Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  A menacing darkness filled with traps and pitfalls, sinister to approach and more sinister still to penetrate, where those who entered trembled at the thought of those waiting to receive them, and those who waited dreaded those who must come. Invisible warriors crouched at every corner, deadly ambushes hidden in the depths of night. All uncertainty was ended. No other greeting was to be expected than the flash of a musket, no other encounter than the sudden, swift emergence of death; and no one to say whence or when it would come, only that it was certain. In that place designated for combat, the two sides were soon to come cautiously to grips – Government and insurrection, the Garde Nationale and the groups of workers, the bourgeoisie and the rebels. Each was under the same necessity, to end up dead or victorious. There was no other way. So far had things gone, so heavy was the darkness, that the most timid was filled with resolution and the boldest with fear. And for the rest, fury and fervour were equal on either side. On the one hand, to go forward was to die, but no man thought of going back; on the other, to stand fast was to the, but no man thought of flight.

  It was necessary that on the next day the matter should be settled, that one side or the other should triumph, that the insurrection should become revolution or else a damp squib. The Government understood this as did the rebels; the humblest citizen knew it. Hence the feeling of anguish that pervaded the impenetrable darkness of that place where all was to be decided; the heightened tension pervading the silence from which so soon a disastrous clamour was to arise. Only one sound was to be heard, awesome as a death-rattle, sinister as a malediction, the tocsin of Saint-Merry. Nothing could have chilled the blood so surely as did the tolling of that desperate bell crying its lament into the night.

  As often happens, Nature seemed to have matched herself to the undertakings of men. Nothing conflicted with the fateful harmonies of that set stage. No stars showed, and the scene was overhung with heavy cloud. A black sky brooded over the dead streets like a vast pall draping a vast tomb.

  And while a battle that was still political was preparing in that place that had witnessed so many revolutionary acts; while the young people, the secret societies, and the schools, inspired by principle, and the middle-class inspired by self-interest, were advancing upon each other to clash and grapple; while each side hastened and sought the moment of crisis and decision – remote from all this and from the battlefield itself, in the deepest recesses of that ancient Paris of the poor and destitute which lay hidden beneath the brilliance of the rich and fortunate Paris, there was to be heard the sombre growling of the masses: a fearful and awe-inspiring voice in which were mingled the snarl of animals and the words of God, a terror to the faint-hearted and a warning to the wise, coming at once from the depths, like the roaring of a lion, and from the heights like the voice of thunder.

  III

  The extreme edge

  Marius had reached Les Halles. Here everything was even quieter, darker and more immobile than in the surrounding streets, as though the icy peace of the tomb had risen up from the earth to spread beneath the sky. Nevertheless a glare was visible in the darkness, lighting the roofs of the houses separating the Rue de la Chanvrerie from Saint-Eustache. It was the torch that stood burning on the Corinth barricade. Marius, making his way towards it, was guided to the Marché-aux-Poirées, whence he could see the dark mouth of the Rue des Prêcheurs. He entered it, without being seen by the rebel sentry, who was at the far end. Feeling himself to be near his destination, he walked on with extreme caution and thus came to the turning into the short stretch of the Mondétour alleyway which, as we know, Enjolras had kept open as the channel of communication with the outside world. Reaching the corner, he peered into the alleyway past the house on his left.

  Himself hidden in the shadow of the house, he saw, reflected on the cobbles, a faint glow coming from a small flickering light on top of what looked like a crudely constructed wall adjoining the tavern building, of which he could see a part; and, crouched in front of it, a number of men with muskets on their knees. This, within twenty yards of him, was the interior of the stronghold. The houses on his right hid the rest of the tavern, the larger barricade and the flag.

  Marius had now only a step to go; whereupon the unhappy young man seated himself on a kerb-stone, folded his arms and fell to thinking about his father.

