Marius began to wander the streets, which is often the only medicine for those who suffer. After learning that Cosette was going to England, he walked about for some time, returned to Courfeyrac’s room at two o’clock in the morning, and then threw himself on his mattress without undressing. When he awoke, he saw Courfeyrac and Enjolras standing in the room with their hats in hand, obviously ready to go somewhere.
Courfeyrac looked at him and said, “Are you coming with us to General Lamarque’s funeral?” Marius told his friends to go on ahead, for his thoughts were only of Cosette. His plan was to visit her at their normal nine o’clock rendezvous time each evening until the day she and her father left for England.
Finally, Marius left Courfeyrac’s room, still waiting for nine o’clock to approach with feverish impatience. As he left, he tucked both his loaded pistols under his belt, and even he could not have explained what led him to take them with him. Yet the political unrest of Paris was becoming more and more violent, and as he roamed the deserted streets before seeing Cosette, he thought he heard the sounds of fighting.
Precisely at nine o’clock, just as the sun was setting, he went to the rue Plumet as he had promised Cosette. Approaching her gate, his only thought was this momentary happiness that was soon to be taken from him. It had been forty-eight hours since he had seen Cosette, and he was filled with profound joy as he anticipated seeing her once again. He rushed into the garden, but she was not there, so he walked to the steps of the house, thinking she might be waiting for him in the recess of the doorway. Cosette was not there either. Then he walked through the entire garden, but it was deserted as well. Finally, he returned to the house, noticing all the shutters were closed. He repeatedly knocked on the door, risking being confronted by Cosette’s father, yet there was no answer. Over and over he cried out, “Cosette!” but again there was no reply. No one was in the garden or the house.
Everything was over for Marius! He was thankful he had been blessed with such deep love for once in his life, but now that Cosette was gone, he thought all that was left for him was to die. As he sat on the front steps in a state of despair, he suddenly heard a voice calling to him from the street, which said, “Monsieur Marius!” Startled, he jumped to his feet, as the voice added, “Your friends are waiting for you at the barricade being built on the rue de la Chanvrerie.”
The voice seemed somewhat familiar to him and sounded like the raspy, rough voice of Éponine. He rushed to the gate, attempting to see who had spoken. Yet he simply caught a glimpse of someone who appeared to be a young man running into the darkness. This voice, which was summoning Marius through the shadows of the night to the barricade on the rue de la Chanvrerie, seemed to him to be the voice of destiny. He wished to die, and now it appeared the opportunity was presenting itself.
The Barricade
Marius had decided to knock on the door of that tomb, and a hand in the darkness was offering him the key. These doors that open during times of despair can be quite tempting, and the young man made a decision to pass through its gate. Emerging from the garden, he said, “I will go!” He set out at a rapid pace, now understanding why he had earlier felt the need to arm himself with his pistols.
Not fifteen minutes had passed when riots broke out in more than twenty different places in the center of Paris. On both banks of the River Seine and throughout the Latin Quarter, people read their proclamations and shouted, “To arms!” They broke street lanterns and began gathering anything they could find to build barricades. They uprooted trees on the boulevards, unhooked carriages, tore doors off houses, and used furniture and wooden planks to build their defenses.
In less than three hours’ time, like a powder keg that had been torched, the center of Paris had abruptly been turned into a huge fortress of insurrection. In the Saint Jean marketplace, the military guard had already been overwhelmed and disarmed by the revolutionaries, and the company of young men led by Enjolras and Courfeyrac was in control.
Their numbers were swelling quickly, and one of the lads to join this armed group was Gavroche, the son of the Thénardiers. He was merely eleven or twelve years of age but was very accustomed to making his own way and surviving on the streets, living like a street urchin. He still appeared to have the happiness of a child on his face, yet his heart had grown empty and sad, like that of a hopeless old man. His ragged clothes were what had been offered to him only through charity. His parents nearly prided themselves on their cruelty to him, for his father said he never thought of his son, and his mother openly said she loved her daughters but not him. Then, while still a child, they gave him a swift kick into the streets. As a result, Gavroche felt the pavement was less hard than his mother’s heart, and came to love life on the streets. He was a child deserving of pity, and although his parents were still living, he was an orphan.
