midautumnnightdream

[midautumnnightdream]

a beginner’s guide to understanding barricade day

fictional french revolutionaries die in a failed rebellion

the les mis fandom feeds on their deaths and gains immense power but only for two days

[midautumnnightdream]

For the Poetry Smash Week day 1: Rebellion

-

5th of June, 1832

“Do you think this is going to be it?”

Jean Prouvaire is sprawled on Bahorel’s oriental settee, his long legs dangling over the edge and his hands crossed on his chest in a manner reminiscent of a revenant taking his rest. Shredded paper litters the floor around him like a summer snow.

It’s little past four in the morning. The smell of hashish has all but dissipated, replaced by the clammy promise of rain to come: the grey stripe of sky visible from the open window is heavy with foreboding. Jean Prouvaire thinks he can smell other things in the rain too. Darker things.

Somewhere, a chorus of birds is greeting the approaching dawn. Summer morning waits on no one.

“Hm?” says Bahorel from somewhere on the floor.

“Tomorrow – or rather today, that is.” Jean Prouvaire turns himself over for a better look at his companion, nearly toppling off the settee in the process. “The funeral that is to be our cradle. The trumpet call of apocalypse to welcome the new world. Can it be that you and I may yet live to see such a thing?”

Bahorel hums again, tapping his fingers against the floor; a sure sign that he is giving the question due consideration. On the settee, Jean Prouvaire smiles to himself. There are few things Bahorel takes so seriously, and he likes being an exception to the rule. He likes that very much.

“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” Bahorel says eventually. “I think there’s always another fight.”

Jean Prouvaire furrows his brows. “You don’t think – another stolen revolution?”

“Maybe, or maybe not.” Bahorel pushes himself up on his elbows, warming to the subject. “Let’s say it shall be a barricade today and hotel de ville tonight. Tomorrow, the messieurs the bankers will corral some fool of a marquis, or some doctrinaire and prop him up as a president, or a consul, whatever you like. Then if they have their way, they’ll spend the next ten years arguing over how to best cheat mademoiselle Liberty out of the rights of a citizen. Mark my words, we will yet need to bash some heads in her honour.”

“And we will,” responds Jean Prouvaire. “It is a mistake to think of the future as a destination where one might arrive and sit down; it can only ever be experienced as a journey. We might yet share the destiny of Sisyphos.”

“That’s right!” says Bahorel. “And all that is assuming that our fledgling Utopia won’t be saddled with another Louis-Philippe in a phrygian cap. No my friend – If we must rest, we will rest in the grave. I don’t think this old world is yet done with revolutions.”

“And thus the struggle continues,” murmurs Jean Prouvaire. There’s something a bit bleak about this prospect and something a bit hopeful too; a burden of immense destiny fully appraised. It makes him think of the revolutionaries past and future, connected by invisible threads, like vast constellations of which no one can see the full extent. He makes a mental note to share that thought with Enjolras, should there be time.

“And what do you think?” Bahorel asks, interrupting his reverie. He has pulled himself into a sitting position, leaning against the settee and observing Jean Prouvaire with a strangest expression, wild and indescribably gentle. “Shall we become a cautionary tale of moderate journalists and fussy patriarchs? Or is this yet a night of the poets?”

Perhaps it is the lingering influence of hashish, or the sleepless night, or clarity that comes from the proximity of the grave: Jean Prouvaire, gripped by inexplicable understanding, slides down to the floor and clasps his friend’s hands in his own. Presses his forehead against Bahorel’s for a long unsteady moment, before pulling back enough to meet the thoughtful lupine gaze.

“They will sing of us, Bahorel. Do not ask me how I know, but no mater what fate awaits us tomorrow, I promise they will sing of us for centuries to come.”

