Title : Glorious Revolution
Author : Nemainofthewater
Disclaimer : I don't own anything you recognise. It all belongs to Victor Hugo (I think).
Vive la France!
It was Mélanie who noticed it first. That miraculously the man in the wine shop wasn't dead. He hung out of the window, a red banner clasped in his fist, that later took all the strength of her mother and her elder brother to remove.
(Although there was one piece that the man stubbornly refused to let go of).
This was later though, after she had screamed for help and the women scrubbing the blood from the pavestones had come and taken him down.
Right now, all she could think of was how he looked clad in a blood red coat, the colour of la Révolution, of the passion that had swept the students on the barricade.
She had listened from behind her bed, tightly holding on to her poupée.
She had heard the fierce songs that talked of liberty, of freedom, of hope, of such strange things that she had never heard of.
She had heard the cannon fire, and the screams of the dying, of the desperate calls for help as they knocked on doors, begging for their lives, for salvation that never came.
And the worst thing was, as she listened to the doomed men, she hoped fervently that her mother and father would not help them, would not bring the attention of the gendarmes to their home, and would keep them safe.
She was only nine; she cared little for the glorious revolution that was promised, for the uprising against the tyrannical monarch. The only thing she cared about was getting enough bread to stop the pangs of hunger in her belly, and though this happed at irregular periods, she would rather face the certainty of her life and the little comfort that it offered than the cold uncertainty that faced her if she was killed.
And then one by one the screams had all fallen silent, and the bullets had stilled, and the cries of pain and suffering had stopped.
And that was somehow worse, because she knew that all the bright vibrant students, who she had peered at covertly for weeks as they gave impassioned speeches, were dead.
But now she had found a survivor. And when she finally saw his face, she knew that it was not any student, but the leader, the one who had called them all to arms, and who had asked the people to rise.
He was beautiful.
His face was pale from blood loss, and looked as if it were carved from the finest marble. Blood covered him, soaking into his red coat and the curls of his hair, flattening it against his head, and making him look somewhat subdued.
He looked young, as young as her older brother Bruno, but there was an ethereal quality to his face. When he was alive, it had been lit by an inner fire, his eyes aflame and he pronounced his fiery words to rally his friends.
Now, he looked more like the tragic figure of a dead knight, who had fallen defending his faith in the Crusades.
And when he was lying in her bed (that she shared with her two younger sisters) he didn't seem any more corporeal.
And as she sat by him, she felt ashamed for the first time, that she had stood by and let him die. That she hadn't done something, done anything to help him.
But what could she do, she who was one of the misérables, who was fated to be born, live and die in the gutter.
Nothing.
And when the gendarmes burst into their tiny apartment to claim the man for the executioner's block, when they shot her brothers, her little sisters, her brothers, she felt that she could do no more than this:
She took in hand the French flag that had been used as a blanket to cover the prone man, in hand, and she faced her destiny squarely in the face.
"Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive…"
When Enjolras woke, he was once surrounded by corpses. Not those of his friends as he might have expected, had he thought he would wake up at all, but by ones unknown to him.
They were scattered around the tiny apartment he found himself in, mere children, blood splattering their faces. Beside his bed (and how had he got to this bed?) there was a young girl, who could be no older then Gavroche (Gavroche qui est mort si jeune, qui a été vole de sa vie, de sa jeunesse, de sa vitalité).
In her hand she clutched the French flag, and her face was peaceful. There was something in her pocket, and before he could stop himself he reached in and took it out.
It was a toupis en bois, a little wooden top that children would play with in the streets.
And abruptly, though since he had woken up he had been aware of the all-consuming pain that plagued him if he so much as breathed, he felt numb.
This family had done nothing but take him into their home; they hadn't fought at the barricade (and he couldn't help but feel a small flash of hurt at that thought, that the people of Paris had not joined them, had left them to die) and yet the soldiers had stormed in and killed them all.
Slowly, and as moving through thick treacle, he made his way to the window.
Outside there were women scrubbing the cobblestones, trying to get rid of the rivers of blood that stained them.
The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France…
And there, further on were the bodies of his friends.
Gavroche, immediately recognisable as he was only half the size of the other bodies, Eponine who had taken a bullet for Marius, Grantaire who had asked to be shot with him, Combeferre who was his oldest friend, Joly, Courfeyrac, Jehan…
All lying there, united in death as they were in life.
I did this, he thought in horror; I killed them all, as surely as I were the one who held the gun. Les Amis are no more, there if only me left now, the commander who was inexplicably alive.
His wounds were likely fatal; he didn't know how he had survived this long.
And yet… He touched his face, and saw that it had been washed clean of blood.
The family who had tried to help him, and who had been slaughtered for nothing more than showing human kindness.
How could he live, start another rebellion, knowing that just as surely as the corrupt regime, he had killed his friends?
With some difficulty he managed to haul himself up onto the windowsill.
He ignored the gasps from below him. He looked only straight ahead. He had no flag this time, but it seemed fitting.
And then he fell.
And as he involuntarily closed his eyes, he could hear singing.