CHAPTER II.
THE FLAG: ACT SECOND.
Since the arrival at Corinth and the barricade had been begun no onepaid any further attention to Father Mabœuf. M. Mabœuf, however,had not quitted the insurgents: he had gone into the ground-floor roomof the wine-shop and seated himself behind the bar, where he was, soto speak, annihilated in himself. He seemed no longer to see or think.Courfeyrac and others had twice or thrice accosted him, warning himof the peril and begging him to withdraw, but he had not appeared tohear them. When no one was speaking to him his lips moved as if he wereanswering some one, and so soon as people addressed him his lips leftoff moving, and his eyes no longer seemed alive. A few hours beforethe barricade was attacked he had assumed a posture which he had notquitted since, with his two hands on his knees, and his head bentforward, as if he were looking into a precipice. Nothing could havedrawn him out of this attitude, and it did not appear as if his mindwere in the barricade. When every one else went to his post the onlypersons left in the room were Javert tied to the post, an insurgentwith drawn sabre watching over Javert, and Mabœuf. At the moment ofthe attack, at the detonation, the physical shock affected and as itwere awoke him; he suddenly rose, crossed the room, and at the momentwhen Enjolras repeated his appeal, "Does no one offer?" the old man wasseen on the threshold of the wine-shop. His presence produced a speciesof commotion in the groups, and the cry was raised,--
"It is the voter, the conventionalist, the representative of thepeople!"
He probably did not hear it: he walked straight up to Enjolras, theinsurgents making way for him with a religious fear, tore the flag fromEnjolras, who recoiled with petrifaction, and then, no one daring toarrest or help him, this old man of eighty, with shaking head but firmstep, slowly began ascending the staircase of paving-stones formedinside the barricade. This was so gloomy and so grand that all aroundhim cried, "Off with your hats!" With each step he ascended the scenebecame more frightful; his white hair, his decrepit face, his high,bald, and wrinkled forehead, his hollow eyes, his amazed and openmouth, and his old arm raising the red banner, stood out from thedarkness and were magnified in the sanguinary, brightness of the torch,and the spectators fancied they saw the spectre of '93 issuing from theground, holding the flag of terror in its hand. When he was on the laststep, when this trembling and terrible phantom, standing on the pile ofruins, in the presence of twelve hundred invisible gun-barrels, stoodfacing death, and as if stronger than it, the whole barricade assumeda supernatural and colossal aspect in the darkness. There was one ofthose silences which occur only at the sight of prodigies, and in themidst of this silence the old man brandished the red flag and cried,--
"Long live the revolution! Long live the republic! Fraternity,equality, and death!"
A low and quick talking, like the murmur of a hurried priest gallopingthrough a mass, was heard; it was probably the police commissary makingthe legal summons at the other end of the street; then the same loudvoice which had shouted "Who goes there?" cried,--
"Withdraw!"
M. Mabœuf, livid, haggard, with his eyeballs illumined by themournful flames of mania, raised the flag about his head and repeated,--
"Long live the republic!"
"Fire!" the voice commanded.
A second discharge, resembling a round of grape-shot, burst againstthe barricade; the old man sank on his knees, then rose again, let theflag slip from his hand, and fell back on the pavement like a log,with his arms stretched out like a cross. Streams of blood flowedunder him, and his old, pale, melancholy face seemed to be gazing atheaven. One of those emotions stronger than man, which makes him forgetself-defence, seized on the insurgents, and they approached the corpsewith respectful horror.
"What men these regicides are!" said Enjolras.
Courfeyrac whispered in Enjolras's ear,--
"This is only between ourselves, as I do not wish to diminish theenthusiasm; but this man was anything rather than a regicide. I knewhim, and his name was Mabœuf. I do not know what was the matter withhim to-day, but he was a brave idiot. Look at his head."
"The head of an idiot and the heart of Brutus!" Enjolras replied; thenhe raised his voice:--
"Citizens! such is the example which the old give to the young. Wehesitated and he came; we recoiled and he advanced. This is what thosewho tremble with old age teach those who tremble with fear! Thisaged man is august before his country; he has had a long life and amagnificent death! Now let us place his corpse under cover; let each ofus defend this dead old man as he would defend his living father; andlet his presence in the midst of us render the barricade impregnable!"
A murmur of gloomy and energetic adhesion followed these words.Enjolras bent down, raised the old man's head and sternly kissed him onthe forehead; then, stretching out his arms and handling the dead manwith tender caution, as if afraid of hurting him, he took off his coat,pointed to the blood-stained holes, and said,--
"This is now our flag!"