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_ The situation of all in that fatal hour and that pitiless place,
had as result and culminating point Enjolras' supreme melancholy.
Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution;
he was incomplete, however, so far as the absolute can be so;
he had too much of Saint-Just about him, and not enough of
Anacharsis Cloots; still, his mind, in the society of the Friends
of the A B C, had ended by undergoing a certain polarization from
Combeferre's ideas; for some time past, he had been gradually emerging
from the narrow form of dogma, and had allowed himself to incline
to the broadening influence of progress, and he had come to accept,
as a definitive and magnificent evolution, the transformation
of the great French Republic, into the immense human republic.
As far as the immediate means were concerned, a violent situation
being given, he wished to be violent; on that point, he never varied;
and he remained of that epic and redoubtable school which is
summed up in the words: "Eighty-three." Enjolras was standing
erect on the staircase of paving-stones, one elbow resting on
the stock of his gun. He was engaged in thought; he quivered,
as at the passage of prophetic breaths; places where death is
have these effects of tripods. A sort of stifled fire darted
from his eyes, which were filled with an inward look. All at once
he threw back his head, his blond locks fell back like those of
an angel on the sombre quadriga made of stars, they were like
the mane of a startled lion in the flaming of an halo, and Enjolras cried:
"Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets
of cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds,
nations sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past
loving the present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on
terms of full equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest,
human conscience become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity
of the workshop and the school, for sole penalty and recompense fame,
work for all, right for all, peace over all, no more bloodshed,
no more wars, happy mothers! To conquer matter is the first step;
to realize the ideal is the second. Reflect on what progress has
already accomplished. Formerly, the first human races beheld
with terror the hydra pass before their eyes, breathing on
the waters, the dragon which vomited flame, the griffin who was
the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle
and the talons of a tiger; fearful beasts which were above man.
Man, nevertheless, spread his snares, consecrated by intelligence,
and finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished the hydra,
and it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of vanquishing
the griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon.
On the day when this Promethean task shall be accomplished,
and when man shall have definitely harnessed to his will the triple
Chimaera of antiquity, the hydra, the dragon and the griffin,
he will be the master of water, fire, and of air, and he will be
for the rest of animated creation that which the ancient gods
formerly were to him. Courage, and onward! Citizens, whither are
we going? To science made government, to the force of things
become the sole public force, to the natural law, having in itself
its sanction and its penalty and promulgating itself by evidence,
to a dawn of truth corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing
to the union of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man.
No more fictions; no more parasites. The real governed by the true,
that is the goal. Civilization will hold its assizes at the
summit of Europe, and, later on, at the centre of continents,
in a grand parliament of the intelligence. Something similar
has already been seen. The amphictyons had two sittings a year,
one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other at Thermopylae,
the place of heroes. Europe will have her amphictyons; the globe
will have its amphictyons. France bears this sublime future
in her breast. This is the gestation of the nineteenth century.
That which Greece sketched out is worthy of being finished by France.
Listen to me, you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people.
I revere you. Yes, you clearly behold the future, yes, you are right.
You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity
for your mother and right for your father. You are about to die,
that is to say to triumph, here. Citizens, whatever happens
to-day, through our defeat as well as through our victory, it is
a revolution that we are about to create. As conflagrations light
up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the whole human race.
And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I have just told you,
the Revolution of the True. From a political point of view,
there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over himself.
This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two
or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins.
But in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty
concedes a certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming
the common right. This quantity is the same for all of us.
This identity of concession which each makes to all, is called Equality.
Common right is nothing else than the protection of all beaming
on the right of each. This protection of all over each is
called Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these assembled
sovereignties is called society. This intersection being a junction,
this point is a knot. Hence what is called the social bond.
Some say social contract; which is the same thing, the word
contract being etymologically formed with the idea of a bond.
Let us come to an understanding about equality; for, if liberty is
the summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not wholly
a surface vegetation, a society of great blades of grass and tiny oaks;
a proximity of jealousies which render each other null and void;
legally speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity;
politically, it is all votes possessed of the same weight;
religiously, it is all consciences possessed of the same right.
Equality has an organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction.
The right to the alphabet, that is where the beginning must
be made. The primary school imposed on all, the secondary school
offered to all, that is the law. From an identical school,
an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! light! light!
everything comes from light, and to it everything returns.
Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century
will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history
of old, we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest,
an invasion, a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand,
an interruption of civilization depending on a marriage of kings,
on a birth in hereditary tyrannies, a partition of peoples by
a congress, a dismemberment because of the failure of a dynasty,
a combat of two religions meeting face to face, like two bucks
in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we shall no longer have
to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising from distress,
misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the sword,
and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events.
One might almost say: There will be no more events. We shall
be happy. The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial
globe accomplishes its law; harmony will be re-established between
the soul and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth,
as the planet around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I
am addressing you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible purchases
of the future. A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will
be delivered, raised up, consoled! We affirm it on this barrier.
Whence should proceed that cry of love, if not from the heights
of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction,
of those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is
not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of iron;
it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes.
Here misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night,
and says to it: `I am about to die, and thou shalt be born again
with me.' From the embrace of all desolations faith leaps forth.
Sufferings bring hither their agony and ideas their immortality.
This agony and this immortality are about to join and constitute
our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance
of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the
dawn."
Enjolras paused rather than became silent; his lips continued to
move silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused
them all to gaze attentively at him, in the endeavor to hear more.
There was no applause; but they whispered together for a long time.
Speech being a breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the
rustling of leaves. _
Read next: VOLUME V: BOOK FIRST - THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS: CHAPTER VI. Marius Haggard, Javert Laconic
Read previous: VOLUME V: BOOK FIRST - THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS: CHAPTER IV. Minus Five, Plus One
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