Thus, this group of young revolutionaries had become Gavroche’s family. They were ill prepared for fighting, yet even when the rain soaked their clothes, there was lightning in their eyes. The brigade continued to grow, with students, artists, and longshoremen joining their ranks. Most were armed with clubs and swords, while only a few had pistols.
One day as Courfeyrac had led the group down the street, Gavroche had tagged along. And now that the rioting had broken out all across Paris, his “family” was growing by the minute.
One person finding his way to their barricade just as the rioting began was an older man of lofty stature and whose hair was turning gray. He appeared to be a bold and daring man, and Courfeyrac and Enjolras remarked that they were glad to have him on board. Yet no one knew—or asked—his name.
As more and more recruits arrived, they brought with them gun powder, torches, and additional materials to construct their barricades. Courfeyrac and Enjolras divided the group into two smaller groups who simultaneously worked on two barricades at one street corner. The two barricades sat at right angles to one another, effectively blocking two streets. Gavroche worked on the larger of the two, while the older man who had joined the group made himself useful on the smaller one. In total there were about fifty workers, with thirty having “borrowed” guns from the local armory on their way to the barricades. Gavroche was radiant and appeared to be completely taken with the work. He climbed up and down the barricade while whistling a tune. And although he was so young, his enthusiasm was contagious and seemed to be an encouragement to everyone.
Finally, the two barricades were finished, so Courfeyrac raised their red flag to the top and then issued thirty bullets to each man who had a gun. It was now totally dark, and all was quiet in the surrounding area. The only fighting the men could hear was the sound of very distant and quite intermittent gunfire. These fifty men sat waiting for the 60,000 they knew would ultimately arrive. While they waited, Enjolras went to find Gavroche, who had been instructed to make more bullets in the group’s nearby headquarters in the Musain Café.
As soon as Enjolras had found the young lad, he knew something was troubling Gavroche. The gray-haired man who earlier had been working on the barricade also had entered the café and had seated himself at the most poorly lit table. Initially Gavroche had simply admired the man’s gun, but when Gavroche moved closer and got a good look at his face, he was startled. The boy pulled Enjolras aside and said in a quiet voice, “Do you see that big fellow over there?”
“What about him?” Enjolras demanded.
“He’s a police spy,” Gavroche whispered.
“How do you know?”
“Less than two weeks ago, he grabbed me by my ear to question me. I was walking along, minding my own business, when he stopped me,” the boy explained. At this, Enjolras walked across the room and whispered a few words to a longshoreman who was there. The man left the room and moments later returned with three other men. Then all four of these muscular men positioned themselves directly behind the older man, who still was seated at his dimly lit table. None of this activity had drawn any undo suspicion from the man. He simply remained seated, leaning over the table on his elbows.
With his men in place, Enjolras approached the man and demanded, “Who are you?”
Obviously not suspecting such a direct question, the man gazed up with a startled look. He fixed his eyes on those of Enjolras, attempting to grasp the young man’s meaning. Then he smiled an arrogant smile, and with a sense of haughtiness and disdain in his voice, said, “Ah, I see what this is! Okay! I’ll play your game.”
“You are a police spy then?” Enjolras questioned.
“I am an agent of the authorities,” was all the man answered.
“And your name?”
“Javert.”
Enjolras signaled to the four men, who, in the blink of an eye—even before Javert had time to turn around—grabbed him, threw him to the floor, searched him, and then securely tied his hands and feet with rope. In his pocket, they also found a small card engraved with the seal of France, and which said, JAVERT—POLICE INSPECTOR—AGE FIFTY-TWO. The card was signed by the chief of police, Monsieur Gisquet.
After they had finished searching Javert, they stood him to his feet and secured him with another rope to a pole in the middle of the café with his hands still tied behind his back. Gavroche, who had watched this entire scene with a great deal of satisfaction, stepped forward, smiled slyly at Javert, and said, “I guess it’s the mouse who has caught the cat this time.”
