He had hardly uttered this word, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder with the weight of an eagle’s talon, and he heard a voice saying to him:—
“On your knees.”
The murderer turned round and saw before him Enjolras’ cold, white face.
Enjolras held a pistol in his hand.
He had hastened up at the sound of the discharge.
He had seized Cabuc’s collar, blouse, shirt, and suspender with his left hand.
“On your knees!” he repeated.
And, with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty years bent the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his knees in the mire.
Le Cabuc attempted to resist, but he seemed to have been seized by a superhuman hand.
Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman’s face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis.
His dilated nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek profile that expression of wrath and that expression of Chastity which, as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice.
The whole barricade hastened up, then all ranged themselves in a circle at a distance, feeling that it was impossible to utter a word in the presence of the thing which they were about to behold.
Le Cabuc, vanquished, no longer tried to struggle, and trembled in every limb.
Enjolras released him and drew out his watch.
“Collect yourself,” said he.
“Think or pray.
You have one minute.”
“Mercy!” murmured the murderer; then he dropped his head and stammered a few inarticulate oaths.
Enjolras never took his eyes off of him: he allowed a minute to pass, then he replaced his watch in his fob.
That done, he grasped Le Cabuc by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees and shrieked, and placed the muzzle of the pistol to his ear.
Many of those intrepid men, who had so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of adventures, turned aside their heads.
An explosion was heard, the assassin fell to the pavement face downwards. Enjolras straightened himself up, and cast a convinced and severe glance around him.
Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said:—
“Throw that outside.”
Three men raised the body of the unhappy wretch, which was still agitated by the last mechanical convulsions of the life that had fled, and flung it over the little barricade into the Rue Mondetour.
Enjolras was thoughtful.
It is impossible to say what grandiose shadows slowly spread over his redoubtable serenity.
All at once he raised his voice.
A silence fell upon them.
“Citizens,” said Enjolras, “what that man did is frightful, what I have done is horrible.
He killed, therefore I killed him.
I had to do it, because insurrection must have its discipline.
Assassination is even more of a crime here than elsewhere; we are under the eyes of the Revolution, we are the priests of the Republic, we are the victims of duty, and must not be possible to slander our combat.
I have, therefore, tried that man, and condemned him to death.
As for myself, constrained as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself.”
Those who listened to him shuddered.
“We will share thy fate,” cried Combeferre.
“So be it,” replied Enjolras.
“One word more.
In executing this man, I have obeyed necessity; but necessity is a monster of the old world, necessity’s name is Fatality.
Now, the law of progress is, that monsters shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before Fraternity.
It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love.
No matter, I do pronounce it. And I glorify it.
Love, the future is thine.
Death, I make use of thee, but I hate thee.
Citizens, in the future there will be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor bloody retaliation.
As there will be no more Satan, there will be no more Michael.
In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth will beam with radiance, the human race will love.
The day will come, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to die.”
Enjolras ceased.