Kabanata Kabanata 288 · THE EXTREME EDGE

Marius had reached the Halles.

There everything was still calmer, more obscure and more motionless

than in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial

peace of the sepulchre had sprung forth from the earth and had spread

over the heavens.

Nevertheless, a red glow brought out against this black background the

lofty roofs of the houses which barred the Rue de la Chanvrerie on the

Saint-Eustache side. It was the reflection of the torch which was

burning in the Corinthe barricade. Marius directed his steps towards

that red light. It had drawn him to the Marché-aux-Poirées, and he

caught a glimpse of the dark mouth of the Rue des Prêcheurs. He entered

it. The insurgents’ sentinel, who was guarding the other end, did not

see him. He felt that he was very close to that which he had come in

search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow

of that short section of the Rue Mondétour which was, as the reader

will remember, the only communication which Enjolras had preserved with

the outside world. At the corner of the last house, on his left, he

thrust his head forward, and looked into the fragment of the Rue

Mondétour.

A little beyond the angle of the lane and the Rue de la Chanvrerie

which cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed,

he perceived some light on the pavement, a bit of the wine-shop, and

beyond, a flickering lamp within a sort of shapeless wall, and men

crouching down with guns on their knees. All this was ten fathoms

distant from him. It was the interior of the barricade.

The houses which bordered the lane on the right concealed the rest of

the wine-shop, the large barricade, and the flag from him.

Marius had but a step more to take.

Then the unhappy young man seated himself on a post, folded his arms,

and fell to thinking about his father.

He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy, who had been so proud a

soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and

had touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had beheld Genoa,

Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, who

had left on all the victorious battle-fields of Europe drops of that

same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray

before his time in discipline and command, who had lived with his

sword-belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade

blackened with powder, his brow furrowed with his helmet, in barracks,

in camp, in the bivouac, in ambulances, and who, at the expiration of

twenty years, had returned from the great wars with a scarred cheek, a

smiling countenance, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done

everything for France and nothing against her.

He said to himself that his day had also come now, that his hour had

struck, that following his father, he too was about to show himself

brave, intrepid, bold, to run to meet the bullets, to offer his breast

to bayonets, to shed his blood, to seek the enemy, to seek death, that

he was about to wage war in his turn and descend to the field of

battle, and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was

the street, and that the war in which he was about to engage was civil

war!

He beheld civil war laid open like a gulf before him, and into this he

was about to fall. Then he shuddered.

He thought of his father’s sword, which his grandfather had sold to a

second-hand dealer, and which he had so mournfully regretted. He said

to himself that that chaste and valiant sword had done well to escape

from him, and to depart in wrath into the gloom; that if it had thus

fled, it was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the

future; that it had had a presentiment of this rebellion, the war of

the gutters, the war of the pavements, fusillades through

cellar-windows, blows given and received in the rear; it was because,

coming from Marengo and Friedland, it did not wish to go to the Rue de

la Chanvrerie; it was because, after what it had done with the father,

it did not wish to do this for the son! He told himself that if that

sword were there, if after taking possession of it at his father’s

pillow, he had dared to take it and carry it off for this combat of

darkness between Frenchmen in the streets, it would assuredly have

scorched his hands and burst out aflame before his eyes, like the sword

of the angel! He told himself that it was fortunate that it was not

there and that it had disappeared, that that was well, that that was

just, that his grandfather had been the true guardian of his father’s

glory, and that it was far better that the colonel’s sword should be

sold at auction, sold to the old-clothes man, thrown among the old

junk, than that it should, to-day, wound the side of his country.

And then he fell to weeping bitterly.

This was horrible. But what was he to do? Live without Cosette he could

not. Since she was gone, he must needs die. Had he not given her his

word of honor that he would die? She had gone knowing that; this meant

that it pleased her that Marius should die. And then, it was clear that

she no longer loved him, since she had departed thus without warning,

without a word, without a letter, although she knew his address! What

was the good of living, and why should he live now? And then, what!

should he retreat after going so far? should he flee from danger after

having approached it? should he slip away after having come and peeped

into the barricade? slip away, all in a tremble, saying: “After all, I

have had enough of it as it is. I have seen it, that suffices, this is

civil war, and I shall take my leave!” Should he abandon his friends

who were expecting him? Who were in need of him possibly! who were a

mere handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love,

to country, to his word? Should he give to his cowardice the pretext of

patriotism? But this was impossible, and if the phantom of his father

was there in the gloom, and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on

the loins with the flat of his sword, and shout to him: “March on, you

poltroon!”

Thus a prey to the conflicting movements of his thoughts, he dropped

his head.

All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just

been effected in his mind. There is a widening of the sphere of thought

which is peculiar to the vicinity of the grave; it makes one see

clearly to be near death. The vision of the action into which he felt

that he was, perhaps, on the point of entering, appeared to him no more

as lamentable, but as superb. The war of the street was suddenly

transfigured by some unfathomable inward working of his soul, before

the eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of

reverie recurred to him in throngs, but without troubling him. He left

none of them unanswered.

