army MP’s carried.  The two girls shoved him into the group of girls.  The police were trying to line them up preparatory to leaving, but the girls had gotten the word whispered around and kept doubling up around him. The double doors across the open archway were pushed back, and he could see lines of police extending out into the street.

          --Down, whispered one of the girls, and he bent over to her level, still not seeing how he would be able to get through unobserved.  Then they all shoved forward at once as they were herded towards the entrance, and someone let out a shout back inside the courtyard of the Sorbonne.  Richard wondered fleetingly if it was the Professor.  The police at the gate looked back over their heads, and the girls surged out onto the sidewalk, behind the line of police cars now moved up from the back, filtering through them up the rue de la Sorbonne.  Crowds of students stood just beyond the police line.  The girls began to tell them what was going on inside.

          --Get out of the quartier, said one of his compagnons.  There’s going to be trouble.

Richard did not need to be told twice.  He had already been a lot of trouble to everybody, and he didn’t want to land in jail after all their efforts to save him.  He wondered what the hell Max had been talking about, saying the police never came into the Sorbonne.  Anyway, he would try to make it to June’s place.  Before he disappeared into the crowd, all talking with the girls from the courtyard, he looked back down the street.  The male students were filing out under police guard and climbing into the police vans.  Richard swung into a half-running step in the opposite direction.

          At the corner of the rue Soufflot, the newspaper vendor next to Wimpy’s Hamburger Emporium hastily began taking his papers and magazines off the outside rack and pushing them any which way into his wooden shack.  A tear gas grenade exploded fifty feet away, so he threw the last lot across the counter, jumped in the back door, and slammed down the iron curtain.  Dispersed the width and length of the boulevard down to the Sorbonne, students were answering the grenades with stones and odd objects, including a sugar shaker from Wimpys, a work lantern from a building site, and something looking like a bicycle pump.  The tear gas was dissipating in a light breeze.

Richard stood watching until a line of police vans rounded the corner of the rue Cujas down into the rue Soufflot, full speed ahead.  The Fifth Arrondissement police station had blocked off the Place du Pantheon.  In fact, the end of every street seemed to be blocked, so Richard went into Wimpy’s to telephone Max.  No answer.  He wondered if Max was out there somewhere.  When he came up from the telephone booth in the basement, Wimpy had locked its doors.  There were no iron shutters, and so the people inside could see the people outside pressing up against the glass doors, trying to get away from the tear gas fumes the police had left in its wake.  But the glass doors remained locked.  After the police had passed, the waiters opened up to let customers out, but they were not letting anyone in.  Many people just stayed inside and finished their hamburgers.  The waiters refused, however, to take new orders.  Richard waited until the boulevard looked deserted and went out.  No traffic, a few people standing stunned on the sidewalk.  It looked like the aftermath of a battle.

                §                                         §                                § 

                                                                                         

          Henri was one of the first to be evacuated from the Sorbonne into the police van.  Once he had seen that the police were blocking the entrance, he had rejoined the Service d’Ordre and mustered them into a double line facing the police.  Volodar and he had then taken their places in the center of the line.  They had decided not to attempt a riposte which, inside the courtyard, would have amounted to a suicide action.  Since the administration had locked all the lecture rooms, an effective action would have been impossible even if the courtyard had not been jammed with students.  Three militants from other revolutionary groups were also there:  someone from another Trotskyist group, and a Maoist, and Cohn-Bendit from the 22nd of March. Volodar came back and said that all the girls were going to be released and the boys taken to jail. The first line of police then moved forward and split the Service d”Ordre into two groups in order to let the girls through.  Henri saw Richard leave with them and then was pushed forward himself and marshaled out with one of the first groups of men.  A line of police vans, grilled like crab baskets, were waiting at the curb.  The students were being loaded on in groups of twenty.  No identify check.  That would take place at the police station.  The door slammed, and the car set off, siren wailing as they left the Latin Quarter.

          --Where do you think they are taking us?

