Chương Chương 304 · THE HORIZON WHICH ONE BEHOLDS FROM THE SUMMIT OF A BARRICADE

The situation of all in that fatal hour and that pitiless place, had as

result and culminating point Enjolras’ supreme melancholy.

Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution; he was

incomplete, however, so far as the absolute can be so; he had too much

of Saint-Just about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots; still,

his mind, in the society of the Friends of the A B C, had ended by

undergoing a certain polarization from Combeferre’s ideas; for some

time past, he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of

dogma, and had allowed himself to incline to the broadening influence

of progress, and he had come to accept, as a definitive and magnificent

evolution, the transformation of the great French Republic, into the

immense human republic. As far as the immediate means were concerned, a

violent situation being given, he wished to be violent; on that point,

he never varied; and he remained of that epic and redoubtable school

which is summed up in the words: “Eighty-three.” Enjolras was standing

erect on the staircase of paving-stones, one elbow resting on the stock

of his gun. He was engaged in thought; he quivered, as at the passage

of prophetic breaths; places where death is have these effects of

tripods. A sort of stifled fire darted from his eyes, which were filled

with an inward look. All at once he threw back his head, his blond

locks fell back like those of an angel on the sombre quadriga made of

stars, they were like the mane of a startled lion in the flaming of an

halo, and Enjolras cried:

“Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of

cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations

sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the

present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on terms of full

equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest, human conscience

become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity of the workshop and

the school, for sole penalty and recompense fame, work for all, right

for all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy

mothers! To conquer matter is the first step; to realize the ideal is

the second. Reflect on what progress has already accomplished.

Formerly, the first human races beheld with terror the hydra pass

before their eyes, breathing on the waters, the dragon which vomited

flame, the griffin who was the monster of the air, and who flew with

the wings of an eagle and the talons of a tiger; fearful beasts which

were above man. Man, nevertheless, spread his snares, consecrated by

intelligence, and finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished

the hydra, and it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of

vanquishing the griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the

balloon. On the day when this Promethean task shall be accomplished,

and when man shall have definitely harnessed to his will the triple

Chimæra of antiquity, the hydra, the dragon and the griffin, he will be

the master of water, fire, and of air, and he will be for the rest of

animated creation that which the ancient gods formerly were to him.

Courage, and onward! Citizens, whither are we going? To science made

government, to the force of things become the sole public force, to the

natural law, having in itself its sanction and its penalty and

promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn of truth corresponding to a

dawn of day. We are advancing to the union of peoples; we are advancing

to the unity of man. No more fictions; no more parasites. The real

governed by the true, that is the goal. Civilization will hold its

assizes at the summit of Europe, and, later on, at the centre of

continents, in a grand parliament of the intelligence. Something

similar has already been seen. The amphictyons had two sittings a year,

one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other at Thermopylæ, the place

of heroes. Europe will have her amphictyons; the globe will have its

amphictyons. France bears this sublime future in her breast. This is

the gestation of the nineteenth century. That which Greece sketched out

is worthy of being finished by France. Listen to me, you, Feuilly,

valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you clearly

behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father nor

mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity for your mother and right for

your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here.

Citizens, whatever happens to-day, through our defeat as well as

through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create. As

conflagrations light up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the

whole human race. And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I

have just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point

of view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over

himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty.

Where two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state

begins. But in that association there is no abdication. Each

sovereignty concedes a certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of

forming the common right. This quantity is the same for all of us. This

identity of concession which each makes to all, is called Equality.

Common right is nothing else than the protection of all beaming on the

right of each. This protection of all over each is called Fraternity.

The point of intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is

called society. This intersection being a junction, this point is a

knot. Hence what is called the social bond. Some say social contract;

which is the same thing, the word contract being etymologically formed

with the idea of a bond. Let us come to an understanding about

equality; for, if liberty is the summit, equality is the base.

Equality, citizens, is not wholly a surface vegetation, a society of

great blades of grass and tiny oaks; a proximity of jealousies which

render each other null and void; legally speaking, it is all aptitudes

possessed of the same opportunity; politically, it is all votes

possessed of the same weight; religiously, it is all consciences

possessed of the same right. Equality has an organ: gratuitous and

obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, that is where the

beginning must be made. The primary school imposed on all, the

secondary school offered to all, that is the law. From an identical

school, an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! light!

light! everything comes from light, and to it everything returns.

Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century

will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of

old, we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an

invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an

interruption of civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a

birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a

dismemberment because of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two

religions meeting face to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the

bridge of the infinite; we shall no longer have to fear famine, farming

out, prostitution arising from distress, misery from the failure of

work and the scaffold and the sword, and battles and the ruffianism of

chance in the forest of events. One might almost say: There will be no

more events. We shall be happy. The human race will accomplish its law,

as the terrestrial globe accomplishes its law; harmony will be

re-established between the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate

around the truth, as the planet around the light. Friends, the present

hour in which I am addressing you, is a gloomy hour; but these are

terrible purchases of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human

race will be delivered, raised up, consoled! We affirm it on this

barrier. Whence should proceed that cry of love, if not from the

heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction, of

those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is not made of

paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of iron; it is made of two

heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here misery meets the

ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: ‘I am about to die,

and thou shalt be born again with me.’ From the embrace of all

desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their agony and

ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to

join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the

radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the

dawn.”

Enjolras paused rather than became silent; his lips continued to move

silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused them all

to gaze attentively at him, in the endeavor to hear more. There was no

applause; but they whispered together for a long time. Speech being a

breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves.