Time for housekeeping. Marius isn’t really in a state for logistics, so Enjolras is back in the driver’s seat (not that he really ever left). “Advice from Enjolras was an order,” that everyone pretty much roundly ignores anyways.
I’m not even going to attempt to sort out Combeferre’s allusions, this fictional man could beat me in a real life debate. It mystifies me that Hugo created a cast of characters that all understand the finer points of revolution better than he does. I still wonder at the timeline of Hugo writing this book. All his digressions seem to have been written entirely separate from the events of the story and then sprinkled in later. Sometimes they introduce a setting or concept, but they rarely connect thematically and sometimes contradict what happens in the story. Combeferre’s speech is weakened by everything Hugo says in 5.1.1 and that kinda sucks. “[Caesar] was a great man; so much the worse, or so much the better; the lesson is the greater…Caesar was stabbed by senators; Christ was slapped by lackeys. In the greater outrage, we feel the God.” Obviously, the character is not the author, but it’s difficult to separate the two when this chapter immediately follows a direct lecture to the audience. Combeferre brings up a really interesting and nuanced way to think about justice and violence, but it rings a little hollow with Hugo’s stance still at the forefront of my mind.
Amazing that no one spotted Enjolras trying to be sneaky considering he’s constantly lit by the glow of revolutionary fervor. You can even see it in the illustration. It’s amusing that he’s continually referred to as an eagle. He’d hate that. Houston, the eagle has landed. And he does not bring back good news. “You are abandoned.”
But it is not very French to flee. “There was a moment of inexpressible silence, when you might have heard the flight of death. This moment was short…Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.” Yes, the barricades communicated, because they rose from the very same ideals, limbs of the same body. If, like Hugo in 1848, you insist on repressing those ideals, they intend to make sure you walk away with blood on your hands and regret in your soul, “the performance of duty is marred by an oppression of the heart.”