[midautumnnightdream]

Happy Godzilla Day to all who celebrate!! 🏢🏢🦖

[midautumnnightdream]

Kitten full of romanticism and uh... revolution

[midautumnnightdream]

If you have achieved something, please remember to observe a mandatory period of basking in the warm glow of your achievement like a lizard on a stone, lest you teach your brain that effort is futile, actually, because it didn't get to enjoy its happy chemicals, so, naturally, nothing good ever comes of trying. (And no, avoiding punishment is not a reward!)

I recommend, like, 5% of basking time in relation to whatever time you invested into achieving the thing minimum. And if you can't make your own bask, friend-brought is fine (= tell your friends!).

[midautumnnightdream]

— Thus Always to Tyrants animatic

Let the ransomed be free as the revel meets the day

—

Happy Barricade day! Decided to make an animatic to celebrate the occasion :)

[midautumnnightdream]

HAPPY BARRICADE DAY

please enjoy my first ever full animatic!! this song has always been so les mis-coded to me. please understand I have been daydreaming about making this animatic for literal years. it's, ah, a bit messier than I'd intended since I did Not practice effective time management and didn't start until june 1, but I'm SO GLAD I finished it!

hope you like it :D

[midautumnnightdream]

So first off, I’m going to ask you to listen to Sons Of , by Judy Collins:

because it’s the song and the version of the song that I built this whole long thing around!

That said, I did tweak the lyrics some for length , bc aaah this is already long (and hitting the image limit), so comic-script lyrics under the cut 

Keep reading

[midautumnnightdream]

Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk, Part Two

A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory; and the drunkard who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity of realities.

Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his order: “Take aim!” when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout beside them:

“Long live the Republic! I’m one of them.”

Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant glance of the transfigured drunken man.

He repeated: “Long live the Republic!” crossed the room with a firm stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras.

“Finish both of us at one blow,” said he.

And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him:

“Do you permit it?”

Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile.

This smile was not ended when the report resounded.

Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed.

Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt.

A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired into the attic through a wooden lattice.

They fought under the very roof.

They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the windows.

Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace.

A similar conflict went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. The barricade was captured.

The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the fugitives.

[midautumnnightdream]

The Heroes, Part Three

The façade of Corinthe, half demolished, was hideous. The window, tattooed with grape-shot, had lost glass and frame and was nothing now but a shapeless hole, tumultuously blocked with paving-stones.

Bossuet was killed;

Feuilly was killed;

Courfeyrac was killed;

Joly was killed;

Combeferre, transfixed by three blows from a bayonet in the breast at the moment when he was lifting up a wounded soldier, had only time to cast a glance to heaven when he expired.

Marius, still fighting, was so riddled with wounds, particularly in the head, that his countenance disappeared beneath the blood, and one would have said that his face was covered with a red kerchief.

Enjolras alone was not struck. When he had no longer any weapon, he reached out his hands to right and left and an insurgent thrust some arm or other into his fist. All he had left was the stumps of four swords; one more than François I. at Marignan.

Homer says: “Diomedes cuts the throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba; Euryalus, son of Mecistæus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless Bucolion; Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius; Antilochus, Ablerus; Polypætes, Astyalus; Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene; and Teucer, Aretaon. Meganthios dies under the blows of Euripylus’ pike. Agamemnon, king of the heroes, flings to earth Elatos, born in the rocky city which is laved by the sounding river Satnoïs.” In our old poems of exploits, Esplandian attacks the giant marquis Swantibore with a cobbler’s shoulder-stick of fire, and the latter defends himself by stoning the hero with towers which he plucks up by the roots. Our ancient mural frescoes show us the two Dukes of Bretagne and Bourbon, armed, emblazoned and crested in war-like guise, on horseback and approaching each other, their battle-axes in hand, masked with iron, gloved with iron, booted with iron, the one caparisoned in ermine, the other draped in azure: Bretagne with his lion between the two horns of his crown, Bourbon helmeted with a monster fleur de lys on his visor. But, in order to be superb, it is not necessary to wear, like Yvon, the ducal morion, to have in the fist, like Esplandian, a living flame, or, like Phyles, father of Polydamas, to have brought back from Ephyra a good suit of mail, a present from the king of men, Euphetes; it suffices to give one’s life for a conviction or a loyalty. This ingenuous little soldier, yesterday a peasant of Bauce or Limousin, who prowls with his clasp-knife by his side, around the children’s nurses in the Luxembourg garden, this pale young student bent over a piece of anatomy or a book, a blond youth who shaves his beard with scissors,—take both of them, breathe upon them with a breath of duty, place them face to face in the Carrefour Boucherat or in the blind alley Planche-Mibray, and let the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let both of them imagine that they are fighting for their country; the struggle will be colossal; and the shadow which this raw recruit and this sawbones in conflict will produce in that grand epic field where humanity is striving, will equal the shadow cast by Megaryon, King of Lycia, tiger-filled, crushing in his embrace the immense body of Ajax, equal to the gods.

