Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Victor Hugo

  All bowed their heads with a gloomy air.

  Strange contradictions of the human heart in its most sublime moments! Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He remembered the mothers of others, and he forgot his own. He was going to be killed. He was “selfish.”

  Marius, fasting, feverish, successively driven from every hope, stranded upon grief, most dismal of shipwrecks, saturated with violent emotions and feeling the end approach, was sinking deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always precedes the fatal hour when voluntarily accepted.

  Still this moved him. There was one point in this scene which pierced through to him, and which woke him. He had now but one idea, to die, and he would not be diverted from it; but he thought, in his funereal somnambulism, that while destroying oneself it is not forbidden to save another.

  He raised his voice:

  “Enjolras and Combeferre are right,” said he; “no useless sacrifice. I add my voice to theirs, and we must hasten. Combeferre has given the criteria. There are among you some who have families, mothers, sisters, wives, children. Let those leave the ranks.”

  Nobody stirred.

  “Married men and supporters of families, out of the ranks!” repeated Marius.

  His authority was great. Enjolras was indeed the chief of the barricade, but Marius was its saviour.

  “I order it,” cried Enjolras.

  “I beseech you,” said Marius.

  Then, roused by the words of Combeferre, shaken by the order of Enjolras, moved by the prayer of Marius, those heroic men began to inform against each other. “That is true,” said a young man to a middle-aged man. “You are the father of a family. Go away.” “It is you rather,” answered the man, “you have two sisters whom you support.” And an unparalleled conflict broke out. It was as to which should not allow himself to be laid at the door of the tomb.

  “Make haste,” said Courfeyrac, “in a quarter of an hour it will be too late.”

  “Citizens,” continued Enjolras, “this is the republic, and universal suffrage reigns. Designate yourselves those who ought to go.”

  They obeyed. In a few minutes five were unanimously designated and left the ranks.

  “There are five!” exclaimed Marius.

  There were only four uniforms.

  “Well,” resumed the five, “one must stay.”

  And it was who should stay, and who should find reasons why the others should not stay. The generous quarrel recommenced.

  “You, you have a wife who loves you.” “As for you, you have your old mother.” “You have neither father nor mother, what will become of your three little brothers?” “You are the father of five children.” “You have a right to live, you are seventeen, it is too soon.”

  These grand revolutionary barricades were rendezvous of heroisms. The improbable there was natural. These men were not astonished at each other.

  “Be quick,” repeated Courfeyrac.

  Somebody cried out from the group, to Marius:

  “Designate yourself, which must stay.”

  “Yes,” said the five, “choose. We will obey you.”

  Marius now believed no emotion possible. Still at this idea: to select a man for death, all his blood flowed back towards his heart. He would have turned pale if he could have been paler.

  He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him, and each, his eye full of that grand flame which we see in the depth of history over the Ther mopylæs, cried to him:

  “Me! me! me!”

  And Marius, in a stupor, counted them; there were still five! Then his eyes fell upon the four uniforms.

  At this moment a fifth uniform dropped, as if from heaven, upon the four others.

  The fifth man was saved.

  Marius raised his eyes and saw M. Fauchelevent.

  Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade.

  Whether by information obtained, or by instinct, or by chance, he came by the little Rue Mondétour. Thanks to his National Guard dress, he had passed easily.

  The sentry placed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondétour, had not given the signal of alarm for a single National Guard. He permitted him to get into the street, saying to himself: “he is a reinforcement, probably, and at the very worst a prisoner.” The moment was too serious for the sentinel to be diverted from his duty and his post of observation.

  At the moment Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, nobody had noticed him, all eyes being fixed upon the five chosen ones and upon the four uniforms. Jean Valjean, himself, saw and understood, and silently, he stripped off his coat, and threw it upon the pile with the others.

  The commotion was indescribable.

  “Who is this man?” asked Bossuet.

  “He is,” answered Combeferre, “a man who saves others.”

  Marius added in a grave voice:

  “I know him.”

  This assurance was enough for all.

  Enjolras turned towards Jean Valjean:

  “Citizen, you are welcome.”

  And he added:

  “You know that we are going to die.”

  Jean Valjean, without answering, helped the insurgent whom he saved to put on his uniform.