  He was brooding on the heroic Colonel Pontmercy, that proud soldier who under the Republic had defended the frontiers of France and under Napoleon had reached the borders of Asia; who had seen Genoa, Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, and Moscow, leaving on all the victorious battlefields of Europe drops of the same blood that flowed in Marius’s veins; whose hair had turned prematurely white in a life of discipline and command; who lived with his sword-belt buckled, epaulettes falling over his breast, cockade blackened by powder, forehead creased by the weight of his helmet, in barrack-rooms, in encampments, under canvas, and in ambulances, and who after twenty years had returned from the wars with a scarred cheek and a smiling countenance, simple, tranquil, admirable, pure-hearted as a child, having done all that he could for France and nothing against her.

  Marius said to himself that now it was his turn, his hour had sounded; that following his father he too must be bold and resolute, braving the musket-balls, baring his breast to the bayonets, shedding his blood seeking out the enemy and finding death if need be; that he too was going to war – but that his battlefield would be the streets, and it was a civil war that he would be fighting. It was civil war that opened like an abyss before him; it was into that abyss that he must fall. And thinking of this he shivered.

  He thought of his father’s sword, which his grandfather had sold to a secondhand dealer and which he himself so sorely regretted. He told himself that it had done well, that chaste and gallant sword, to escape from him and take indignant refuge in oblivion; that it had taken flight because it had good sense and knew what the future held; that it had had a presentiment of this uprising, this war of gutters and paving-stones – volleys fired from loopholesin cellars, stabs in the back. Having known Marengo and Friedland it had no wish to visit the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and having served honourably with the father it was not minded to degrade itself with the son. Marius said to himself that if he had it with him now, if he had retrieved it from his dying parent’s bedside to bear it with him into this dark brawl between Frenchmen and Frenchmen, the sword would have burnt his hand, flaming like a weapon of supernatural wrath. He said to himself that he was glad it was not there, that it was just and right that it had vanished, that the true guardian of his father’s fame had been his grandfather, that it was better that the sword should have been auctioned, sold to a huckster, tossed on the scrap-heap rather than be buried in their country’s flank… And Marius wept bitterly.

  His plight was terrible, but what else could he do? To live without Cosette was impossible. Since she had left him, he could only die. Had he not sworn to her that he would die? She had left him knowing this; therefore his death must be agreeable to her. In any case, it was clear that she no longer loved him, since she had gone off in this fashion without a word of warning, without a letter, although she knew his address. Why go on living, what was there left for him to live for? And then, how could he now draw back, having come so far? To sniff at danger and then run away, peep into the barricade and go off trembling – ‘I’ve had a look and that’s enough. That’s all I want. It’s civil war, and I’m clearing out…!’ To desert the friends who were awaiting him, who perhaps had need of him – a handful against an army! To fail in all things, love, friendship, and his pledged word, making patriotic sentiment the excuse for cowardice! This was unthinkable. If his father’s ghost had seen him retreat he would have thrashed him with the flat of his sword crying, ‘Coward, go forward!’

  Marius had been sitting with his head bowed, while the argument surged this way and that. But suddenly he straightened as a splendid thought occurred to stiffen his resolve. There is a lucidity inspi
red by the nearness of the grave: to be close to death is to see clearly. The course on which he was perhaps on the verge of embarking seemed to him no longer shameful but splendid. The thought of street warfare was by some process of spiritual alchemy suddenly transformed in his mind. The questions he had been asking came crowding back, but they no longer troubled him. He had an answer to each one.

  Why should his father be angry? Were there no circumstances in which rebellion acquired the dignity of a duty? How could it be degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy to play a part in the conflict that had now begun? This was not Montmirail or Champ-aubert but another matter entirely. It was a question, not of sacred soil but of a noble idea. The country might lament, but humanity would applaud. And indeed, would the country lament? France might bleed, but the cause of liberty would prosper, and in the triumph of liberty France would forget her wounds. And furthermore, looking at the matter still more broadly, why should there be any talk of civil war?