[midautumnnightdream]

Gavroche Outside

Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets.

Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wine-shop, had made his way out through the cut, and was quietly engaged in emptying the full cartridge-boxes of the National Guardsmen who had been killed on the slope of the redoubt, into his basket.

“What are you doing there?” asked Courfeyrac.

Gavroche raised his face:—

“I’m filling my basket, citizen.”

“Don’t you see the grape-shot?”

Gavroche replied:

“Well, it is raining. What then?”

Courfeyrac shouted:—“Come in!”

“Instanter,” said Gavroche.

And with a single bound he plunged into the street.

It will be remembered that Fannicot’s company had left behind it a trail of bodies. Twenty corpses lay scattered here and there on the pavement, through the whole length of the street. Twenty cartouches for Gavroche meant a provision of cartridges for the barricade.

The smoke in the street was like a fog. Whoever has beheld a cloud which has fallen into a mountain gorge between two peaked escarpments can imagine this smoke rendered denser and thicker by two gloomy rows of lofty houses. It rose gradually and was incessantly renewed; hence a twilight which made even the broad daylight turn pale. The combatants could hardly see each other from one end of the street to the other, short as it was.

This obscurity, which had probably been desired and calculated on by the commanders who were to direct the assault on the barricade, was useful to Gavroche.

Beneath the folds of this veil of smoke, and thanks to his small size, he could advance tolerably far into the street without being seen. He rifled the first seven or eight cartridge-boxes without much danger.

He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took his basket in his teeth, twisted, glided, undulated, wound from one dead body to another, and emptied the cartridge-box or cartouche as a monkey opens a nut.

They did not dare to shout to him to return from the barricade, which was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to him.

On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powder-flask.

“For thirst,” said he, putting it in his pocket.

By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of the fusillade became transparent. So that the sharpshooters of the line ranged on the outlook behind their paving-stone dike and the sharpshooters of the banlieue massed at the corner of the street suddenly pointed out to each other something moving through the smoke.

At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant, who was lying near a stone door-post, of his cartridges, a bullet struck the body.

“Fichtre!” ejaculated Gavroche. “They are killing my dead men for me.”

A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement beside him.—A third overturned his basket.

Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of the banlieue.

He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National Guardsmen who were firing, and sang:

“On est laid à Nanterre,

C’est la faute à Voltaire;

Et bête à Palaiseau,

C’est la faute à Rousseau.”

“Men are ugly at Nanterre,

’Tis the fault of Voltaire;

And dull at Palaiseau,

’Tis the fault of Rousseau.”

Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the fusillade, set about plundering another cartridge-box. There a fourth bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang:

“Je ne suis pas notaire,

C’est la faute à Voltaire;

Je suis un petit oiseau,

C’est la faute à Rousseau.”

“I am not a notary,

’Tis the fault of Voltaire;

I’m a little bird,

’Tis the fault of Rousseau.”

A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third couplet.

“Joie est mon caractère,

C’est la faute à Voltaire;

Misère est mon trousseau,

C’est la faute à Rousseau.”