Javert did not utter a word. Then Enjolras looked at the man with cold eyes of steel and said, “You will be shot ten minutes before these barricades are taken.”
Finally, Marius was nearing the street where the voice had told him his friends were waiting for him on the barricades, and as he came within one block of them, everything was still quiet. Then as ten o’clock sounded from a distant church bell, he could see Enjolras and Courfeyrac, who were seated on the larger of the two barricades with their guns in hand. They were not speaking but were listening intently for even the faintest and most distant sound of marching. Suddenly, in the midst of the dismal calm, a clear, young voice could be heard singing. At the end of the short song, a sound like that of a rooster crowing rose through the night air.
Breaking his silence, Enjolras said, “It is Gavroche!” They had sent the lad out as a sentinel, thinking he would not be suspected as a revolutionary by the authorities because of his young age.
“Yes, he is warning us,” Courfeyrac agreed.
The calmness of the deserted street was abruptly broken as they saw Gavroche hurriedly round the corner and run toward them. Two shots resounded but apparently missed their mark, for the boy quickly bounded up the front of the barricade and breathlessly said, “They’re here! Give me a gun!” Then someone handed him the large gun he had previously admired. It was Javert’s.
Several minutes passed until they distinctly heard the heavy, measured steps of numerous feet marching in their direction. At last they could also distinguish the sight of what appeared to be a multitude of metallic threads. It was the sight of bayonets and gun barrels glistening by the light of torches.
From the depths of the metallic threads came a sinister voice, which shouted toward the barricades, “Who goes there?” Then the fifty men heard the clicking of guns as they were being cocked and lowered into position.
Enjolras answered the voice with a proud and boisterous tone, “The French Revolution!”
“Fire!” was the answer to his cry. At the voice’s command, a flash emblazoned the once dark facades of the buildings lining the street. Immediately the red flag of the revolutionaries was struck down, for the discharges had been so numerous and violent that they had cut the pole in two. And although the men had hidden behind the barricades, bullets ricocheting from the cornices of the buildings had wounded a number of them.
After the first barrage, Courfeyrac shouted to his men, “Let’s not waste our powder. Wait until they are directly before us in the street before firing.”
Marius watched this eruption of gunfire while remaining concealed in the recess of a doorway one block behind one of the barricades. It actually had been his shots that had been heard as Gavroche had been bounding up the barricade moments earlier. Several sentries for the authorities had secretly made their way behind the revolutionaries, and Marius, seeing them from his hiding place, took careful aim. One of the sentries fired at Gavroche just as he reached the top of the barricade, but the bullet narrowly missed him. Marius then fired his gun, hitting his mark and striking the sentry who had leveled his aim at the young boy.
Flinging his discharged pistols aside, Marius left the doorway and raced toward the barricade. Passing the Musain Café, he noticed a powder keg near the door and turned to pick it up. As he did so, another soldier took aim at him, but just as the man fired, a hand grabbed the muzzle of the gun and obstructed the musket ball. Through the resulting smoke, Marius could vaguely see that the person who had pushed the gun aside was a young workman, one who appeared to be dressed in a gray shirt and velvet trousers. The young man fell to the ground after the shot, but it had missed Marius altogether. Finally, Marius rushed into the café to take shelter.
Hearing the shots that had been fired from behind, Enjolras shouted, “Wait! Don’t fire at random!” Finally, the soldiers were so close that the revolutionaries could have spoken to them without raising their voices. One of the officers yelled toward the barricade as he extended his sword, “Lay down your arms!”
Enjolras replied by shouting, “Fire!” At this, both sides opened fire and everything seemed to disappear in smoke.
Once the smoke cleared, it was obvious the combatants on both sides had been thinned considerably. Those remaining alive began reloading their guns in silence, when a voice suddenly thundered, “Get away or I’ll blow up this barricade!” It was Marius, who had grabbed the powder keg and, under the cover of the smoke, had rushed to the top of the barricade. As he held a torch near the keg, the soldiers simply stared at him in amazement. Then he demanded again, “Get back or I’ll blow up this barricade and take you and me with it!”
