CHAPTER VI--ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS

  It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possiblecatastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census.

  All were present at a secret meeting at the Café Musain.

  Enjolras said, mixing his words with a few half-enigmatical butsignificant metaphors:--

  "It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we maycount. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do noharm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by always have morechance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when thereare none. Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd. How many of usare there? There is no question of postponing this task until to-morrow.Revolutionists should always be hurried; progress has no time to lose.Let us mistrust the unexpected. Let us not be caught unprepared. We mustgo over all the seams that we have made and see whether they hold fast.This business ought to be concluded to-day. Courfeyrac, you will see thepolytechnic students. It is their day to go out. To-day is Wednesday.Feuilly, you will see those of the Glacière, will you not? Combeferrehas promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and anexcellent one there. Bahorel will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, themasons are growing lukewarm; you will bring us news from the lodge ofthe Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honoré. Joly will go to Dupuytren's clinicallecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school. Bossuet will take alittle turn in the court and talk with the young law licentiates. I willtake charge of the Cougourde myself."

  "That arranges everything," said Courfeyrac.

  "No."

  "What else is there?"

  "A very important thing."

  "What is that?" asked Courfeyrac.

  "The Barrière du Maine," replied Enjolras.

  Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then heresumed:--

  "At the Barrière du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, andjourneymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family,but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter withthem for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They arebecoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There isurgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, butwith firmness. They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found therebetween twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow.For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a goodfellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one forthe Barrière du Maine. I have no one."

  "What about me?" said Grantaire. "Here am I."

  "You?"

  "I."

  "You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown coldin the name of principle!"

  "Why not?"

  "Are you good for anything?"

  "I have a vague ambition in that direction," said Grantaire.

  "You do not believe in everything."

  "I believe in you."

  "Grantaire will you do me a service?"

  "Anything. I'll black your boots."

  "Well, don't meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from yourabsinthe."

  "You are an ingrate, Enjolras."

  "You the man to go to the Barrière du Maine! You capable of it!"

  "I am capable of descending the Rue de Grès, of crossing the PlaceSaint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of takingthe Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rued'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me theConseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, of stridingacross the boulevard, of following the Chaussée du Maine, of passingthe barrier, and entering Richefeu's. I am capable of that. My shoes arecapable of that."

  "Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?"

  "Not much. We only address each other as _thou_."

  "What will you say to them?"

  "I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles."

  "You?"

  "I. But I don't receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. Ihave read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitutionof the year Two by heart. 'The liberty of one citizen ends where theliberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I havean old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, thesovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hébertist. Ican talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch inhand."

  "Be serious," said Enjolras.

  "I am wild," replied Grantaire.

  Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man whohas taken a resolution.

  "Grantaire," he said gravely, "I consent to try you. You shall go to theBarrière du Maine."

  Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Café Musain. He wentout, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on aRobespierre waistcoat.

  "Red," said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras. Then,with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points ofthe waistcoat across his breast.

  And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear:--

  "Be easy."

  He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed.

  A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Café Musain wasdeserted. All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his owndirection, each to his own task. Enjolras, who had reserved theCougourde of Aix for himself, was the last to leave.

  Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then met on theplain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous inthat side of Paris.

  As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situationin review in his own mind. The gravity of events was self-evident. Whenfacts, the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily,the slightest complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon whencearises ruin and new births. Enjolras descried a luminous upliftingbeneath the gloomy skirts of the future. Who knows? Perhaps the momentwas at hand. The people were again taking possession of right, andwhat a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically takingpossession of France and saying to the world: "The sequel to-morrow!"Enjolras was content. The furnace was being heated. He had at thatmoment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris. He composed,in his own mind, with Combeferre's philosophical and penetratingeloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac's dash,Bahorel's smile, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's science, Bossuet'ssarcasms, a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly everywhere atonce. All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer to the effort.This was well. This made him think of Grantaire.

  "Hold," said he to himself, "the Barrière du Maine will not take me farout of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us havea look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on."

  One o'clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolrasreached the Richefeu smoking-room.

  He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door fallto and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables,men, and smoke.

  A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by anothervoice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary.

  Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble Saint-Annetable, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He washammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard:--

  "Double-six."

  "Fours."

  "The pig! I have no more."

  "You are dead. A two."

  "Six."

  "Three."

  "One."

  "It's my move."

  "Four points."

  "Not much."

  "It's your turn."

  "I have made an enormous mistake."

  "You are doing well."

  "Fifteen."

  "Seven more."

  "That makes me twenty-two." [Thoughtfully, "Twenty-two!"]

  "You weren't expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at thebeginning, the whole play would have been changed."

  "A two again."

  "One."

  "One! Well, five."

  "I haven't any."

  "It was your play, I believe?"

  "Yes."

  "Blank."

  "What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two."

  "One."

  "Neither five nor one. That's bad for you."

  "Domino."

  "Plague take it!"

  BOOK SECOND.--ÉPONINE