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ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS
It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possible
catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census.
All were present at a secret meeting at the Cafe Musain.
Enjolras said, mixing his words with a few half-enigmatical
but significant metaphors:--
"It is proper that we should know where we stand and
on whom we may count.
If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can
do no harm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by
always have more chance of being gored when there are bulls on
the road than when there are none.
Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd.
How many of us are there? There is no question of postponing
this task until to-morrow. Revolutionists should always be hurried;
progress has no time to lose. Let us mistrust the unexpected.
Let us not be caught unprepared. We must go over all the seams
that we have made and see whether they hold fast.
This business ought to be concluded to-day. Courfeyrac, you
will see the polytechnic students.
It is their day to go out. To-day is Wednesday.
Feuilly, you will see those of the Glaciere, will you not?
Combeferre has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect
swarm and an excellent one there.
Bahorel will visit the Estrapade.
Prouvaire, the masons are growing lukewarm; you will bring
us news from the lodge of the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore. Joly
will go to Dupuytren's clinical lecture, and feel the pulse of
the medical school.
Bossuet will take a little turn in the court and talk with
the young law licentiates.
I will take charge of the Cougourde myself."
"That arranges everything," said Courfeyrac.
"No."
"What else is there?"
"A very important thing."
"What is that?" asked Courfeyrac.
"The Barriere du Maine," replied Enjolras.
Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection,
then he resumed:--
"At the Barriere du Maine there are marble-workers, painters,
and journeymen in the studios of sculptors.
They are an enthusiastic family, but liable to cool off.
I don't know what has been the matter with them for some time
past.
They are thinking of something else. They are becoming extinguished.
They pass their time playing dominoes. There is urgent need
that some one should go and talk with them a little, but with
firmness.
They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found there between
twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow.
For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who
is a good fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I
need some one for the Barriere du Maine.
I have no one."
"What about me?" said Grantaire.
"Here am I."
"You?"
"I."
"You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that
have grown cold in the name of principle!"
"Why not?"
"Are you good for anything?"
"I have a vague ambition in that direction," said
Grantaire.
"You do not believe in everything."
"I believe in you."
"Grantaire will you do me a service?"
"Anything.
I'll black your boots."
"Well, don't meddle with our affairs.
Sleep yourself sober from your absinthe."
"You are an ingrate, Enjolras."
"You the man to go to the Barriere du Maine!
You capable of it!"
"I am capable of descending the Rue de Gres, of crossing
the Place Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince,
of taking the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of
turning into the Rue d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi,
of leaving behind me the Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue
des Vielles Tuileries, of striding across the boulevard, of following
the Chaussee du Maine, of passing the barrier, and entering Richefeu's.
I am capable of that. My shoes are capable of that."
"Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?"
"Not much.
We only address each other as thou."
"What will you say to them?"
"I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi!
Of Danton. Of principles."
"You?"
"I. But I don't receive justice.
When I set about it, I am terrible. I have read Prudhomme,
I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution of the year
Two by heart.
`The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another
citizen begins.'
Do you take me for a brute?
I have an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The
Rights of Man, the sovereignty of the people, sapristi!
I am even a bit of a Hebertist.
I can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock,
watch in hand."
"Be serious," said Enjolras.
"I am wild," replied Grantaire.
Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture
of a man who has taken a resolution.
"Grantaire," he said gravely, "I consent to
try you.
You shall go to the Barriere du Maine."
Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Cafe Musain.
He went out, and five minutes later he returned.
He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat.
"Red," said he as he entered, and he looked intently
at Enjolras. Then, with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid
the two scarlet points of the waistcoat across his breast.
And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear:--
"Be easy."
He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed.
A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Cafe Musain
was deserted.
All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his own direction,
each to his own task.
Enjolras, who had reserved the Cougourde of Aix for himself,
was the last to leave.
Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then
met on the plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which
are so numerous in that side of Paris.
As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole
situation in review in his own mind.
The gravity of events was self-evident. When facts, the premonitory
symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily, the slightest
complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon whence arises
ruin and new births.
Enjolras descried a luminous uplifting beneath the gloomy
skirts of the future. Who knows?
Perhaps the moment was at hand.
The people were again taking possession of right, and what
a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically taking
possession of France and saying to the world:
"The sequel to-morrow!" Enjolras was content. The
furnace was being heated.
He had at that moment a powder train of friends scattered
all over Paris.
He composed, in his own mind, with Combeferre's philosophical
and penetrating eloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm,
Courfeyrac's dash, Bahorel's smile, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy,
Joly's science, Bossuet's sarcasms, a sort of electric spark which
took fire nearly everywhere at once. All hands to work.
Surely, the result would answer to the effort. This was well.
This made him think of Grantaire.
"Hold," said he to himself, "the Barriere du
Maine will not take me far out of my way.
What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us have
a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on."
One o'clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras
reached the Richefeu smoking-room.
He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting
the door fall to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room
filled with tables, men, and smoke.
A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by
another voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary.
Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble
Saint-Anne table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos.
He was hammering the table with his fist, and this is what
Enjolras heard:--
"Double-six."
"Fours."
"The pig!
I have no more."
"You are dead.
A two."
"Six."
"Three."
"One."
"It's my move."
"Four points."
"Not much."
"It's your turn."
"I have made an enormous mistake."
"You are doing well."
"Fifteen."
"Seven more."
"That makes me twenty-two." [Thoughtfully, "Twenty-two!"]
"You weren't expecting that double-six. If I had placed
it at the beginning, the whole play would have been changed."
"A two again."
"One."
"One!
Well, five."
"I haven't any."
"It was your play, I believe?"
"Yes."
"Blank."
"What luck he has!
Ah!
You are lucky!
[Long revery.] Two."
"One."
"Neither five nor one.
That's bad for you."
"Domino."
"Plague take it!"
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