  Civil war… What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as ‘foreign war’? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers? Wars could only be defined by their aims. There were no ‘foreign’ or ‘civil’ wars, only wars that were just or unjust. Until the great universal concord could be arrived at, warfare, at least when it was the battle between the urgent future and the dragging past, might be unavoidable. How could such a war be condemned? War is not shameful, nor the sword-thrust a stab in the back, except when it serves to kill right and progress, reason, civilization, and truth. When this is war’s purpose it makes no difference whether it is civil or foreign war – it is a crime. Outside the sacred cause of justice, what grounds has one kind of war for denigrating another? By what right does the sword of Washington despise the pike of Camille Desmoulins? Which is the greater – Leonidas fighting the foreign enemy or Timoleon slaying the tyrant who was his brother? One was a defender, the other a liberator. Are we to condemn every resort to arms that takes place within the citadel, without concerning ourselves with its aim? Then we must condemn Brutus and Coligny. Fighting in the undergrowth or in the streets – why not? That was the warfare of Ambiorix, of Artavelde, of Marnix, of Pelage. But Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artavelde fought against France, Marnix against Spain, and Pelage against the Moors – all fought against foreigners. But monarchy is also a foreigner; oppression and divine right, both are foreigners. Despotism violates the moral frontier just as foreign invasion violates the geographical frontier. To drive out the tyrant or to drive out the English is in either case the reconquest of one’s own territory. The moment comes when protest is not enough; reason must give way to action, and force ensure what thought has conceived. The Encyclopedia enlightens minds, but 10 August sets them in motion. After Aeschylus came Thrasybulus, and after Diderot came Danton. Multitudes are inclined to accept the existing master; their very mass creates apathy. Crowds lapse readily into compliance. They have to be stirred and driven, shaken by the very benefits conferred on them by deliverance, their eyes dazzled by truth, enlightenment forced on them with blows. They need to be a little shocked by their own salvation, and this it is that arouses them. Hence the necessity of fanfares and of wars. Great fighters have to arise, to stir nations with their audacity and shake loose the pitiful humanity buried in the shadow of Divine Right and Caesarian glory, of force and fanaticism, irresponsible power and absolute monarchy – the foolish mass that gazes open-mouthed at those dark and tawdry splendours. Down with the tyrant? But to whom are you referring? To Louis-Philippe? He was no more a tyrant than Louis XVI. Both were what history is accustomed to term ‘good kings’. But principles cannot be fragmented: truth is the whole, and it does not admit of compromises. There can be no concessions, no indulgence for the man who must be removed. Louis XVI was a king by divine right. Louis-Philippe became king because he was a Bourbon: both in some degree represent the seizure of rights, and this world-wide usurpation must be contested. It is necessary, since France is for ever that which is beginning. When the ruler falls in France, he falls everywhere. In brief, what cause can be more just, what war more righteous, than that which restores social truth, restores liberty to its throne, restores their proper sovereignty to all men, displaces the purple from the head of France, reasserts the fullness of reason and equity, eliminates the seeds of antagonism by allowing each man to be himself, abolishes the hindrance to universal concord represented by monarcy and makes all mankind equal before the law? It is wars such as these that build peace. A vast citadel of prejudice, superstition, lies, exactions, abuses, violence and iniquity still looms over the world, enclosed within towers of hatred. It must be overthrown, its monstrous bulk reduced to rubble. To win Austerlitz is glorious; but to seize the Bastille is immense.

  Every man has discovered in himself that the human spirit – and this is the miracle of its complex, ubiquitous unity – has the strange gift of being able to reason almost coldly in the most desperate extremity, so that in desolation and utmost despair, in the travail of our darkest meditation, we may still view our situation with detachment and weigh arguments. Logic enters our state of turmoil and the thread of syllogism runs unbroken through the tempest of our thought. This was Marius’s state of mind.