  4 (5)

  WHAT HORIZON IS VISIBLE FROM THE TOP OF THE BARRICADE

  ENJOLRAS WAS STANDING on the paving-stone steps, his elbow upon the muzzle of his carbine. He was thinking; he started, as at the passing of a gust; places where death is have such tripodal effects. There came from his eyes, full of the interior sight, a kind of stifled fire. Suddenly he raised his head, his fair hair waved backwards like that of the angel upon his sombre car of stars, it was the mane of a startled lion flaming with a halo, and Enjolras exclaimed:

  “Citizens, do you picture to yourselves the future? The streets of the cities flooded with light, green branches upon the thresholds, the nations sisters, men just, the old men blessing the children, the past loving the present, thinkers in full liberty, believers in full equality, for religion the heavens; the priesthood of every believer, human conscience become the altar, no more hatred, the fraternity of the workshop and the school, for reward and for penalty notoriety, to all, labour, for all, law, over all, peace, no more bloodshed, no more war, mothers happy! To subdue matter is the first step; to realise the ideal is the second. We are tending towards the union of the peoples; we are tending towards the unity of man. No more fictions; no more parasites. The real governed by the true, such is the aim. Civilisation will hold its courts on the summit of Europe, and later at the centre of the continents, in a grand parliament of intelligence. Citizens, whatever may happen to-day, through our defeat as well as through our victory, we are going to effect a revolution. Just as conflagrations light up the whole city, revolutions light up the whole human race. And what revolution shall we effect? I have just said, the revolution of the True. From the political point of view, there is but one single principle: the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two or several of these sovereignties associate the state begins. But in this association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty gives up a certain portion of itself to form the common right. That portion is the same for all. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is Equality. The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all radiating upon the right of each. This protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these aggregated sovereignties is called Society. This intersection being a junction, this point is a knot. Hence what is called the social tie. Some say social contract; which is the same thing, the word contract being etymologically formed with the idea of tie. Let us understand each other in regard to equality; for, if liberty is the summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not all vegetation on a level, a society of big spears of grass and little oaks; a neighbourhood of jealousies emasculating each other; it is, civilly, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religious
ly, all consciences having equal rights. Equality has an organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, we must begin by that. The primary school obligatory upon all the higher school offered to all, such is the law. From the identical school springs equal society. Yes, instruction! Light! Light! all comes from light, and all returns to it. Citizens, the nineteenth century is grand, but the twentieth century will be happy. Then there will be nothing more like old history. Men will no longer have to fear, as now, a conquest, an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations with the armed hand, an interruption of civilisation depending on a marriage of kings, a birth in the hereditary tyrannies, a partition of the peoples by a Congress, a dismemberment by the downfall of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting head to head, like two goats of darkness, upon the bridge of the infinite; they will no longer have to fear famine, speculation, prostitution from distress, misery from lack of work, and the scaffold, and the sword, and the battle, and all the brigandages of chance in the forest of events. We might almost say: there will be no more events. Men will be happy. The human race will fulfil its law as the terrestrial globe fulfils its; harmony will be re-established between the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate about the truth like the star about the light. Friends, the hour in which we live, and in which I speak to you, is a gloomy hour, but of such is the terrible price of the future. A revolution is a toll-gate. Oh! the human race shall be delivered, uplifted, and consoled! We affirm it on this barricade. Whence shall arise the shout of love, if it be not from the summit of sacrifice? 0 my brothers, here is the junction between those who think and those who suffer; this barricade is made neither of paving-stones, nor of timbers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Misery here encounters the ideal. Here day embraces night, and says: I will die with thee and thou shalt be born again with me. From the pressure of all desolations faith gushes forth. Sufferings bring their agony here, and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are to mingle and compose our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a grave illuminated by the dawn.”

  Enjolras broke off rather than ceased, his lips moved noiselessly, as if he were continuing to speak to himself, and they looked at him with attention, endeavouring still to hear. There was no applause; but they whispered for a long time. Speech being breath, the rustling of intellects resembles the rustling of leaves.

  5 (6)

  MARIUS HAGGARD, JAVERT LACONIC

  THE FIVE MEN designated went out of the barricade by the little Rue Mondetour; they resembled National Guards perfectly; one of them went away weeping. Before starting, they embraced those who remained.

  When the five men sent away into life had gone, Enjolras thought of the one condemned to death. He went into the basement room. Javert, tied to the pillar, was thinking.

  “Do you need anything?” Enjolras asked him.

  Javert answered:

  “When shall you kill me?”

  “Wait. We need all our cartridges at present.”

  “Then, give me a drink,” said Javert.

  Enjolras presented him with a glass of water himself, and, as Javert was bound, he helped him to drink.

  “Is that all?” resumed Enjolras.

  “I am uncomfortable at this post,” answered Javert. “It was not affectionate to leave me to pass the night here. Tie me as you please, but you can surely lay me on a table.”

  There was, it will be remembered, at the back of the room, a long wide table, upon which they had cast balls and made cartridges. All the cartridges being made and all the powder used up, this table was free.

