Bab Bab 290 · THE FLAG: ACT SECOND

Since they had arrived at Corinthe, and had begun the construction of

the barricade, no attention had been paid to Father Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf

had not quitted the mob, however; he had entered the ground floor of

the wine-shop and had seated himself behind the counter. There he had,

so to speak, retreated into himself. He no longer seemed to look or to

think. Courfeyrac and others had accosted him two or three times,

warning him of his peril, beseeching him to withdraw, but he did not

hear them. When they were not speaking to him, his mouth moved as

though he were replying to some one, and as soon as he was addressed,

his lips became motionless and his eyes no longer had the appearance of

being alive.

Several hours before the barricade was attacked, he had assumed an

attitude which he did not afterwards abandon, with both fists planted

on his knees and his head thrust forward as though he were gazing over

a precipice. Nothing had been able to move him from this attitude; it

did not seem as though his mind were in the barricade. When each had

gone to take up his position for the combat, there remained in the

tap-room where Javert was bound to the post, only a single insurgent

with a naked sword, watching over Javert, and himself, Mabeuf. At the

moment of the attack, at the detonation, the physical shock had reached

him and had, as it were, awakened him; he started up abruptly, crossed

the room, and at the instant when Enjolras repeated his appeal: “Does

no one volunteer?” the old man was seen to make his appearance on the

threshold of the wine-shop. His presence produced a sort of commotion

in the different groups. A shout went up:—

“It is the voter! It is the member of the Convention! It is the

representative of the people!”

It is probable that he did not hear them.

He strode straight up to Enjolras, the insurgents withdrawing before

him with a religious fear; he tore the flag from Enjolras, who recoiled

in amazement and then, since no one dared to stop or to assist him,

this old man of eighty, with shaking head but firm foot, began slowly

to ascend the staircase of paving-stones arranged in the barricade.

This was so melancholy and so grand that all around him cried: “Off

with your hats!” At every step that he mounted, it was a frightful

spectacle; his white locks, his decrepit face, his lofty, bald, and

wrinkled brow, his amazed and open mouth, his aged arm upholding the

red banner, rose through the gloom and were enlarged in the bloody

light of the torch, and the bystanders thought that they beheld the

spectre of ’93 emerging from the earth, with the flag of terror in his

hand.

When he had reached the last step, when this trembling and terrible

phantom, erect on that pile of rubbish in the presence of twelve

hundred invisible guns, drew himself up in the face of death and as

though he were more powerful than it, the whole barricade assumed amid

the darkness, a supernatural and colossal form.

There ensued one of those silences which occur only in the presence of

prodigies. In the midst of this silence, the old man waved the red flag

and shouted:—

“Long live the Revolution! Long live the Republic! Fraternity!

Equality! and Death!”

Those in the barricade heard a low and rapid whisper, like the murmur

of a priest who is despatching a prayer in haste. It was probably the

commissary of police who was making the legal summons at the other end

of the street.

Then the same piercing voice which had shouted: “Who goes there?”

shouted:—

“Retire!”

M. Mabeuf, pale, haggard, his eyes lighted up with the mournful flame

of aberration, raised the flag above his head and repeated:—

“Long live the Republic!”

“Fire!” said the voice.

A second discharge, similar to the first, rained down upon the

barricade.

The old man fell on his knees, then rose again, dropped the flag and

fell backwards on the pavement, like a log, at full length, with

outstretched arms.

Rivulets of blood flowed beneath him. His aged head, pale and sad,

seemed to be gazing at the sky.

One of those emotions which are superior to man, which make him forget

even to defend himself, seized upon the insurgents, and they approached

the body with respectful awe.

“What men these regicides were!” said Enjolras.

Courfeyrac bent down to Enjolras’ ear:—

“This is for yourself alone, I do not wish to dampen the enthusiasm.

But this man was anything rather than a regicide. I knew him. His name

was Father Mabeuf. I do not know what was the matter with him to-day.

But he was a brave blockhead. Just look at his head.”

“The head of a blockhead and the heart of a Brutus,” replied Enjolras.

Then he raised his voice:—

“Citizens! This is the example which the old give to the young. We

hesitated, he came! We were drawing back, he advanced! This is what

those who are trembling with age teach to those who tremble with fear!

This aged man is august in the eyes of his country. He has had a long

life and a magnificent death! Now, let us place the body under cover,

that each one of us may defend this old man dead as he would his father

living, and may his presence in our midst render the barricade

impregnable!”

A murmur of gloomy and energetic assent followed these words.

Enjolras bent down, raised the old man’s head, and fierce as he was, he

kissed him on the brow, then, throwing wide his arms, and handling this

dead man with tender precaution, as though he feared to hurt it, he

removed his coat, showed the bloody holes in it to all, and said:—

“This is our flag now.”