“Joy is my character,

’Tis the fault of Voltaire;

Misery is my trousseau,

’Tis the fault of Rousseau.”

Thus it went on for some time.

It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though shot at, was teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being greatly diverted. It was the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen. To each discharge he retorted with a couplet. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim at him. He lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of a doorway, then made a bound, disappeared, reappeared, scampered away, returned, replied to the grape-shot with his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on pillaging the cartouches, emptying the cartridge-boxes, and filling his basket. The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed him with their eyes.

The barricade trembled; he sang. He was not a child, he was not a man; he was a strange gamin-fairy. He might have been called the invulnerable dwarf of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more nimble than they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death; every time that the flat-nosed face of the spectre approached, the urchin administered to it a fillip.

One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, finally struck the will-o’-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to stagger, then he sank to the earth.

The whole barricade gave vent to a cry; but there was something of Antæus in that pygmy; for the gamin to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth; Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began to sing:

“Je suis tombé par terre,

C’est la faute à Voltaire;

Le nez dans le ruisseau,

C’est la faute à . . . “

“I have fallen to the earth,

’Tis the fault of Voltaire;

With my nose in the gutter,

’Tis the fault of . . . ”

He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken its flight.

[midautumnnightdream]

Marius, tormented by guilt, receives some visits from his old friends.

[midautumnnightdream]

For the Poetry Smash Week day 1: Rebellion

-

5th of June, 1832

“Do you think this is going to be it?”

Jean Prouvaire is sprawled on Bahorel’s oriental settee, his long legs dangling over the edge and his hands crossed on his chest in a manner reminiscent of a revenant taking his rest. Shredded paper litters the floor around him like a summer snow.

It’s little past four in the morning. The smell of hashish has all but dissipated, replaced by the clammy promise of rain to come: the grey stripe of sky visible from the open window is heavy with foreboding. Jean Prouvaire thinks he can smell other things in the rain too. Darker things.

Somewhere, a chorus of birds is greeting the approaching dawn. Summer morning waits on no one.

“Hm?” says Bahorel from somewhere on the floor.

“Tomorrow – or rather today, that is.” Jean Prouvaire turns himself over for a better look at his companion, nearly toppling off the settee in the process. “The funeral that is to be our cradle. The trumpet call of apocalypse to welcome the new world. Can it be that you and I may yet live to see such a thing?”

Bahorel hums again, tapping his fingers against the floor; a sure sign that he is giving the question due consideration. On the settee, Jean Prouvaire smiles to himself. There are few things Bahorel takes so seriously, and he likes being an exception to the rule. He likes that very much.

“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” Bahorel says eventually. “I think there’s always another fight.”

Jean Prouvaire furrows his brows. “You don’t think – another stolen revolution?”

“Maybe, or maybe not.” Bahorel pushes himself up on his elbows, warming to the subject. “Let’s say it shall be a barricade today and hotel de ville tonight. Tomorrow, the messieurs the bankers will corral some fool of a marquis, or some doctrinaire and prop him up as a president, or a consul, whatever you like. Then if they have their way, they’ll spend the next ten years arguing over how to best cheat mademoiselle Liberty out of the rights of a citizen. Mark my words, we will yet need to bash some heads in her honour.”

“And we will,” responds Jean Prouvaire. “It is a mistake to think of the future as a destination where one might arrive and sit down; it can only ever be experienced as a journey. We might yet share the destiny of Sisyphos.”

“That’s right!” says Bahorel. “And all that is assuming that our fledgling Utopia won’t be saddled with another Louis-Philippe in a phrygian cap. No my friend – If we must rest, we will rest in the grave. I don’t think this old world is yet done with revolutions.”

“And thus the struggle continues,” murmurs Jean Prouvaire. There’s something a bit bleak about this prospect and something a bit hopeful too; a burden of immense destiny fully appraised. It makes him think of the revolutionaries past and future, connected by invisible threads, like vast constellations of which no one can see the full extent. He makes a mental note to share that thought with Enjolras, should there be time.