          --Down to the Prefecture.

          --More likely Beaujon.

Beaujon was a disaffected hospital in the West of Paris, habitually used for parking demonstrators.  Henri had spent some eight hours there when he had been arrested during the anti-Humphrey demos a year earlier.  From the route the police van was taking, it looked like the same thing this time.  One of the students next to the grilled door in the back remarked that if they were being taken to Beaujon, they were the only ones.

          --What did you say?  asked Volodar.

          --The other cars must be taking a different route.  There’s no one following us.

          --All right, said Volodar.  Listen.  There are two of them and twenty of us.  We’ll make a lot of noise as if we’re fighting back here--start the whole van rocking.  Go right on, even when they stop, and one of them will come back here with his club to quiet us down.  We’ll jump him and get out when he opens the back.

          --Do they have guns?

          --They won’t use them.

Fifteen minutes later, an empty police van was abandoned on the street.  There was not a cop or a student in sight.

                   §                                    §                                    §

          --But who is fighting in the quarter?  asked Henri/

          After liberating themselves from the police wagon, he and Volo had gone underground into the nearest metro, emerging in the thick of a battle in the Latin Quarter.  More than a thousand students overflowed into the streets, grouping themselves at crossroads and corners as they approached the police lines.  These did not advance but left a street length of no man’s land between themselves and the students, sporadically throwing tear gas grenades from behind their own front lines but not taking advantage of the cover to push forward and clear out the other end of the street.  The students had made chains to relay paving stones up to their own outposts who were dispersed along the store fronts and, under cover of the porte cochères, catapulted stones at the police.  Every now and then a policeman would fall and be pulled back to be replaced by one of the second line reserves.

          --It’s like knocking over ten pins, said Volodar.  But I wonder who the hell is organizing it.

They walked through the quarter, looking for other Young Revolutionaries.  At the corner of Wimpys and the Boul´ Mich, they ran into a group of comrades who also had broken out of a police van/  They were all very set up, but none of them could figure out who was organizing the defense of the Latin Quarter.  Someone thought the Chinese might have surfaced, but no one recognized any of them.

          --We’d better help them, whoever they are, said Volodar.

For the next two hours, they joined the guerrilla groups against the police.  During a calm moment, Henri asked the student passing him paving stones what group he was in.  He got a laugh.

          --What are you?  asked the student.

          --JCR.

          --Then you must have been locked into the Sorbonne.

          --They arrested us, said Henri.  But we took over the van and broke out.

The student laughed again.

          --Well, while you were all being arrested, he said, some girls came out and told us what was going on.  So most of us thought we’d better get the police out of the quarter.  Now, if you’d all been here, you would have ordered us to avoid provocation and told us not to try and take on the police, and we probably all would have gone home.  But left to our own devises, we just started depaving the streets and throwing the stones at them and look--they can’t move.

          --They are probably waiting for orders.

          --Well, we’re not, said the student.  That’s the advantage of on the spot action.

          --What are you, an anar?  asked Henri.

But just then a tear gas bomb ricocheted out from the police block at the other end of the street, and he never got an answer.

          §                                     §                                    §       

Radio Report from the ORTF:

Last night  seven of the students arrested in the Latin Quarter on Saturday were condemned to suspended prison sentences.  The leaders of the uprising, Jacques Sauvageot and Daniel Cohn-Bendit were detained for interrogation.  They have since been released. SNESUP (Section Nationale de l”Enseignement Superior) and UNEF (Union des Etudiants Francais) have both gone on of strike.  M. Frey, the Police Prefect, has forbidden all demonstrations.  Since then, the police have been trying to stop a number of spontaneous demonstrations in the Latin Quarter and at present are maintaining their forces of order in place.  Despite the interdiction, a demonstration was called by UNEF  and SNESUP in the Latin Quarter for 18:30 this evening.  All day long, thousands of people have been assembling in the streets of Paris, not only throughout the Latin Quarter but also at the Châtelet and other points on the right bank.  Violent encounters with the police have taken place on the rue Saint Jacques, Place Maubert, and the Faculty of Science.  At 18:30, a cortège of 10,000 people left Denfert-Rocherau and engaged in a ferocious battle with the police and the CRS on the rue de Rennes, Boulevard Saint Germain and Place Maubert.  The “enragés” are now invoking this action with pride, as well as identifying themselves as “groupuscules.”  M. Samy Frey has qualified these demonstrations as “spontaneous.” Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the German anarchist, has posed the question: “Is the bourgeoisie beginning to be afraid?”

