class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">BOOK VII.

THE LAST DROP IN THE BITTER CUP.
  I.  THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN II.  THE OBSCURITY WHICH A REVELATION MAY CONTAIN  
BOOK VIII. TWILIGHT DECLINES.
  I.  THE GROUND-FLOOR ROOM II.  OTHER BACKWARD STEPS III.  THEY REMEMBER THE GARDEN IN THE RUE PLUMET IV.  ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION  
BOOK IX. SUPREME DARKNESS, SUPREME DAWN.
  I.  PITY THE UNHAPPY, BUT BE INDULGENT TO THE HAPPY II.  THE LAST FLUTTERINGS OF THE LAMP WITHOUT OIL III.  A PEN IS TOO HEAVY FOR THE MAN WHO LIFTED
FAUCHELEVENT'S CART IV.  A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY WHITENS V.  A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH IS DAY VI.  THE GRASS HIDES, AND THE RAIN EFFACES

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ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE DEATH OF VALJEAN Vol. V. Frontispiece
Drawn by G. Jeanniot.

THE DEATH OF GAVROCHE
Drawn by G. Jeanniot.

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JEAN VALJEAN.

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BOOK I.

THE WAR WITHIN FOUR WALLS.

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CHAPTER I.

THE CHARYBDIS OF THE FAUBOURG ST. ANTOINE AND
THE SCYLLA OF THE FAUBOURG DU TEMPLE.

The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social diseases can mention do not belong to the period in which the action of this book is laid. These two barricades, both symbols under different aspects of a formidable situation, emerged from the earth during the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest street-war which history has seen. It happens sometimes that the canaille, that great despairing crowd, contrary to principles, even contrary to liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, the government of all by all, protests, in the depths of its agony, its discouragement, its destitution, its fevers, its distresses, its miasmas, its ignorance, and its darkness, and the populace offers battle to the people. The beggars attack the common right, the ochlocracy rises in insurrection against the demos. Those are mournful days; for there is always a certain amount of right even in this mania, there is suicide in this duel, and these words, intended to be insults, such as beggars, canaille, ochlocracy, and populace, prove, alas! rather the fault of those who reign than the fault of those who suffer; rather the fault of the privileged than the fault of the disinherited. For our part, we never pronounce these words without grief and respect, for when philosophy probes the facts with which they correspond it often finds much grandeur by the side of misery. Athens was an ochlocracy; the beggars produced Holland; the populace more than once saved Rome; and the canaille followed the Saviour. There is no thinker who has not at times contemplated the magnificence below. Saint Jerome doubtless thought of this canaille, of all these poor people, all these vagabonds, and all the wretches whence the apostles and martyrs issued, when he uttered the mysterious words,—"Fex urbis, lux orbis."

The exasperations of this mob, which suffers and which bleeds, its unwilling violence against the principles which are its life, its assaults upon the right, are popular coups d'état, and must be repressed. The just man devotes himself, and through love for this very mob, combats it. But how excusable he finds it while resisting it; how he venerates it, even while opposing it! It is one of those rare moments in which a man while doing his duty feels something that disconcerts him, and almost dissuades him from going further; he persists, and must do so, but the satisfied conscience is sad, and the accomplishment of the duty is complicated by a contraction of the heart. June, 1848, was, let us hasten to say, a separate fact, and almost impossible to classify in the philosophy of history. All the words we have uttered must be laid aside when we have to deal with this extraordinary riot, in which the holy anxiety of labor claiming its right was felt. It must be combated, and it was a duty to do so, for it attacked the Republic; but, in reality, what was June, 1848? A revolt of the people against itself. When the subject is not left out of sight there is no digression, and hence we may be permitted to concentrate the reader's attention momentarily upon the two absolutely unique barricades to which we have alluded, and which characterized this insurrection. The one blocked up the entrance to the Faubourg St. Antoine, the other defended the approaches to the Faubourg du Temple; those before whom these two