“And what do you think?” Bahorel asks, interrupting his reverie. He has pulled himself into a sitting position, leaning against the settee and observing Jean Prouvaire with a strangest expression, wild and indescribably gentle. “Shall we become a cautionary tale of moderate journalists and fussy patriarchs? Or is this yet a night of the poets?”

Perhaps it is the lingering influence of hashish, or the sleepless night, or clarity that comes from the proximity of the grave: Jean Prouvaire, gripped by inexplicable understanding, slides down to the floor and clasps his friend’s hands in his own. Presses his forehead against Bahorel’s for a long unsteady moment, before pulling back enough to meet the thoughtful lupine gaze.

“They will sing of us, Bahorel. Do not ask me how I know, but no mater what fate awaits us tomorrow, I promise they will sing of us for centuries to come.”

[midautumnnightdream]

happy barricade day to my coworker who pointed at a red and green sign and said "it's your niche internet holiday right. those..... french fellas."

[midautumnnightdream]

The Extreme Edge

MARIUS had reached the Halles.

There everything was still calmer, more obscure and more motionless than in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial peace of the sepulchre had sprung forth from the earth and had spread over the heavens.Nevertheless, a red glow brought out against this black background the lofty roofs of the houses which barred the Rue de la Chanvrerie on the Saint-Eustache side. It was the reflection of the torch which was burning in the Corinthe barricade. Marius directed his steps towards that red light. It had drawn him to the Marché-aux-Poirées, and he caught a glimpse of the dark mouth of the Rue des Prêcheurs. He entered it. The insurgents' sentinel, who was guarding the other end, did not see him. He felt that he was very close to that which he had come in search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow of that short section of the Rue Mondétour which was, as the reader will remember, the only communication which Enjolras had preserved with the outside world. At the corner of the last house, on his left, he thrust his head forward, and looked into the fragment of the Rue Mondétour.

A little beyond the angle of the lane and the Rue de la Chanvrerie which cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed, he perceived some light on the pavement, a bit of the wine-shop, and beyond, a flickering lamp within a sort of shapeless wall, and men crouching down with guns on their knees. All this was ten fathoms distant from him. It was the interior of the barricade.The houses which bordered the lane on the right concealed the rest of the wine-shop, the large barricade, and the flag from him.

Marius had but a step more to take.

Then the unhappy young man seated himself on a post, folded his arms, and fell to thinking about his father.

He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy, who had been so proud a soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and had touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had beheld Genoa, Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, who had left on all the victorious battle-fields of Europe drops of that same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray before his time in discipline and command, who had lived with his sword. belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade blackened with powder, his brow furrowed with his helmet, in barracks, in camp, in the bivouac, in ambulances, and who, at the expiration of twenty years, had returned from the great wars with a scarred cheek, a smiling countenance, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done everything for France and nothing against her.

He said to himself that his day had also come now, that his hour had struck, that following his father, he too was about to show himself brave, intrepid, bold, to run to meet the bullets, to offer his breast to bayonets, to shed his blood, to seek the enemy, to seek death, that he was about to wage war in his turn and descend to the field of battle, and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the street, and that the war in which he was about to engage was civil war!

He beheld civil war laid open like a gulf before him, and into this he was about to fall. Then he shuddered.

He thought of his father's sword, which his grandfather had sold to a second-hand dealer, and which he had so mournfully regretted. He said to himself that that chaste and valiant sword had done well to escape from him, and to depart in wrath into the gloom; that if it had thus fled, it was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the future; that it had had a presentiment of this rebellion, the war of the gutters, the war of the pavements, fusillades through cellar-windows, blows given and received in the rear; it was because, coming from Marengo and Friedland, it did not wish to go to the Rue de la Chanvrerie; it was because, after what it had done with the father, it did not wish to do this for the son! He told himself that if that sword were there, if after taking possession of it at his father's pillow, he had dared to take it and carry it off for this combat of darkness between Frenchmen in the streets, it would assuredly have scorched his hands and burst out aflame before his eyes, like the sword of the angel! He told himself that it was fortunate thatit was not there and that it had disappeared, that that was well, that that was just, that his grandfather had been the true guar dian of his father's glory, and that it was far better that the colonel's sword should be sold at auction, sold to the old-clothes man, thrown among the old junk, than that it should, to-day, wound the side of his country.