  At Enjolras’ order, four insurgents untied Javert from the post. While they were untying him, a fifth held a bayonet to his breast. They left his hands tied behind his back, they put a small yet strong whipcord about his feet, which permitted him to take fifteen-inch steps like those who are mounting the scaffold, and they made him walk to the table at the back of the room, on which they extended him, tightly bound by the middle of his body.

  For greater security, by means of a rope fixed to his neck, they added to the system of bonds which rendered all escape impossible, that species of ligature, called in the prisons a martingale, which, starting from the back of the neck, divides over the stomach, and is fastened to the hands after passing between the legs.

  While they were binding Javert, a man, on the threshold of the door, gazed at him with singular attention. The shade which this man produced made Javert turn his head. He raised his eyes and recognised Jean Valjean. He did not even start, he haughtily dropped his eyelids, and merely said: “It is very natural.”

  6 (7)

  THE SITUATION GROWS SERIOUS

  IT WAS GROWING light rapidly. But not a window was opened, not a door stood ajar; it was the dawn, not the hour of awakening. The extremity of the Rue de la Chanvrerie opposite the barricade had been evacuated by the troops, as we have said; it seemed free, and lay open for wayfarers with an ominous tranquillity. The Rue Saint Denis was as silent as the avenue of the Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being at the corners, which were whitening in a reflection of the sun. Nothing is so dismal as this brightness of deserted streets.

  They saw nothing, but they heard. A mysterious movement was taking place at some distance. It was evident that the critical moment was at hand. As in the evening the sentries were driven in; but this time all.

  The barricade was stronger than at the time of the first attack. Since the departure of the five, it had been raised still higher.

  On the report of the sentry who had been observing the region of the markets, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise from the rear, formed an important resolution. He had barricaded the little passage of the Rue Mondétour, which till then had been open. For this purpose they unpaved the length of a few more houses. In this way, the barricade, walled in upon three streets, in front upon the Rue de la Chanvrerie, at the left upon the Rue du Cygne and la Petite Truanderie, at the right upon the Rue Mondétour, was really almost impregnable; it is true that they were fatally shut in. It had three fronts, but no longer an outlet. “A fortress, but mousetrap,” said Courfeyrac with a laugh.

  The silence was now so profound on the side from which the attack must come, that Enjolras made each man resume his post for combat.

  A ration of brandy was distributed to all.

  As soon as Enjolras had taken his double-barrelled carbine, and placed himself on a kind of battlement which he had reserved, all were silent. A little dry snapping sound was heard confusedly along the wall of paving-stones. They were cocking their muskets.

  Moreover, their bearing was firmer and more confident than ever; excess of sacrifice is a support; they had hope no longer, but they had despair. Despair, that ultimate weapon, which sometimes gives victory; Virgil has said so. Supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions.

  They had not long to wait. Activity distinctly recommenced in the direction Saint Leu, but it did not resemble the movement of the first attack. A rattle of chains, the menacing jolt of a mass, a clicking of brass bounding over the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar, announced that an ominous body of iron was approaching. There was a shudder in the midst of those peaceful old streets, cut through and built up for the fruitful circulation of interests and ideas, and which were not made for the monstrous rumbling of the wheels of war.

  The stare of all the combatants upon the extremity of the street became wild.

  An artillery piece appeared.

  The gunners pushed the cannon forward; it was all ready to be loaded; the forewheels had been removed; two supported the carriage, four were at the wheels, others followed with the caisson. The smoke of the burning match was seen.

  “Fire!” cried Enjolras.

  The whole barricade flashed fire, the explosion was terrible; an avalanche of smoke covered and effaced the gun and the men; in a few seconds the cloud dissipated, and the cannon and the men reappea
red; those in charge of the piece placed it in position in front of the barricade, slowly, correctly, and without haste. Not a man had been touched. Then the gunner, bearing his weight on the breech, to elevate the range, began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer adjusting a telescope.

  “Bravo for the gunners!” cried Bossuet.

  And the whole barricade clapped hands.

  A moment afterwards, placed squarely in the very middle of the street, astride of the gutter, the gun was in battery. A formidable mouth was opened upon the barricade.

  “Come, be lively!” said Courfeyrac. “There is the brute. After the fillip, the knock-down. The army stretches out its big paw to us. The barricade is going to be seriously shaken. The musketry feels, the artillery takes.”

  “Reload arms,” said Enjolras.

  How was the facing of the barricade going to behave under fire? would the shot make a breach? That was the question. While the insurgents were reloading their muskets, the gunners loaded the cannon.

  There was intense anxiety in the redoubt.