Marius held the flame even closer to the keg, and finally the soldiers began to retreat. They ran for their lives, totally abandoning their dead and wounded, and at last disappeared into the darkness. For now the barricade was free, and the revolutionaries retreated as well. There was a deafening calm as Marius, now alone on the barricade, began descending. Then he suddenly heard his name being called from a voice in the darkness. The voice said feebly, “Monsieur Marius!”
To his surprise, it was the very same voice he had heard some two hours before at Cosette’s garden gate. Yet now the voice was nothing more than a mere breath. He looked around but saw no one. Marius thought, in light of the awful realities around him, perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him. He took another step away from the barricade just as the voice repeated, “Monsieur Marius!” This time he did not doubt he had heard someone but looked around and still saw nothing.
Finally, the voice said weakly, “I’m at your feet.” He bent down and, in nearly total darkness, saw a small frame of a person dragging itself toward him along the pavement. As the person neared one of the lanterns left on the street by one of his comrades, he noticed the person was wearing a gray shirt and torn trousers made of coarse cotton velvet. The person also had bare feet and was lying in a pool of blood. At last the voice said, “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Éponine.”
Marius bent down more closely and saw that indeed it was that unfortunate girl—Éponine—but she was dressed in men’s clothes. He spoke softly to her, “What are you doing here?”
Her simple response was, “I am dying.”
Marius suddenly noticed the pool of blood and exclaimed, “You are wounded! Hold on, Éponine! I’ll carry you to the café, and we’ll take care of you there.” Then, as he reached under her arm to lift her, she cried out in pain. He asked, “Does that hurt? I only touched your hand.” In response she raised her hand toward him, and he could see a black hole in it. In horror, he asked, “What happened to your hand?”
“It stopped a bullet tonight,” Éponine said with a weak smile.
Hearing this, the scene of the small-framed person grabbing the gun of the soldier flashed across his consciousness. Marius realized it was Éponine who had saved his life, and he began to shudder. Finally, he stammered, “My poor child! But no one dies of a bullet wound to the hand. I’ll dress your wound, and you’ll be fine.”
Yet the young woman responded in a barely audible voice, “Yes, the bullet went through my hand. But it went through my chest and out my back as well. It is hopeless to remove me from here, but I will tell you how you can take better care of me than any surgeon. Please sit next to me.”
Marius sat on one of the stones of the barricade as Éponine feebly laid her head in his lap. With a sad smile on her face, and without looking into his eyes, she said, “Oh, how I’ve longed for this! Now I will suffer no longer!” Then with some effort, she turned to look at Marius and added, “You know what, Monsieur Marius? I was so stupid for showing you the way to that garden and to her house.” She paused for a moment, realizing she was overstepping the limits she had set in her own mind, and added with a heartrending smile, “You thought I was ugly, didn’t you?”
Not waiting for his answer, she continued, “Now you are lost as well, for no one will get out of here alive. And I’m to blame. It was I who told you to come here tonight. I wanted us to die together. Yet when I saw the man taking aim at you, I couldn’t stop myself and grabbed the muzzle of his gun. How strange life is! I did it because I wanted to die before you did.”
Marius gazed at the unfortunate creature with deep compassion in his eyes. Suddenly her entire body stiffened and she gasped for air. At that moment, however, she heard the sound of the rooster crowing, and she recognized it as the sound made by little Gavroche. The boy could be heard from inside the café. He had climbed atop one of the tables and was singing as he reloaded his gun. Hearing the lad, Éponine said, “That’s my brother. He must not see me here. I know he would scold me.”
“Your brother?” asked Marius. Then his mind was suddenly taken to the words of his father that were etched on his heart regarding the Thénardiers.
“Yes, that little fellow who is singing is my brother,” she explained. Marius started to move, but she pleaded, “Please don’t go away. It won’t be long now.” Her voice was even softer now, and he could hear the occasional rattle of death in her breathing. Then she struggled to raise her face as closely as possible to his and whispered, “Listen carefully. I have a letter for you in my pocket. I was asked to mail it to you, but I kept it instead. Please don’t be angry with me when we meet again soon. Take your letter.”