And then he fell to weeping bitterly.

This was horrible. But what was he to do! Live without Cosette he could not. Since she was gone, he must needs lie. Had he not given her his word of honor that he would die? She had gone knowing that; this meant that it pleased her that Marius should die. And then, it was clear that she no 'onger loved him, since she had departed thus without warning, without a word, without a letter, although she knew his address! What was the good of living, and why should he live now? And then, what! should he retreat after going so far! should he flee from danger after having approached it! should he slip away after having come and peeped into the barricade! slip away, all in a tremble, saying: "After all, I have had enough of it as it is. I have seen it, that suffices, this is civil war, and I shall take my leave!" Should he abandon his friends who were expecting him! Who were in need of him possibly! who were a mere handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love, to country, to his word! Should he give to his cowardice the pretext of patriotism! But this was impossible, and if the phantom of his father was there in the gloom, and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on the loins with the flat of his sword, and shout to him: "March on, you poltroon!"

Thus a prey to the conflicting movements of his thoughts, he dropped his head.

All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just been effected in his mind. There is a widening of the sphere of thought which is peculiar to the vicinity of the grave; it makes one see clearly to be near death. The vision of the action into which he felt that he was, perhaps, on the point of entering, appeared to him no more as lamentable, but as superb. The war of the street was suddenly transfigured by some unfathomable inward working of his soul, before the eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of revery recurred to him in throngs, but without troubling him. He left none of them unanswered.

Let us see, why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases where insurrection rises to the dignity of duty? What was there that was degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy in the combat which was about to begin? It is no longer Montmirail nor Champaubert; it is something quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory, but of a holy idea. The country wails, that may be, but humanity applauds. But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her wound. And then if we look at things from a still more lofty point of view, why do we speak of civil war?

Civil war - what does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war between men war between brothers? War is qualified only by its object. There is no such thing as foreign or civil war; there is only just and unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, war, that at least which is the effort of the future, which is hastening on against the past, which is lagging in the rear, may be necessary. What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become a disgrace, the sword does not become a disgrace, except when it is used for assassinating the right, progress, reason, civilization, truth. Then war, whether foreign or civil, is iniquitous; it is called crime. Outside the pale of that holy thing, justice, by what right does one form of man despise another? By what right should the sword of Washington disown the pike of Camille Desmoulins? Leonidas against the stranger, Timoleon against the tyrant, which is the greater? the one is the defender, the other the liberator. Shall we brand every appeal to arms within a city's limits without taking the object into a consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von Blankenheim, Coligny. Hedgerow war? War of the streets? Why not? That was the war of Ambiorix, of Artevelde, of Marnix, of Pelagius. But Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against Spain, Pelagius against the Moors; all against the foreigner. Well, the monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger; the right divine is a stranger. Despotism violates the moral frontier, an invasion violates the geographical frontier. Driving out the tyrant or driving out the English, in both cases, regaining possession of one's own territory. There comes an hour when protestation no longer suffices; after philosophy, action is required; live force finishes what the idea has sketched out; Prometheus chained begins, Aristogeiton ends; the encyclopedia enlightens souls, the 10th of August electrifies them. After Eschylus, Thrasybulus; after Diderot, Danton. Multitudes have a tendency to accept the master. Their mass bears witness to apathy. A crowd is easily led as a whole to obedience. Men must be stirred up, pushed on, treated roughly by the very benefit of their deliverance, their eyes must be wounded by the true, light must be hurled at them in terrible handfuls.

