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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.
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