Chapter Two

The June Rebellion

For the next few days, Clementine did little else but pore over the book.

She knew that there were countless other things she should have been doing. She should have been doing the follow up reading for her lectures, making revision cards, writing second drafts of essays – and even things that didn't involve university work, such as socialising and taking the time to phone her parents, should have taken priority over her study of this battered copy of Aeschylus' plays.

Nonetheless, Clementine found her time completely stolen by the book, or more accurately, the notes left behind inside it by one Jean Prouvaire.

She read it curled up in bed during both mornings and nights; she read it in the coffee shop on her university campus; she read it whilst waiting for lectures to begin; she read it in the kitchen whilst waiting for her food to cook; she had even read it whilst sat on the toilet. The book went everywhere with her, becoming her constant companion.

It wasn't long before her flatmates noticed her new friend. Élodie, the chatty one, immediately latched on to the unusual nature of Clementine's current obsession with zeal. This manifested itself in the form of constant questions on the book, the poetry within, and demanding to know why she was reading it so much. Then there was Sophie, a loudmouthed animal rights activist who never missed an opportunity to tease Clementine on the book and the romantic nature of its first owner's notes. Pauline, a philosophy student, was openly disdainful, wondering why Clementine would waste her time with such an old, tatty book when she could buy a brand new one.

The only flatmate who seemed to understand, to an extent, was Noémi. Noémi was a quiet, occasionally painfully shy girl from the Provence region of France, specifically Marseille. Although Clementine generally got on with her flat as a whole, the one she considered herself closest to was Noémi. Noémi was nineteen, a year younger than Clementine, but her quiet demeanour and willingness to let Clementine have time to herself had meant Clementine developed a fondness for her quite quickly. On top of that, they both shared interests, studying the same course, both being able to read Ancient Greek, and enjoying the same TV shows and films.

Noémi, for her part, was quite interested in the book. Not as much as Clementine, but enough to engage with Clementine's conversations about it. Noémi wasn't the first to ask about the book, but she was the first one that Clementine allowed to look at it.

"This man seems very sweet," Noémi concluded, twisting the end of her long, pale brown braid around her wrist. "His handwriting is lovely."

"He writes some very…sweet poetry," Clementine agreed, holding back a sigh. "There's one – let me see if I can find it – he wrote about a girl he saw at the market, and how blue her eyes were and how kind her smile was…I just thought his turn of phrase in it was gorgeous…"

It was in trying to find this poem for Noémi to read that Clementine found the first note about rebellion.

It was on a small square of paper, like the others, but it was not poetry, nor a reminder. It was one of the musings that Jean Prouvaire wrote from time to time, and Clementine wasn't sure how she'd missed it.

It said:

Everyday talk grows more towards another revolution. We do not know whether it will be this year, the next, or maybe the year after that; but we know it will happen. There is a hunger in the land, and it will not be long before everything comes to a head. Enjolras in particular is confident of this, and he seems convinced that it must be a violent confrontation. I do not think Combeferre is entirely on board with that idea, but Combeferre will never go against Enjolras' wishes. As for me, I do not care how it happens; I just wish for the suffering to end.

It was also the first thing that Clementine had seen that had a proper date, scrawled across the top: 1831.

Clementine read it quickly and silently then passed it to Noémi.

"This is not a poem," Noémi pointed out after reading it.

"No, you're right, it's not what I was looking for, but…" Clementine accepted the slip of paper back and reread it. "It's so interesting, don't you think? I mean, who was this Jean Prouvaire?"

Noémi shrugged. "That long ago? He could be anyone, Clementine. I think you would be hard pushed to find him."

Still, that evening, Clementine found herself typing his name into a search engine. Although there were results for his name, none matched exactly with the dates and his own poetry – the ones she didn't recognise she had decided were his own works – turned up nothing.

So instead of searching for the man himself, she turned to the specific date. She looked at the slip of paper, and typed in the year – 1831, followed by revolution and Paris.

The first page that popped up was simply titled The June Rebellion. The date was one year out, she found, as this insurrection took place in 1832. She quickly read over the entire article on this event, from its causes, the build up, the actual rebellion with its barricades and societies and death and lack of success and then its aftermath.

Once she had finished reading, she sat back and looked down at Jean Prouvaire's note.

Another revolution…a violent confrontation…I just wish for the suffering to end.

The words brought a lump to Clementine's throat. The images thrown up by the article on the June Rebellion were ones of destruction and violence and death; unpleasant images, to say the least, made even worse by the fact it was a failed revolt.

She wondered whether Jean Prouvaire was at a barricade when the fighting broke out. Was this man involved in the fighting? In her mind, it was hard to pair the man from this book with a rebellion. From what she could see, Jean Prouvaire was a man with a clear love of literature, who wrote lovely, sweet poems about kittens, beautiful maidens and flowers. He was a man who talked very fondly of his friends and he was a man who seemed gentle and in love with love and life and all of its different facets. He seemed happy, kind, generous. It upset Clementine to think of this man, the Jean Prouvaire from her mind, firing a gun on a barricade amongst scenes of destruction.

Then the worst thought of all rose up, making the lump in Clementine's throat double in size. Had Jean Prouvaire made it out of the rebellion alive? Or had he died, like many others, felled by a bullet or a bayonet?

Clementine swallowed, hard, and shoved the slip of paper back between the pages and slammed the book shut. She closed the internet window she'd had open, and tried to think of something else – anything else – apart from the idea of Jean Prouvaire dying.