1998 Les Miserables
his blood rushed back to his heart. He would have turned
pale, had it been possible for him to become any paler.
He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him,
and each, with his eyes full of that grand flame which one
beholds in the depths of history hovering over Thermopy-
lae, cried to him:
‘Me! me! me!’
And Marius stupidly counted them; there were still five
of them! Then his glance dropped to the four uniforms.
At that moment, a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven,
upon the other four.
The fifth man was saved.
Marius raised his eyes and recognized M. Fauchelevent.
Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade.
He had arrived by way of Mondetour lane, whither by
dint of inquiries made, or by instinct, or chance. Thanks to
his dress of a National Guardsman, he had made his way
without difficulty.
The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue
Mondetour had no occasion to give the alarm for a single
National Guardsman, and he had allowed the latter to en-
tangle himself in the street, saying to himself: ‘Probably it
is a reinforcement, in any case it is a prisoner.’ The moment
was too grave to admit of the sentinel abandoning his duty
and his post of observation.
At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt,
no one had noticed him, all eyes being fixed on the five cho-
sen men and the four uniforms. Jean Valjean also had seen
and heard, and he had silently removed his coat and flung it