1988 Les Miserables
sembled the warlike hum of a hive of bees.
Enjolras reappeared. He returned from his sombre ea-
gle flight into outer darkness. He listened for a moment to
all this joy with folded arms, and one hand on his mouth.
Then, fresh and rosy in the growing whiteness of the dawn,
he said:
‘The whole army of Paris is to strike. A third of the army
is bearing down upon the barricades in which you now are.
There is the National Guard in addition. I have picked out
the shakos of the fifth of the line, and the standard-bear-
ers of the sixth legion. In one hour you will be attacked.
As for the populace, it was seething yesterday, to-day it is
not stirring. There is nothing to expect; nothing to hope
for. Neither from a faubourg nor from a regiment. You are
abandoned.’
These words fell upon the buzzing of the groups, and
produced on them the effect caused on a swarm of bees by
the first drops of a storm. A moment of indescribable silence
ensued, in which death might have been heard flitting by.
This moment was brief.
A voice from the obscurest depths of the groups shouted
to Enjolras:
‘So be it. Let us raise the barricade to a height of twenty
feet, and let us all remain in it. Citizens, let us offer the pro-
tests of corpses. Let us show that, if the people abandon the
republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.’
These words freed the thought of all from the painful
cloud of individual anxieties. It was hailed with an enthusi-
astic acclamation.