The Cannon in Victor Hugo's 1793

Near the beginning of Victor Hugo’s epic about the French Revolution, Quatrevingt-Treize, a ship sails to Bretagne, conveying the royalists’ last hope, Marquis de Lantenac, who will lead the uprising of peasants against the French revolutionary army in the royalist stronghold of the Vendée. During the ship’s passage across the Channel, a mooring cable fixing a cannon down to the floor of the between-decks snaps. A literal loose cannon: unmoored on a ship that tosses and pitches, it careens unpredictably back and forth, destroying everything in its path. (Hence the English expression “loose cannon”, to describe someone unpredictable and potentially harmful.) The description of a cannon unleashed must be one of the best examples of vivid writing that I have ever come across.

Un canon qui casse son amarre devient brusquement on ne sait quelle bête surnaturelle. C’est une machine qui se transforme en un monstre. Cette masse court sur ses roues, a des mouvements de bille de billard, penche avec le roulis, plonge avec le tangage, va, vient, s’arrête, paraît méditer, reprend sa course, traverse comme une flèche le navire d’un bout à l’autre, pirouette, se dérobe, s’évade, se cabre, heurte, ébrèche, tue, extermine. C’est un bélier qui bat à sa fantaisie une muraille. Ajoutez ceci : le bélier est de fer, la muraille est de bois. C’est l’entrée en liberté de la matière ; on dirait que cet esclave éternel se venge ; il semble que la méchanceté qui est dans ce que nous appelons les objets inertes sorte et éclate tout à coup ; cela a l’air de perdre patience et de prendre une étrange revanche obscure ; rien de plus inexorable que la colère de l’inanimé. Ce bloc forcené a les sauts de la panthère, la lourdeur de l’éléphant, l’agilité de la souris, l’opiniâtreté de la cognée, l’inattendu de la houle, les coups de coude de l’éclair, la surdité du sépulcre. Il pèse dix mille, et il ricoche comme une balle d’enfant. Ce sont des tournoiements brusquement coupés d’angles droits. Et que faire ? Comment en venir à bout ? Une tempête cesse, un cyclone passe, un vent tombe, un mât brisé se remplace, une voie d’eau se bouche, un incendie s’éteint ; mais que devenir avec cette énorme brute de bronze ? De quelle façon s’y prendre ? Vous pouvez raisonner un dogue, étonner un taureau, fasciner un boa, effrayer un tigre, attendrir un lion ; aucune ressource avec ce monstre, un canon lâché. Vous ne pouvez pas le tuer, il est mort ; et en même temps, il vit. Il vit d’une vie sinistre qui lui vient de l’infini. Il a sous lui son plancher qui le balance. Il est remué par le navire, qui est remué par la mer, qui est remuée par le vent. Cet exterminateur est un jouet. Le navire, les flots, les souffles, tout cela le tient ; de là sa vie affreuse. Que faire à cet engrenage ? Comment entraver ce mécanisme monstrueux du naufrage ? Comment prévoir ces allées et venues, ces retours, ces arrêts, ces chocs ? Chacun de ces coups au bordage peut défoncer le navire. Comment deviner ces affreux méandres ? On a affaire à un projectile qui se ravise, qui a l’air d’avoir des idées, et qui change à chaque instant de direction. Comment arrêter ce qu’il faut éviter ? L’horrible canon se démène, avance, recule, frappe à droite, frappe à gauche, fuit, passe, déconcerte l’attente, broie l’obstacle, écrase les hommes comme des mouches. Toute la terreur de la situation est dans la mobilité du plancher. Comment combattre un plan incliné qui a des caprices ? Le navire a, pour ainsi dire, dans le ventre la foudre prisonnière qui cherche à s’échapper ; quelque chose comme un tonnerre roulant sur un tremblement de terre (Quatrevingt-Treize, 85-6, LGF 2001).

The passage falls into two neat halves. The first is immediately arresting. Metaphors and similes abound: the loose cannon is like a billiards ball; when it stops on a dime, it is like a person pausing reflectively; like a dancer when it turns around; like an arrow as it darts across the cabin; like a horse, rearing; like a ram. Finally, it is something more daemonic, a diabolical being come to life, hell-bent on revenge :

C’est l’entrée en liberté de la matière ; on dirait que cet esclave éternel se venge ; il semble que la méchanceté qui est dans ce que nous appelons les objets inertes sorte et éclate tout à coup ; cela a l’air de perdre patience et de prendre une étrange revanche obscure ; rien de plus inexorable que la colère de l’inanimé.

« it is liberation of matter : one might say that this eternal slave avenges itself. It seems that the cruelty which exists in what we call inert objects leaps and bursts out all of a sudden ; it seems to lose patience, and to take a strange, obscure revenge. There is nothing more inexorable than the anger of the inanimate. » (tr. PGBL, as are all that follow)

Then more comparisons come, in rapid-fire succession, each clause contradicted by the one preceding.

Rien de plus inexorable que la colère de l’inanimé. Ce bloc forcené a les sauts de la panthère, la lourdeur de l’éléphant, l’agilité de la souris, l’opiniâtreté de la cognée, l’inattendu de la houle, les coups de coude de l’éclair, la surdité du sépulcre. Il pèse dix mille, et il ricoche comme une balle d’enfant.

There is nothing more inexorable than the anger of the inanimate. This fanatic block leaps like a panther, but weighs like an elephant; possesses the agility of a mouse, and the stubborn determination of a hatchet; the unexpectedness of an ocean surge, the flashes of a thunderbolt; the silence of a tomb. It weighs 10,000 pounds, and it ricochets like a child’s toy ball.