Éponine jerked convulsively and grabbed Marius’s hand with her wounded one, but she no longer seemed to feel any pain. With her other hand, she pulled the letter from her pocket and handed it to him. He took the letter, and the young woman leaned back with a sense of contentment. Finally, she added, “Promise me something.”
“Yes, of course,” Marius said with a look of true kindness in his eyes.
“Promise!” she demanded.
“Okay, I promise,” he insisted.
“Promise to give me a kiss on my forehead once I am dead. I will feel it.” After whispering these final words, she laid her head on Marius’s lap once again. Her eyelids closed, and she breathed one final time.
Marius kept his promise. He placed a soft, sweet kiss on her forehead, where small beads of perspiration had already turned icy cold. Then with his letter in hand, he walked away. Something told him it would not be appropriate to read the letter in the presence of poor Éponine’s body. He walked slowly into the café, broke the feminine-looking seal on the letter, and began reading. The letter was addressed: “Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, c/o Monsieur Courfeyrac, 16 rue de la Verrerie,” and said inside:
My dearest! Unfortunately my father insists on leaving immediately. This evening we are going to 7 rue de l’Homme Armé. In one week, however, we will be in England. Cosette. June 4.
Éponine had been the culprit of many of the changes in numerous lives. She had known of her father’s plan to attack Valjean at his new residence once again and to steal his money. As a result, she had disguised herself, dressing like a man, and had been the one to throw the note over the wall warning Valjean to move away. Yet her note was written for another reason as well—to separate Marius and Cosette. Once Cosette knew they were moving, she hastily had penned a note to Marius, which she had entrusted to Éponine to deliver. But Éponine put the letter in her pocket without any intention of ever delivering it. She knew Marius would come to see Cosette again and, upon finding her gone, would be distraught—and she was not mistaken. She also was the one to call to him that his friends were waiting for him on the barricade. Therefore, Éponine died with the tragic joy of so many jealous hearts who attempt to drag their beloved into their own death, and who say, “If I can’t have him, no one will!”
After having read Cosette’s letter, Marius covered it with kisses. Now he knew she had not left without sending word and that she truly loved him. For one brief moment, a thought crossed his mind—perhaps now he should have the will to live. Yet, since he had already asked his grandfather for permission to marry her and had been refused, he realized nothing had really changed. Cosette was still leaving for England, and he did not have permission to marry her. Their fates were sealed. However, there were still two duties needing to be fulfilled: to inform Cosette of his death with a final letter of farewell, and to attempt to save the poor Thénardier child, Gavroche, from the impending storm. He felt an obligation to Éponine and to his father to help Gavroche, who had been so mistreated by his own parents.
Marius pulled a notebook from his leather pouch, tore out a single sheet, and wrote a few lines to Cosette. His words read:
Dearest Cosette!
Our marriage is impossible, for my grandfather has refused me permission. I have no money, and now I do not have you. Remember the promise I made to you? I’m going to keep it. For now that you are gone, I am going to die. By the time you read this, my soul will be with you, and you will smile.
Marius
Then, having nothing with which to seal the letter, he simply folded it and addressed it to “Mademoiselle Cosette Fauchelevent, 7 rue de l’Homme Armé.”
Next he wrote on the first page of his notebook the following words:
My name is Marius Pontmercy. Please take my body to my grandfather, Monsieur Gillenormand, 6 rue des Filles du Calvaire, in the Marais.
Having finished, he put the notebook in his pocket, called Gavroche over to him, and said, “Will you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” Gavroche said. And knowing Marius had saved his life by shooting the sentry, he continued with a smile on his young face, “After all, if not for you, I would be dead.”
“You would have done the same for me. Don’t give it a second thought,” Marius said humbly. Then he added, “See this letter? I want you to leave the barricade and this area immediately, and first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to deliver it to this address.”
Gavroche nervously scratched his ear but said, “All right.” Then he left the café and ran down the street. An idea had occurred to the boy, but he had not mentioned it, for he knew Marius most likely would object. It was around midnight, and instead of waiting until the morning, he decided to deliver the letter at once.