THE HORIZON ONE SEES FROM BARRICADE'S SUMMIT.
The situation of the whole party in this fatal hour, and at this
inexorable spot, had as result and pinnacle the supreme melancholy of
Enjolras. Enjolras had within him the plenitude of the revolution;
he was imperfect, however, so far as the absolute can be so,--he had
too much of St. Just and not enough of Anacharsis Clootz; still his
mind in the society of the Friends of the A. B. C. had eventually
received a certain magnetism of Combeferre's ideas. For some time past
he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of dogmatism and
yielding to the expansion of progress, and in the end he had accepted,
as the definitive and magnificent evolution, the transformation of
the great French republic into the immense human republic. As for the
immediate means, a violent situation being given, he was willing to be
violent; in that he did not vary, and he still belonged to that epic
and formidable school which is resumed in the words "'93." Enjolras
was standing on the paving-stone steps, with one of his elbows on the
muzzle of his gun. He was thinking; he trembled, as men do when a
blast passes, for spots where death lurks produce this tripod effect.
A sort of stifled fire issued from beneath his eyelashes, which were
full of the internal glance. All at once he raised his head, his light
hair fell back like that of the angel on the dark quadriga composed of
stars, and he cried:--
"Citizens, do you represent the future to yourselves? The streets of
towns inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations
sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the
present, men thinking at perfect liberty, believers enjoying perfect
equality, for religion the heaven, God, the direct priest, the human
conscience converted into an altar, no more hatred, the fraternity of
the workshop and the school, notoriety the sole punishment and reward,
work for all, right for all, peace for all, no more bloodshed, no more
wars, and happy mothers! To subdue the matter is the first step, to
realize the ideal is the second. Reflect on what progress has already
done; formerly the first human races saw with terror the hydra that
breathed upon the waters, the dragon that vomited fire, the griffin
which was the monster of the air, and which flew with the wings of an
eagle and the claws of a tiger, pass before their eyes,--frightful
beasts which were below man. Man, however, set his snares, the sacred
snares of intellect, and ended by catching the monsters in them. We
have subdued the hydra, and it is called the steamer; we have tamed
the dragon, and it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of
taming the griffin, we hold it already, and it is called the balloon.
The day on which that Promethean task is terminated and man has
definitively attached to his will the triple antique chimera, the
dragon, the hydra, and the griffin, he will be master of water, fire,
and air, and he will be to the rest of animated creation what the
ancient gods were formerly to him. Courage, and forward! Citizens,
whither are we going? To science made government, to the strength of
things converted into the sole public strength, to the natural law
having its sanction and penalty in itself and promulgating itself by
evidence, and to a dawn of truth corresponding with the dawn of day.
We are proceeding to a union of the peoples; we are proceeding to a
unity of man. No more fictions, no more parasites. The real governed
by the true is our object. Civilization will hold its assize on the
summit of Europe, and eventually in the centre of the continent, in
a great Parliament of intellect. Something like this has been seen
already; the Amphictyons held two sessions a year, one at Delphi, the
place of the gods, the other at Thermopylæ, the place of heroes. Europe
will have her Amphictyons, the globe will have its Amphictyons, France
bears the sublime future within her, and this is the gestation of the
19th century. What Greece sketched out is worthy of being finished by
France. Hearken to me, Feuilly, valiant workman, man of the people, man
of the people. I venerate thee; yes, thou seest clearly future times;
yes, thou art right. Thou hast neither father nor mother, Feuilly, and
thou hast adopted humanity as thy mother and right as thy father. Thou
art about to die here, that is to say, to triumph. Citizens, whatever
may happen to-day, we are about to make a revolution, by our defeat as
well as by our victory. In the same way as fires light up a whole city,
revolutions light up the whole human race. And what a revolution shall
we make? I have just told you, the revolution of the True. From the
political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of
man over himself. This sovereignty of me over me is called liberty, and
where two or three of these liberties are associated the State begins.
But in this association there is no abdication, and each sovereignty
concedes a certain amount of itself to form the common right. This
quality is the same for all, and this identity of concession which each
makes to all is called Equality. The common right is nought but the
protection of all radiating over the right of each. This protection
of all over each is termed Fraternity. The point of intersection of
all aggregated societies is called Society, and this intersection
being a junction, the point is a knot. Hence comes what is called the
social tie; some say the social contract, which is the same thing, as
the word contract is etymologically formed with the idea of a tie.
Let us come to an understanding about equality; for if liberty be the
summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not all vegetation
on a level, a society of tall blades of grass and small oaks, or a
neighborhood of entangled jealousies; it is, civilly, every aptitude
having the same opening, politically, all votes having the same weight,
and religiously, all consciences having the same right. Equality
has an organ in gratuitous and compulsory education, and it should
begin with the right to the alphabet. The primary school imposed on
all, the secondary school offered to all, such is the law, and from
the identical school issues equal instruction. Yes, instruction!
Light, light! Everything comes from light and everything returns to
it Citizens, the 19th century is great, but the 20th century will be
happy. Then there will be nothing left resembling ancient history,
there will be no cause to fear, as at the present day, a conquest, an
invasion, usurpation, an armed rivalry of nations, an interruption of
civilization depending on a marriage of kings, a birth in hereditary
tyrannies, a division of peoples by Congress, a dismemberment by the
collapse of dynasties, a combat of two religions, clashing, like two
goats of the darkness, on the bridge of infinity; there will be no
cause longer to fear famine, exhaustion, prostitution through destiny,
misery through stoppage of work, and the scaffold, and the sword, and
battles, and all the brigandage of accident in the forest of events;
we might almost say there will be no more events, we shall be happy;
the human race will accomplish its law as the terrestrial globe does
its law; harmony will be restored between the soul and the planet, and
the soul will gravitate round the truth as the planet does round light.
Friends, the hour we are now standing in is a gloomy hour, but there
are such terrible purchases of the future. Oh, the human race will be
delivered, relieved, and consoled! We affirm it on this barricade,
and where should the cry of love be raised if not on the summit of
the sacrifice? Oh, my brothers, this is the point of junction between
those who think and those who suffer. This barricade is not made of
paving-stones, beams, and iron bars; it is made of two masses,--a
mass of ideas and a mass of sorrows. Misery meets then the ideal; day
embraces the night there, and says to it, 'I am about to die with thee,
and thou wilt be born again with me.' Faith springs from the embrace
of all the desolations; sufferings bring hither their agony, and ideas
their immortality. This agony and this immortality are about to be
mingled and compose one death. Brothers, the man who dies here dies in
the radiance of the future, and we shall enter a tomb all filled with
dawn."
Enjolras interrupted himself rather than was silent; his lips moved
silently as if he were talking to himself, which attracted attention,
and in order still to try to hear him they held their tongues. There
was no applause, but they whispered together for a long time. Language
being breath, the rustling of intellects resembles the rustling of
leaves.