The alliteration in the final comparison is effective, and cannot be captured in a translation, “the flashes of a thunderbolt; the silence of a tomb”, from the French “les coups de coude de l’éclair, la surdité du sépulcre”; the voiceless velar plosives /k/ convey, sonically, “the blows of the thunderbolt”; and the doubled sibilants /s/ convey the mysterious silence of the tomb: “la surdité du sépulcre”.

Now, to commence the second half of this description, the narrator focuses on the human actor involved. “What is he to do?” (“et que faire?”), the narrator asks, as if throwing his hands up in the air, as if, suddenly, before the enormity of the task of stopping the loose cannon in its tracks—and of describing such a phenomenon—he is at a loss for words. But, as with the cannon, so with the narrator: he pauses for just one moment before unleashing a tirade of comparisons, weaving between the animate and animate, living and the dead, as he struggles to describe what he sees. First implicit comparisons of the cannon with natural forces; the cannon can't be stopped, but storms and hurricanes come to a natural end:

Comment en venir à bout ? Une tempête cesse, un cyclone passe, un vent tombe, un mât brisé se remplace, une voie d’eau se bouche, un incendie s’éteint ;

How do you arrive at the end?

How to reach the end of this? A storms ceases, a cyclone passes; the wind falls, a broken mast is replaced; a torrent of water gets blocked, a fire gets exstinguished.

The cannon can't be reasoned with, but even wild animals can be soothed and tamed:

De quelle façon s’y prendre ? Vous pouvez raisonner un dogue, étonner un taureau, fasciner un boa, effrayer un tigre, attendrir un lion ; aucune ressource avec ce monstre, un canon lâché.

How do you tackle this? You can reason with a mastiff, stun a bull, entrance a boa, startle a tiger, mollify a lion. But there is no means or contrivance to serve against this monster, a loose cannon.

But the cannon does not act alone. Now Hugo reveals to us the entire chain of causation:

Il vit d’une vie sinistre qui lui vient de l’infini. Il a sous lui son plancher qui le balance. Il est remué par le navire, qui est remué par la mer, qui est remuée par le vent.

The cannon lives a diabolical life that originates in the infinite. It has, beneath it, the floor, which tosses it back and forth. The floor is stirred up by the ship, which is stirred up by the sea, which is stirred up by the wind.

The repetition of the verb “rémuer” is necessary. The identity of verb across the clauses (“stirred up by the ship…stirred up by the sea…stirred up by the wind”) embodies the direct correspondences: sea-ship-floor-cannon. As one goes, so go the rest. Hugo will later call this chain of causation an “engrenage”, a “gear-works.”

So it turns out that this sprightly 5-ton killing machine is a plaything of forces larger than itself:

Cet exterminateur est un jouet. Le navire, les flots, les souffles, tout cela le tient ; de là sa vie affreuse.

This killing machine is a plaything. The ship, the sea, the wind, these contain it in their grasp; these stand at the origins of its frightful existence.

But the passage stands in direct contradiction with the agency given to the cannon earlier on: “one might say,” the narrator had suggested, “that this eternal slave avenges itself”; there, the cannon felt anger, and acted on it: “it seems to lose patience, and to take a strange, obscure revenge.” So which is it? Is the cannon a dumb brute, stirred by forces beyond its control? Or does it have agency, exemplified in the revenge taken on the humans that try to tie it down?

The contradiction strikes at the heart of the novel’s meaning. We’ll come back to that.  For now, the unpredictable machine’s danger to ship and life is spelled out; and this section, the second half, is punctuated by nine questions, essentially variations on the question that commenced it, the initial “que faire?”(“what to do?”). All of this makes clear a human being’s helplessness before the juggernaut.

1. Comment en venir à bout ? “How do we arrive at the end?”

2. Mais que devenir avec cette énorme brute de bronze ? “What will happen with this enormous bronze brute?”

3. De quelle façon s’y prendre ? “How to tackle it?”

4. Que faire à cet engrenage ?  “What to do to this gear-works?”

5. Comment entraver ce mécanisme monstrueux du naufrage? "How to obstruct this monstruous mechanism of shiprweck?"

6. Comment prévoir ces allées et venues, ces retours, ces arrêts, ces chocs ? “How to foresee these comings and goings, these rebounds, sudden stops, and blows?”

7. Comment deviner ces affreux méandres ? “How to guess at its horrible wanderings?”

8. Comment arrêter ce qu’il faut éviter ? “How to stop what one has to avoid?”

9. Comment combattre un plan incliné qui a des caprices ? “How to fight against an inclined plan that has its caprices?”

To conclude. This extended description—in ancient rhetoric it is called enargeia, a description that "takes you there"—is not a writer’s caprice. Its connection to the novel as a whole is not far to seek. Inexorable forces—fate or chance—move events, move the human actors in the work, and conspire to bring about the unlikely reunions and coincidences that form the novel’s striking conclusion. At the same time, those human actors are responsible for the immense destruction and loss to human life occasioned during the Revolution, of which the guerilla warfare in the Vendée stands as one horrible example. The pattern is Aeschylean : human beings are subject to forces beyond their control—for Aeschylus that was ancestral guilt—but they are in no way absolved from responsibility for their actions.

The references to tragedy and epic in the work indicate Hugo’s Greco-Roman influences (I count at least four references to Greek tragedy, of which two to Aeschylus; and two direct refrences to Greek epic). They point to the novel’s tragic/epic design. The cannon episode stands as one example of that design at work.