"It is the people's reluctance, that is why we lose," Enjolras says intently to his roomful of revolutionaries, standing to lean over a table.
"If that's your great insight gathered from all this, you should appoint me strategist," says Grantaire from the corner. "I was saying that before the first time we died."
Enjolras ignores him. The rest of Les Amis range from frightened to overwhelmed to excited as they have slowly worked out what is going on, but Grantaire seems just amused. Amused, and intoxicated. They have called an emergency morning meeting, but already Grantaire is well on his way to late-afternoon levels of drunk.
The guns and powder are important," Enjolras continues, "but the peoples' support is crucial. We must impress the importance of this upon them in this last day we have. We'll split up and campaign through the most promising neighborhoods-I've got assignments and pamphlets here."
"What shall I do, Apollo?" asks Grantaire, swaggering up to the table when the room had cleared a bit.
"Nothing," says Enjolras sourly. "You're no use like this, you'll be less use in an hour."
"You underestimate me," chirps Grantaire. "I can maintain exactly this level of uselessness all day. I've had practice."
Enjolras turns away, scowls. "I can't believe you can drink when you know what's coming."
Grantaire laughs. It is not a nice sound. "I've always known what was coming," he says.
Inspector Javert, as one of the few with no one to compare his experiences with, might be inclined to question his wits if he had ever been inclined to question his wits in his life.
He has never been, and so he embarks on a careful evaluation of the facts. He asks no less than three people on the street the date, and gets three answers of June fourth. He goes to the Rue de Saint Michel and stands in the place he knows, for an absolute certainty, the barricade stood. He frowns at the ground, as though it has swallowed up the barricade and all its blood and debris. He frowns up at the windows the tables and chairs and cabinets were thrown from, as though the things had flown back through the air and to their roosts.
The last thing he does is go to the river and look at it too, his shoulders straight and his hands joined behind his back, his eyes steely and closely considering. Then Javert nods once, in the manner of one who has made up his mind, and returns to his patrols.
Valjean is himself engaged in a contemplation of his own sanity, and is too absorbed in it to worry when Cosette excuses herself to her room with a headache after their walk. He was certainly too absorbed to be suspicious this afternoon. There was no Javert patrolling today, and whether that is for good or ill it has certainly not clarified things any further.
He had managed to avoid the Thénadiers this time around, but between that and his solemn thoughts, he had not managed to notice the familiar young man handing his daughter a letter as they passed in the street.
Cosette does not pull the letter out from where she has hidden it in her sleeve until she has closed her bedroom door behind her. She is loath to even then, and she hesitates before she retrieves it. It is one thing to dream of a wonderful boy, to dream you are falling in love. It is another thing, although maybe not so hard to believe as some might think, to meet him in the waking world and find you shared the same love-dream. But she had forgotten how her dream had ended, holding her Marius, filthy and bleeding, in her arms, until the moment came again last night.
Except it wasn't last night. The date on her father's newspaper this morning told her it would not be until tomorrow night, and this was nothing like poems, nothing like love-dreams. She holds the letter and looks at it-it is in a slightly smudgy envelope, addressed with only her first name, Cosette, in genteel script-and she is frightened. But she breaks the seal and opens the letter.
My darling Cosette: I am part of a failed revolution, but God is giving us another chance.
It's the popular theory among Les Amis, though nobody will say it in such words yet except Pontmercy, so spirits are high at the Musain even as they ready for a battle they've all lost twice.
Javert is drawn the next day to the barricade when it rises once more. He introduces himself to their golden leader with the confidence of an actor who knows his lines. The story the boy gives him of the state of their supplies and their plans for the night are a little different than they were the time before, a little more dramatic, but he memorizes it anyway and jogs away again with a tricolor on his chest.
It is that same sense of duty that draws him back come nightfall, even though he knows he will be recognized, will be captured and tied up and kicked in the ribs by students with clear eyes and righteous revolution in their hearts. But it is what he is meant to do-he cannot shake the certainty of that.
They are not as vicious tonight because they have not yet lost anyone. He has always had an acute memory for faces and names, and he is starting to recognize the ones that surround him. Enjolras, of course, and Combeferre who talked the students out of executing him before, their names are called back and forth across the little cul-de-sac by their people. The inebriate inside with Javert, managing supplies and drinking steadily, is never called for, but once Enjolras comes in to fetch some powder and calls him by name-"Grantaire, if you're going to handle the weapons you need to put the bottle away," he scowls.
Javert doesn't know the girl's name, the one who died that first night, back when he'd thought it was all a dream. She's here again tonight, no longer dressed as a boy like she was the night she died. Her hair is long, her dress rough. She is certainly a criminal of some kind-ah yes, a lookout. He has seen her before. He has a great mind for faces.
He wishes he had a name to put to hers when he sees it in the gutter tomorrow.
He is of course not surprised this time when Valjean shows up. Enjolras shoots his own sniper this time, but it presages another scattered attack, and Valjean pushes a slight young man out of the way and the boy escapes nothing more than a graze. So Enjolras gives Javert to him again. Javert would laugh if this were funny at all.
In the alley he and Valjean face each other like old fellow soldiers pausing in a long march that still has many miles to go. They are silent. Valjean walks behind Javert and cuts his bonds.
"Kill me," says Javert, without turning back around to face his tormentor. "Don't do this. I cannot bear it." He speaks as one who already knows the answer he will get.
Valjean points the gun in the air. "Go," he says.
Javert goes.
They are less scared this time, more confident. They blaze with righteous confidence in the blessedness of their fight; most of them die in the assault at dawn. Enjolras is among them. Grantaire, wild-eyed, falls shortly after.
Marius takes a bullet through the stomach meant for Joly. He dies in the sewers on Valjean's shoulders. Valjean does not know where else to take him if not home.
As Cosette opens the door once more to her father carrying the body of her love, she cannot manage to thank God for the extra chance he has given this revolution.