CHAPTER III

THE EXTREME EDGE


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 Marche-aux-Poirees,
and he caught a glimpse of the dark mouth of the Rue des Precheurs.
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 Mondetour 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 Mondetour.

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 revery 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 AEschylus, 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, Caesarian 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.