After the man who decreed the protest of corpses had spoken, there issued from all mouths a strangely satisfied and terrible cry: Long live death! Let us all remain here! Why all? said Enjolras. The position is good. Thirty men are enough. Why sacrifice forty? Because not one will go away. This republic is not rich enough in men to indulge in useless expenditure of them. Vain-glory is waste. If the duty of some is to depart, that duty should be fulfilled like any other. A murmur arose. It is easy enough to talk about leaving. The barricade is hemmed in. Not on the side of the Halles, said Enjolras. Through Mondetour one can reach the market. And there you would be captured. You smell of powder. Shot. Enjolras, without reply, touched Combeferre's shoulder. They entered the tap-room and emerged with the four uniforms laid aside from the dead National Guards of the suburbs. With this uniform you can mingle with the ranks and escape. Here is enough for four. He flung them on the ground. No wavering took place in his stoical audience.
Combeferre took the word. It is a question of women. Are there mothers who rock cradles? Die, if you will, but do not make others die. Suicide is sublime; but as soon as it touches your neighbours, suicide is murder. He had seen, at the corner of the Rue du Cygne, a lighted casement and the quivering shadow of an old woman who had the air of having spent the night in watching. Perhaps she is the mother of some one of you. Let that man go and say: Here I am, mother. He spoke of sisters, of a market for human flesh, of a child at the Necker Hospital whose ribs stood out like graves and who had ashes in his teeth. Statistics show that the mortality among abandoned children is fifty-five per cent. You are not alone in this world. All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. Strange contradictions of the human heart: Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He recalled the mothers of other men, and forgot his own. He was about to get himself killed. Marius, fasting, fevered, already in that visionary stupor which precedes a chosen end, was moved. He had but one idea now, to die; but while destroying himself he was not prohibited from saving someone else. Enjolras and Combeferre are right. Married men and the supporters of families, step out of the ranks. I order it, cried Enjolras. I entreat you, said Marius.
Then these heroic men began to denounce each other. You are the father of a family. You have two sisters whom you maintain. Each struggled to determine which should not allow himself to be placed at the door of the tomb. Enjolras said this is the Republic: do you yourselves designate those who are to go. Five were unanimously selected. There are five of them, exclaimed Marius. There were only four uniforms. Well, one must stay behind. The generous quarrel began afresh. Marius was asked to choose. At this idea, that of choosing a man for death, his blood rushed back to his heart. He advanced toward the five, who smiled upon him and cried: Me! me! me! Then his glance dropped to the four uniforms. At that moment, a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven, upon the other four. The fifth man was saved. Marius raised his eyes and recognized the old gentleman from the Rue Plumet. Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade by Mondetour lane, in the dress of a National Guard. At the moment when he entered, no one had noticed him, all eyes being fixed on the five and the four coats. He had silently removed his coat and flung it on the pile. Who is this man? demanded Bossuet. He is a man who saves others, replied Combeferre. I know him, said Marius. Welcome, citizen, said Enjolras. You know that we are about to die. Jean Valjean, without replying, helped the insurgent whom he was saving to don his uniform.