  Thinking these things, utterly downcast but resolute, still hesitant, and indeed trembling at the thought of what he was about to do, his gaze travelled over the interior of the barricade. The rebels were talking in low voices, not moving, and one could feel the unreal silence which denotes the last stage of expectancy. Above their heads, at a third-floor window, Marius could make out the form of what seemed to be a spectator or a witness, who was listening with a singular attention. It was the door-keeper killed by Le Cabuc. From below, by the light of the torch on the barricade, the figure was only dimly visible. Nothing could have been more eerie, in that flickering, uncertain light, than that head of tangled hair, the livid, motionless, astonished face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, leaning over the street in a posture of intent curiosity. It was as though the man who was dead was contemplating those about to die. A long trail of blood from the head flowed in streaks down the wall as far as the first floor, where it stopped.

  Book Fourteen

  The Greatness of Despair

  I

  The flag – Act One

  STILL NOTHING had happened. The clock of Saint-Merry had struck ten, and Enjolras and Combeferre had seated themselves with their carbines near the narrow breach in the main barricade. They were not talking; both were listening with ears strained to catch the least, most distant sound of marching feet.

  Suddenly the brooding silence was broken by the sound of a gay young voice, seeming to come from the Rue Saint-Denis, raised in an improvised ditty to the tune of ‘Au clair de la lune’, and ending with a cockcrow:

  Save me if I swoon, mates,

  That old man, Bugeaud,

  He’s not on the moon, mates,

  Though he’s pretty slow.

  Cock-tails* on their caps, mates,

  Uniforms of blue,

  The troops are in our laps, mates –

  Cock-a-doodle-do!

  ‘It’s Gavroche,’ said Enjolras, and he and Combeferre shook hands.

  Running footsteps echoed down the empty street, a figure nimble as a circus clown scrambled over the omnibus and Gavroche, very much out of breath, leapt down from the barricade.

  ‘They’re coming! Where’s my musket?’

  An electric stir ran though the defenders and there was a sound of hands snatching up weapons.

  ‘Would you like my carbine?’ Enjolras asked.

  ‘No, I want the big musket,’ said Gavroche. He meant Javert’s musket.

  Two of the sentries had fallen back and re-entered the barricade almost at the same moment as Gavroche. They were the ones who had been posted at the end of the street and in the Petite-Truanderie. The sentry in the Rue des Prêcheurs was still at his post, which indicated that so far nothing was approaching from the direction of the bridges and the m
arkets. The Rue de la Chanvrerie, of which only a short stretch was dimly visible in the light falling on the flag, looked to the defenders like a cavernous doorway opening into the mist.

  Every man took up his action station. Forty-three defenders, among them Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and Gavroche, knelt behind the main barricade with muskets and carbines thrust through gaps between the paving-stones, alert and ready to fire. Six others, commanded by Feuilly, waited with loaded muskets at the windows on the two upper floors of the tavern.

  A short time passed and then the tramp of marching feet, heavy, measured, and numerous, was clearly to be heard from the direction of Saint-Leu. The sound, faint at first but growing in volume, drew steadily nearer, approaching without a pause, with a calm, inexorable rhythm. Nothing else was to be heard; the mingled silence and sound recalled the entrance of the statue of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni; but that stony tread conveyed an impression of vastness, a suggestion not only of an army on the move but also of something spectral, the march of an unseen Legion. It drew nearer and nearer still, and then stopped. It was as though one could hear the breathing of many men at the end of the street. But still nothing was to be seen, except, in the depths of the murky darkness, a multitude of metallic gleams, needle-thin, scarcely perceptible and constantly in motion, like the phosphorescent threads that quiver beneath our eyelids in the first mists of sleep. They were bayonets and musket-barrels faintly illumined by the distant light of the torch.

  There was a pause, as though both sides were waiting. Suddenly a voice called out of the darkness, the more awesome because no speaker was to be seen, so that it sounded like the voice of the darkness itself:

  ‘Who’s there?’