As darkness falls upon the barricade in the Courgonde d'Aix, Enjolras looks around at the fallen. Skepticsturn to believers. Believers flee in fear. Who is true, and who is not? Spirit and soul unwavering, he knows that somehow, he will eventually pay when la Patria has been freed and the downtrodden elevated.
Death descends swiftlyon what used to be living, breathing figures. It tugs at the threads of life like magpies on shiny objects, and sweeps like the plague through the barricade. Musket shots rain upon the insurrection like hail, and those it strikes fall. That is the cold truth of it. Enjolras grasps the barrel of the carbine tightly in his hands, feels the cold steel beneath his fingers, and aims for the Garde Nationale. A lieutenant falls. It is quick, and as he turns and leaps off the barricade, he lands firmly on the ground, a distant thumping in his heart. Many had fallen, but égalité triumphs.
Some had been volunteers, some roped in by others. The street gamin, the struggling middle-class, the renounced bourgeois. The Garde Nationale, the insurgents. The Republicans, the Royalists, the Bonapartists. Death sees beyond the superficialities that only the living can be stupid enough to see. Death is the great equalizer, and the Angel of Death makes no distinction between class and race. Death is the great equalizer, and claims all sans prejudice and bias…ruthlessly.
As Enjolras lifts up his carbine and loads it again, his thoughts drift to that of Louis XVI, Louis-Philippe and Napoleon Bonaparte. They had been kings and emperors. Eventually, at the hands of the people and upon the battlefield they had met their fate. Death is the great equalizer, and in that, Napoleon had been no more than a gamin, Louis XVI no mightier than the Bastille guards, and Louis-Philippe no grander than the Everyman.
The relentless assaults cease not. Grapeshot continues raining upon the barricade, and cannon-fire explodes in the background. Ammunition runs low for the insurrection, and Hades' clutches grow more persistent. Snaking in and out among les révolutionnaires, it claims its victims like an undiscerning child, gripping and waiting desperately for more. It lusts after that souls of man, and lures them towards its unfeeling embrace, a cold hand closing in upon them as bullets ricochet and slam into those who have chosen to defend what they hold dear.
The tocsin rings, and the Garde Nationale senses the sweet victory approaching.
The red flag topples and drifts to the ground.
Enjolras, pierced by eight shots, has fallen.
The last of les révolutionnaires are overcome.
The barricade, the last stronghold, is swamped, overtaken, and gone.
But what they do not know! Death is the great equalizer, and all who fall upon the barricade - the street gamin, the struggling middle class, the renounced bourgeois - shall be memorialized for eternity as patriots of France.