I think I have become addicted to angst, guys. Am I good? Should I abandon it? It gives me feels…my own writing does…huh…uhm…yeah! So this is Enjolras' mind, to the best of my ability, on the night of June 5. I wrote the whole speech by myself, pardoning the Rousseau quote and what Combeferre said. So this is what I think Enjolras must have been thinking. Hopefully I did him justice.
–Marseillaise Who Really Hopes This Isn't a Failure
I had been so sure that they would come. So positive. And yet, even as I reassured my men, I felt doubt worm its cold, despairing fingers through my mind. What if they don't. What if the people abandoned you, Enjolras, what if Grantaire, Grantaire the cynic, is right, and your silly little insurrection is doomed. No. I pushed it aside. They would come, of course they would. Like they came in 1830? That was the past. The past repeats itself. Then the French Revolution could repeat itself. Their armies are huge, bigger than you and your pitiful little band of students. But we are fighting for a future, and that gives us hope; inspires us. Prouvaire believed just as much as you did, look where that got him. Now we have a martyr. Someone to fight for, like Lamarque. You're DOOMED, Enjolras! They aren't coming! No matter how much you try and convince yourself otherwise, you know it's true. They abandoned you, they are more interested in their own hides than the future of their country. Just give up, maybe the soldiers will spare your men and just kill you instead. No. Giving up-, I would not give up.
Then offer them the option of leaving. They deserve to know that they're doomed. Just tell them, Fearless Leader. I had. Five men had left already; no more would. Then you are killing your friends. As if with your own carbine, as sure as that, you are killing them. You are leading them to their death, like pigs to a slaughter. Not like that. They knew their fate; they are all willing to die this way. Willing to die. You put it so simply, but is it really like that? Was Prouvaire willing to die? Or was he captured on this mound of death you have constructed, captured and executed without question? Was Bahorel willing to die? Or that girl? She was. She was dying for who she believed in. We will die for what we believe in. But what are you fighting for? An ideal, something unrealistic and obsolete.
No. We are fighting for a Republic. Standing up, even without realizing it, I began to talk.
"Friends, revolutions are the daughters of necessity. It is necessary for change to occur; thus, we fight. We are fighting not to show up the government, or to waste lives, but to create a future. Our current king sits on his throne, ruling the world, and allows people to starve. We have the bourgeois and gamin; that is all. However, those who live off the streets cannot speak; they have no voice to be heard among us. Therefore, we fight, to give a voice to the voiceless. As Combeferre puts it, we should pity minds, as stomachs, that do not eat. In this country, too many people do neither. We fight to put an end to this; we must revolutionize the world.
"Revolutions are those rough spots, those parts of Progress, that people gloss over and frown upon, but without change, nothing is possible. We cannot achieve Progress; we can only strive for better, towards our ideals. And our ideal is a free France, one where everyone is equal. As Rousseau puts it, "man is born free, and yet everywhere he is in chains". So we fight to remove those chains, my friends. Opposing cruelties from a distance will get you nowhere, while your fellow men, your brothers-in-arms, are suffering. Therefore, we fight, even if the people do not rise, even if they abandon us. For it is to a new dawn that we go towards, and if we die, it is to create a new and a brilliant future, of which we should be proud. My friends, we will not all survive this. Brave men have died already. But take heart, for we are dying for something, so that others may be free. Vive l'avenir. Long live the future."
My face flushed with passion, all that we fought for, and gave me a new hope. Long live the future, indeed.
The rest of them had started clapping, but I didn't need the applause. All I needed was knowledge that I had known all along. We were not just some pitiful band of hopeless insurgents. We knew why we were fighting, we knew the consequences, and most of all, we knew that no matter what, it was a good thing. It was a new and brilliant dawn, not tomorrow perhaps, or the next day, but brilliant all the same. Someday, they will take our places, and rise above in their tens of thousands. Losing a battle is not always a failure. For it is only when the guns are silenced that the quiet voices of reason can be heard.