CHAPTER V--ENLARGEMENT OF HORIZON

  The shocks of youthful minds among themselves have this admirableproperty, that one can never foresee the spark, nor divine the lightningflash. What will dart out presently? No one knows. The burst of laughterstarts from a tender feeling.

  At the moment of jest, the serious makes its entry. Impulses depend onthe first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest sufficesto open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations withabrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is thestage-manager of such conversations.

  A severe thought, starting oddly from a clash of words, suddenlytraversed the conflict of quips in which Grantaire, Bahorel, Prouvaire,Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were confusedly fencing.

  How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that itsuddenly impresses itself on the attention of those who hear it? Wehave just said, that no one knows anything about it. In the midst of theuproar, Bossuet all at once terminated some apostrophe to Combeferre,with this date:--

  "June 18th, 1815, Waterloo."

  At this name of Waterloo, Marius, who was leaning his elbows on a table,beside a glass of water, removed his wrist from beneath his chin, andbegan to gaze fixedly at the audience.

  "Pardieu!" exclaimed Courfeyrac ("Parbleu" was falling into disuseat this period), "that number 18 is strange and strikes me. It isBonaparte's fatal number. Place Louis in front and Brumaire behind, youhave the whole destiny of the man, with this significant peculiarity,that the end treads close on the heels of the commencement."

  Enjolras, who had remained mute up to that point, broke the silence andaddressed this remark to Combeferre:--

  "You mean to say, the crime and the expiation."

  This word _crime_ overpassed the measure of what Marius, who was alreadygreatly agitated by the abrupt evocation of Waterloo, could accept.

  He rose, walked slowly to the map of France spread out on the wall, andat whose base an island was visible in a separate compartment, laid hisfinger on this compartment and said:--

  "Corsica, a little island which has rendered France very great."

  This was like a breath of icy air. All ceased talking. They felt thatsomething was on the point of occurring.

  Bahorel, replying to Bossuet, was just assuming an attitude of the torsoto which he was addicted. He gave it up to listen.

  Enjolras, whose blue eye was not fixed on any one, and who seemed to begazing at space, replied, without glancing at Marius:--

  "France needs no Corsica to be great. France is great because she isFrance. _Quia nomina leo_."

  Marius felt no desire to retreat; he turned towards Enjolras, and hisvoice burst forth with a vibration which came from a quiver of his verybeing:--

  "God forbid that I should diminish France! But amalgamating Napoleonwith her is not diminishing her. Come! let us argue the question. I ama new comer among you, but I will confess that you amaze me. Where do westand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let us come to an explanationabout the Emperor. I hear you say _Buonaparte_, accenting the _u_ likethe Royalists. I warn you that my grandfather does better still; hesays _Buonaparté_'. I thought you were young men. Where, then, is yourenthusiasm? And what are you doing with it? Whom do you admire, if youdo not admire the Emperor? And what more do you want? If you willhave none of that great man, what great men would you like? He hadeverything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of humanfaculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Cæsar, hisconversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with thethunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletinsare Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor ofMahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids,at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences hereplied to Laplace, in the Council of State he held his own againstMerlin, he gave a soul to the geometry of the first, and to thechicanery of the last, he was a legist with the attorneys and siderealwith the astronomers; like Cromwell blowing out one of two candles, hewent to the Temple to bargain for a curtain tassel; he saw everything;he knew everything; which did not prevent him from laughinggood-naturedly beside the cradle of his little child; and all at once,frightened Europe lent an ear, armies put themselves in motion, parks ofartillery rumbled, pontoons stretched over the rivers, clouds of cavalrygalloped in the storm, cries, trumpets, a trembling of thrones in everydirection, the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map, the soundof a superhuman sword was heard, as it was drawn from its sheath; theybeheld him, him, rise erect on the horizon with a blazing brand in hishand, and a glow in his eyes, unfolding amid the thunder, his two wings,the grand army and the old guard, and he was the archangel of war!"

  All held their peace, and Enjolras bowed his head. Silence alwaysproduces somewhat the effect of acquiescence, of the enemy being drivento the wall. Marius continued with increased enthusiasm, and almostwithout pausing for breath:--

  "Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to bethe Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when itadds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign,to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, totake his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls ofdynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to makeyou feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of thesword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemagne;to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startlingannouncement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides torouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious wordswhich flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To causeconstellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from thezenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to theRoman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grandarmy, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountainsends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strikewith lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory,to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to conquerthe world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and whatgreater thing is there?"

  "To be free," said Combeferre.

  Marius lowered his head in his turn; that cold and simple word hadtraversed his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he felt itvanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longerthere. Probably satisfied with his reply to the apotheosis, he hadjust taken his departure, and all, with the exception of Enjolras,had followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone withMarius, was gazing gravely at him. Marius, however, having rallied hisideas to some extent, did not consider himself beaten; there lingered inhim a trace of inward fermentation which was on the point, no doubt, oftranslating itself into syllogisms arrayed against Enjolras, when all ofa sudden, they heard some one singing on the stairs as he went. It wasCombeferre, and this is what he was singing:--

  "Si César m'avait donné La gloire et la guerre, Et qu'il me fallait quitter L'amour de ma mère, Je dirais au grand César: Reprends ton sceptre et ton char, J'aime mieux ma mère, ô gué! J'aime mieux ma mère!"25

  The wild and tender accents with which Combeferre sang communicated tothis couplet a sort of strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtfully, andwith his eyes diked on the ceiling, repeated almost mechanically: "Mymother?--"

  At that moment, he felt Enjolras' hand on his shoulder.

  "Citizen," said Enjolras to him, "my mother is the Republic."