The Extreme Edge — Les Misérables

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 the lofty roofs 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. He entered the dark mouth of the Rue des Precheurs. The sentinel at the other end did not see him. He walked on tiptoe, and reached the elbow of that short section of the Rue Mondetour which was the only communication Enjolras had preserved with the outside world. He thrust his head forward. He perceived some light on the pavement, a bit of the wine-shop, a flickering lamp within a shapeless wall, and men crouching down with guns on their knees. It was the interior of the barricade. The houses on the right concealed the rest of the wine-shop, the large barricade, and the flag. 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 guarded the frontier under the Republic and touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had returned from twenty years of wars with a scarred cheek and a smiling countenance, having done everything for France and nothing against her. He said to himself that his day had also come, that following his father he too was about to show himself brave, and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the street, and that the war 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. He said to himself that that sword had done well to escape, that coming from Marengo it did not wish to go to the Rue de la Chanvrerie, that if it were there it would have scorched his hands like the sword of the angel, and that it was far better that the colonel's sword should be sold to the old-clothes man than that it should wound the side of his country. And then he fell to weeping bitterly. Live without Cosette he could not. Since she was gone, he must needs die. Had he not given her his word of honour that he would die? Should he slip away after having peeped into the barricade? Should he abandon his friends, a mere handful against an army? Should he give to his cowardice the pretext of patriotism? If the phantom of his father were there and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on the loins and shout: March on, you poltroon.

All at once he raised his head. A sort of splendid rectification had just been effected in his mind. It makes one see clearly to be near death. The war of the street was suddenly transfigured. Why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases where insurrection rises to the dignity of duty? The question is no longer one of sacred territory, but of a holy idea. France bleeds, but liberty smiles. Civil war: what does that mean? Is not all war between men war between brothers? There is no such thing as foreign or civil war; there is only just and unjust war. The monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger. Driving out the tyrant or driving out the English is, in both cases, regaining possession of one's own territory. To conquer at Austerlitz is grand; to take the Bastille is immense. Heartbroken passion, in the very agony of its blackest monologues, still treats subjects and discusses theses. Logic is mingled with convulsion. This was the situation of Marius's mind. As he meditated thus, dejected but resolute, his glance strayed to the interior of the barricade. The insurgents were conversing in a low voice. Overhead, at the small window in the third story, he descried a spectator who appeared singularly attentive. This was the porter who had been killed by Le Cabuc. Nothing could be stranger than that livid, motionless, astonished face, 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 descended in reddish threads from the window to the height of the first floor, where it stopped.