They must be a little thunderstruck themselves at their own well-being; this dazzling awakens them. Hence the necessity of tocsins and wars. Great combatants must rise, must enlighten nations with audacity, and shake up that sad humanity which is covered with gloom by the right divine, Cæsarian glory, force, fanaticism, irresponsible power, and absolute majesty; a rabble stupidly occupied in the contemplation, in their twilight splendor, of these sombre triumphs of the night. Down with the tyrant! Of whom are you speaking? Do you call Louis Philippe the tyrant? No; no more than Louis XVI. Both of them are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but principles are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is rectilinear, the peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance; no concessions, then; all encroachments on man should be repressed. There is a divine right in Louis XVI, there is because a Bourbon in Louis Philippe; both represent in a certain measure the confiscation of right, and, in order to clear away universal insurrection, they must be combated; it must be done, France being always the one to begin. When the master falls in France, he falls everywhere. In short, what cause is more just, and consequently, what war is greater, than that which re-establishes social truth, restores her throne to liberty, restores the people to the people, restores sovereignty to man, replaces the purple on the head of France, restores equity and reason in their plenitude, suppresses every germ of antagonism by restoring each one to himself, annihilates the obstacle which royalty presents to the whole immense universal concord, and places the human race once more on a level with the right? These wars build up peace. An enormous fortress of prejudices, privileges, superstitions, lies, exactions, abuses, violences, iniquities, and darkness still stands erect in this world, with its towers of hatred. It must be cast down. This monstrous mass must be made to crumble. To conquer at Austerlitz is grand; to take the Bastille is immense.

There is no one who has not noticed it in his own case-the soul, and therein lies the marvel of its unity complicated with ubiquity, has a strange aptitude for reasoning almost coldly in the most violent extremities, and it often happens that heartbroken passion and profound despair in the very agony of their blackest monologues, treat subjects and discuss theses. Logic is mingled with convulsion, and the thread of the syllogism floats, without breaking, in the mournful storm of thought. This was the situation of Marius' mind.

As he meditated thus, dejected but resolute, hesitating in every direction, and, in short, shuddering at what he was about to do, his glance strayed to the interior of the barricade. The insurgents were here conversing in a low voice, without moving, and there was perceptible that quasi-silence which marks the last stage of expectation. Overhead, at the small window in the third story, Marius descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly attentive. This was the porter who had been killed by Le Cabuc. Below, by the lights of the torch, which was thrust between the paving-stones, this head could be vaguely distinguished. Nothing could be stranger, in that sombre and uncertain gleam, than that livid, motionless, astonished face, with its bristling hair, its eyes fixed and staring, and its yawning mouth, bent over the street in an attitude of curiosity. One would have said that the man who was dead was surveying those who were about to die. A long trail of blood which had flowed from that head, descended in reddish threads from the window to the height of the first floor, where it stopped.

[midautumnnightdream]

A quick Gavroche Thenardier sketch for Barricade Day!

[midautumnnightdream]

I've been working on a project for Barricade Day, and I COULD rush it out at the last minute...but the thing is, I don't want to. I want to take my time with it. And right now I'd rather do this:

Send me proof of a donation today of 5 dollars or more to Crips for esims for Gaza, and I will draw you a quick goofy sketch of one or two characters of your choice!

Here's how this will work:

-Send me an Ask letting me know you've made a donation and telling me what character you want

-I will do a goofy little drawing

That's all!

I'm setting a limit of 10 on these , because I suspect that's the most I can get done today and tomorrow , and this is a Barricade Day Special kinda thing.

Other Limits: Les Mis characters only for this please. No sex/nudity, no bigotry, no animal cruelty. Anti-monarch/Napoleon/ cop sentiments fine and gleefully accepted. These will be goofy little sketches, not fully rendered art. I WILL draw mecha or furries just for this but be prepared for them to be Really Bad XD

Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Barricade Day!