Earlier in the afternoon, the gauchistes called a meeting at the Science Faculty.  Several thousand students formed a cortège along the quays, up to the Boulevard Saint Michel where the police and CRS blocked the quarter.  They threw incendiary bombs, and the demonstrators were momentarily dispersed by tear gas.  One of them at least, Christian Federation of Revolutionary Students, was wounded.  The demonstrators nonetheless regrouped on the Boulevard Saint Germain and organized what can only be described as a counterattack.  Cars were used to construct barricades; human chains were formed to pass paving stones to the front lines where barricades were erected.  The students seemed to have obtained pith helmets.  On more than one occasion, hand grenades thrown by the police were caught or, at least, picked up by the students and thrown back at the police lines, wounding several men.  This violence has not been approved by all the student groupuscules.  The Union of Communist Students, the UJC (the Union of Young Communists), and the Union of Young Marxist-Leninists, a Maoist group, as well as the Federation of Revolutionary Students, a Trotskyist group, have publicly dissociated themselves from this action.  At 17:30, most of the groups retreated to Denfert-Rochert where, at 19:30, a cortege of over 10,000 students returned to Saint Germain des Pres to continue the battle.  Without exaggeration I can assure you that it was a real battle, picturesque in some ways, with lines of students, like Chinese peasants building a dam, passing paving stones to their guerrilla vanguard.  Many of these students have spent time in Cuba. The question of their activities there is being looked into by competent authorities.  The CRS was forced to retreat several times. The majority of demonstrators dispersed at 22 hours.  Sporadic fighting continued in the quarter until 1 a.m.

According to official estimates, 345 police were wounded.  The renowned youth culture which we had not heard too much of in France up until now seems to be at the heart of these demonstrations.  Today especially, the great majority, I might almost say all of the demonstrators were young, the larger part are manifestly students, although young workers and even some high school students seemed to make up a certain part, under the direction, however, of the University students where the extreme left groups have announced daily demonstrations until their demands are satisfied.

          Jacques Sauvageot, one of the student leaders of UNEF, has presented the following demands on behalf  of the students--the “enraged” students as people are beginning to call them:  1) cancelling of administrative and judiciary sanctions against the students; 2) removal of the police from the Latin Quarter; 3) reopening of the University.  He has been quoted as saying that the students did not want violence, but that past experience has taught them that if they stand still and wait, the initiative passes out of their hands and into the hands of the government.

And now for a summary of late news events:  well, the agitation around the closing of the Sorbonne continues, as most Parisians who have been following events on radio and television are aware. The demonstrations seem to be attracting more and more people, as we shall see shortly.  In fact, the fight is still raging on the rue de Rennes and the rue d’Assas.  But first for some official announcements:

          George Séguy, secretary of the CGT, affirms that the festival of young workers, planned for the tenth of this month, will be maintained.  Séguy has issued a statement of solidarity on the part of these young workers with the students and teachers now contesting the government decision of May 3rd to shut down the Sorbonne.  Mr. Séguy’s statement said, in part:  “This tradition of solidarity is the reason why we have no tolerance for those troublesome and provocative elements who accuse the working class of being dominated by bourgeois ideology and, what is worse, have the pretension to try and teach revolutionary theory to the workers  and divert the working class struggle from its true goals.”

