1878 Les Miserables
Enjolras released him and drew out his watch.
‘Collect yourself,’ said he. ‘Think or pray. You have one
minute.’
‘Mercy!’ murmured the murderer; then he dropped his
head and stammered a few inarticulate oaths.
Enjolras never took his eyes off of him: he allowed a min-
ute to pass, then he replaced his watch in his fob. That done,
he grasped Le Cabuc by the hair, as the latter coiled himself
into a ball at his knees and shrieked, and placed the muzzle
of the pistol to his ear. Many of those intrepid men, who had
so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of adventures,
turned aside their heads.
An explosion was heard, the assassin fell to the pavement
face downwards.
Enjolras straightened himself up, and cast a convinced
and severe glance around him. Then he spurned the corpse
with his foot and said:—
‘Throw that outside.’
Three men raised the body of the unhappy wretch, which
was still agitated by the last mechanical convulsions of the
life that had fled, and flung it over the little barricade into
the Rue Mondetour.
Enjolras was thoughtful. It is impossible to say what
grandiose shadows slowly spread over his redoubtable se-
renity. All at once he raised his voice.
A silence fell upon them.
‘Citizens,’ said Enjolras, ‘what that man did is frightful,
what I have done is horrible. He killed, therefore I killed
him. I had to do it, because insurrection must have its dis-