Let us see, why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases

where insurrection rises to the dignity of duty? What was there that

was degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy in the combat which was

about to begin? It is no longer Montmirail nor Champaubert; it is

something quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred

territory,—but of a holy idea. The country wails, that may be, but

humanity applauds. But is it true that the country does wail? France

bleeds, but liberty smiles; and in the presence of liberty’s smile,

France forgets her wound. And then if we look at things from a still

more lofty point of view, why do we speak of civil war?

Civil war—what does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war

between men, war between brothers? War is qualified only by its object.

There is no such thing as foreign or civil war; there is only just and

unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded,

war, that at least which is the effort of the future, which is

hastening on against the past, which is lagging in the rear, may be

necessary. What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become

a disgrace, the sword does not become a disgrace, except when it is

used for assassinating the right, progress, reason, civilization,

truth. Then war, whether foreign or civil, is iniquitous; it is called

crime. Outside the pale of that holy thing, justice, by what right does

one form of man despise another? By what right should the sword of

Washington disown the pike of Camille Desmoulins? Leonidas against the

stranger, Timoleon against the tyrant, which is the greater? the one is

the defender, the other the liberator. Shall we brand every appeal to

arms within a city’s limits without taking the object into a

consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von

Blankenheim, Coligny, Hedgerow war? War of the streets? Why not? That

was the war of Ambiorix, of Artevelde, of Marnix, of Pelagius. But

Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against

Spain, Pelagius against the Moors; all against the foreigner. Well, the

monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger; the right divine is

a stranger. Despotism violates the moral frontier, an invasion violates

the geographical frontier. Driving out the tyrant or driving out the

English, in both cases, regaining possession of one’s own territory.

There comes an hour when protestation no longer suffices; after

philosophy, action is required; live force finishes what the idea has

sketched out; Prometheus chained begins, Arostogeiton ends; the

encyclopedia enlightens souls, the 10th of August electrifies them.

After Æschylus, Thrasybulus; after Diderot, Danton. Multitudes have a

tendency to accept the master. Their mass bears witness to apathy. A

crowd is easily led as a whole to obedience. Men must be stirred up,

pushed on, treated roughly by the very benefit of their deliverance,

their eyes must be wounded by the true, light must be hurled at them in

terrible handfuls. They must be a little thunderstruck themselves at

their own well-being; this dazzling awakens them. Hence the necessity

of tocsins and wars. Great combatants must rise, must enlighten nations

with audacity, and shake up that sad humanity which is covered with

gloom by the right divine, Cæsarian glory, force, fanaticism,

irresponsible power, and absolute majesty; a rabble stupidly occupied

in the contemplation, in their twilight splendor, of these sombre

triumphs of the night. Down with the tyrant! Of whom are you speaking?

Do you call Louis Philippe the tyrant? No; no more than Louis XVI. Both

of them are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but

principles are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is

rectilinear, the peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance; no

concessions, then; all encroachments on man should be repressed. There

is a divine right in Louis XVI., there is _because a Bourbon_ in Louis

Philippe; both represent in a certain measure the confiscation of

right, and, in order to clear away universal insurrection, they must be

combated; it must be done, France being always the one to begin. When

the master falls in France, he falls everywhere. In short, what cause

is more just, and consequently, what war is greater, than that which

re-establishes social truth, restores her throne to liberty, restores

the people to the people, restores sovereignty to man, replaces the

purple on the head of France, restores equity and reason in their

plenitude, suppresses every germ of antagonism by restoring each one to

himself, annihilates the obstacle which royalty presents to the whole

immense universal concord, and places the human race once more on a

level with the right? These wars build up peace. An enormous fortress

of prejudices, privileges, superstitions, lies, exactions, abuses,

violences, iniquities, and darkness still stands erect in this world,

with its towers of hatred. It must be cast down. This monstrous mass

must be made to crumble. To conquer at Austerlitz is grand; to take the

Bastille is immense.

There is no one who has not noticed it in his own case—the soul,—and

therein lies the marvel of its unity complicated with ubiquity, has a

strange aptitude for reasoning almost coldly in the most violent

extremities, and it often happens that heartbroken passion and profound

despair in the very agony of their blackest monologues, treat subjects

and discuss theses. Logic is mingled with convulsion, and the thread of

the syllogism floats, without breaking, in the mournful storm of

thought. This was the situation of Marius’ mind.

As he meditated thus, dejected but resolute, hesitating in every

direction, and, in short, shuddering at what he was about to do, his

glance strayed to the interior of the barricade. The insurgents were

here conversing in a low voice, without moving, and there was

perceptible that quasi-silence which marks the last stage of

expectation. Overhead, at the small window in the third story Marius

descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly

attentive. This was the porter who had been killed by Le Cabuc. Below,

by the lights of the torch, which was thrust between the paving-stones,

this head could be vaguely distinguished. Nothing could be stranger, in

that sombre and uncertain gleam, than that livid, motionless,

astonished face, with its bristling hair, its eyes fixed and staring,

and its yawning mouth, bent over the street in an attitude of

curiosity. One would have said that the man who was dead was surveying

those who were about to die. A long trail of blood which had flowed

from that head, descended in reddish threads from the window to the

height of the first floor, where it stopped.

BOOK FOURTEENTH—THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR

[Illustration: The Grandeurs of Despair]