          A statement along similar lines comes from members of the CFDT, reproving the call for violence on the part of the fascist organizations but, at the same time, refusing all solidarity with those groups whose, and I quote: “Incoherent actions compromise the chance for real reform.”  Force Ouvrière has also reproved the irresponsibility of the recent violence.  General de Gaulle has declared in a short statement to the press that “we will not tolerate violence in the streets.”

These unanimous opinions coming from such different sources have discouraged many of the groups hitherto participating in the demonstrations, confined until today to the Latin Quarter.  Thus UNEF was the only organization to sponsor today’s demonstration which began at 18:30 at Denfert Rocherau and has not yet terminated. Over 50,000 demonstrators walked from the Latin Quarter to the Arc de Triomphe and down the right bank before regaining the Latin Quarter.  We will now switch you to our correspondent on the rue d’Assas for a firsthand report of the encounter with the police.  Are you there, Jean?  Jean?

          CRASH!

          --Jean?  Excuse us, ladies and gentlemen, we seem to be tuned into the rue d’Assas, but we haven’t yet been able to locate Jean Dutiller, our ORTF--

          SCREECH!

          --Jean?  BLURP wackety wackety wackety--Hello, Maurice?  Maurice?  Am I tuned in?  Yes, I am tuned in.  All right.  This is Jean Dutiller--

          --Go ahead, Jean Dutiller.  This is Maurice Dupont.  Are you all right?

          --Ha ha.  I think so, Maurice.  No broken bones.  All right, now we have found each other, I will bring you my observations from the rue d’Assas where I am for the moment standing in front of a cafe.  The police threw a hand grenade near our radio equipment just now which is why you didn’t hear us right away, but Pierrot and I have just moved to a more protected area behind the student lines.  Impossible to get near the police, and I don’t want to lose my equipment.  Pierrot tried to talk to someone over there a little while ago, but I guess his hair is too long.  Ha ha.  Anyway, the battle is about equal, and so I think we will stay with the students.

          --Is there much violence over there, Jean?  Could you tell us something about that?

          --Gladly.  Yes, I would say--

          WHEE bob bob bob--

          --Ha ha.  I see I don’t need to add to the sound effects.  The police are using every means in their power to disperse the students, but the students seem to be very well-organized.  I would like to add, for myself, that I accompanied the demonstrators all the way up the Champs-Elysèes to the Etoile before coming on duty earlier today, and I was very impressed by the order and discipline shown by these 50,000 and more people.  No violence there.  Since we are having a minute or so of calm now, I’ll give you a little example:  it is after midnight, and so I’ll risk it.  Ordinarily not many people are still tuned in, but, of course, tonight is exceptional.  Anyway, when we got to the Etoile, there were some very young students who wanted to desecrate the Tomb of the Unknown soldier in a very childish way--I think you know what I mean--

          --Yes, yes, but I don’t think--

          --No, that’s all.  They were told by the vast majority that that was stupid and not the reason for the demonstration. Really very interesting how a crowd of such size disciplines itself.  Of course, most people have gone home now.  In fact, I think the students here would all have gone home long ago--after all, they have been marching for almost ten hours and most of them were out in the streets from the damp dawn, but the CRS began attacking people as they split up into small groups.  These young men and women--ah yes, the feeble sex is well-represented--

          --And not so feeble, I would assume, do you agree, Jean?

          --Oh yes, the girls as well as the boys refuse to run away or stay to be arrested, and so they have organized defense groups, several groups-              WHEE WHEE WHEE crash tinkle tinkle tinkle--

          --There goes the cafe window.  I think we’d better move again.  That’s all for now, Maurice, this is Jean Dutiller signing off for the evening.

          --Thank you, Jean Dutiller.  I think you have given our listeners some idea of the situation, and I will conclude with the latest  developments in today’s--I mean, yesterday’s--or really tomorrow’s events:  a call for a general strike from UNEF, a call issued to all French workers to join the combat.  Good night, ladies and gentlemen, this is Maurice Dupont, signing off for ORTF.