Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER III—THE EXTREME EDGE
2397 words | Chapter 366
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]
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