Disclaimer: Les Miserables belongs to Victor Hugo.
Notes: Wow. This proves I spent waaaay too much time working on that biography project.
Gautier Enjolras had tried his best to sever all ties with his family, but he had learned that there were occasionally, and only occasionally, benefits to coming from a wealthy background such as his. For one, if he wished to take a trip, he need only ask and he could go. Or, his parents would just offer and save his the embarrassment of returning home to ask a favor. Such was the situation when his parents wrote saying that they had a ticket to America if he'd like to go. And, of course, they could always arrange for a return trip, when he wished. Gautier knew his parents were probably hoping he'd find some American girl that tickled his fancy, as no French girl had succeeded in doing. He also knew that if that was his parents' goal, they would be sorely disappointed.
Of course, Gautier wasn't just going to prove to his parents that neither French nor American girls interested him. He wanted to see America's republic, to see in action what he felt sure was the perfect system of government that would solve all of France's problems. Getting away from Grantaire was a plus, too.
Gautier really didn't consider himself a dreaming type, and he definitely wasn't compared to Prouvaire, but he was slightly surprised to see that the America he found himself in really wasn't much like he had heard. It was a grey, drizzly morning, and the nearly empty streets bore a striking resemblance to the streets of Paris that he had left. He didn't notice any whores or gamin, though. So obviously a republic would do good for Paris, as it had for America.
Of course, just because Gautier didn't see the people on the street didn't mean they weren't there. But he was content because he thought he was right. And so Gautier continued down the street. His mother had friends here, and as much as he loathed to stay with anyone who knew his mother, especially because his mother had sung praises of their twenty-year-old daughter, he had no place else to go. If it had been his choice, he would have stayed in a much larger city. But, instead, Gautier found himself in Rochester, New York in December of 1831.
Now as said, Gautier wasn't a dreamer, but he did think. And he did often get lost in his thoughts, though he never let on when he was startled back into reality. So Gautier managed not to look the least bit started when he was yanked from his thoughts of freedom and France back into reality when he ran into a little girl. She looked startled, though.
Gautier was also good at keeping his face controlled. Those who knew him would claim that his face had a four-expression range: neutral, infuriated, determined, or condescending. Courfeyrac swore to have once seen Gautier sleeping, but no one really believed him. But because of his expert control of emotions, Gautier didn't look surprised to see the singularly awkward-looking girl before him. That, and he wasn't truly to sort to notice whether a person was physically handsome or not anyway.
The girl was only about eleven years old, in the plain dress of Quakers (though Gautier didn't know this, since he didn't know how Quakers dressed) and thick black hair. She had the same sort of Grecian nose that Gautier himself had, but it really didn't look as nice on a girl. She had a sweet face besides her eyes, which were dark and handsome enough, but both pointed inwards.
"I am sorry!" she said, clasping her hands together. "I was not paying attention... I was thinking. I'm sorry."
"It is alright," Gautier assured her.
"I should return home now," the girl said. "I have lessons."
"Oh?" Gautier asked. It was possible, but very unusual, for a girl to be educated in Paris. The girl nodded.
"Father thinks that we need to be educated," the girl said. "I used to go to a school, but the teacher wouldn't teach me long division like he taught my brothers. So Father got us a teacher for home."
"Long division?" Enjolras asked, surprised a girl age would be learning that sort of thing. The girl nodded.
"Yes. And geography. And sometimes, when Mister Douglass comes on Sundays I listen at the door. But Father doesn't know that. Sometimes Guelma catches me and says she'll tell him, but she never does. I think she's listening, too. I like Mister Douglass."
"Oh?" Gautier felt it best to humor the girl. Maybe if he did, she'd either shut up, or he'd learn something useful.
"Yes. He's the only black man I know. He used to be a slave, Father says, but he was freed. Father and he are abolitionists," she struggled with the last word, but managed to get it out without mangling to too horribly. "That means they don't like slavery. I don't like it either, but my friend said that it would never go away."
"Well, if one doesn't like something, one ought to fight against it," Gautier said slowly. Children, he had learned early on, didn't often understand or care about concepts such as that. This girl looked thoughtful, though.
"And what of the fact they will not teach me the same things as the boys in school?" she asked after a moment. "Could I fight against that, too?"
"If you wish," Gautier said. A part of him was beginning to think that perhaps a Republic wasn't going to solve all of France's problems, if America still had problems such as these.
"And temperance?" the girl asked, now bouncing eagerly on the balls of her feet. "Father always talks about it. May I fight for that as well?"
Gautier started to wonder just what he had started.
"Today Father told me that a lady who works in his mill couldn't be the overseer just because she was a girl, even though she is better than the overseer we have. I do not think it is right. Could I fight against that, as well?"
"One should fight against whatever they think is wrong," Gautier said. The girl beamed.
"And you?" she asked, looking up at him, her crossed brown eyes meeting his icy blue ones. "What do you fight for?"
"The freedom of all," Gautier said loftily. The girl looked thoughtful.
"Well, alright. I'll help you fight for that, too. What is your name?"
"Gautier Enjolras."
"Ah. Thank you very much, Mister Enjolras!" she called over her shoulder as she started running back to her house, hiking her skirt up over her knees to make running easier.
"What is your name?" Gautier called after her, making a mental note to see if this girl ever did anything when she got older. The girl stopped and turned towards him.
"Oh. My name is Susan. Susan Anthony."
Gautier watched her race off, then continued his walk. He remembered the name, and fully intended to return again, to see if the girl so excited to fight for something ever made anything of herself. Gautier didn't know, on that grey December morning, that it would be his last ever trip. He didn't know that one year later he would be months dead, killed, just like he had told the girl, fighting for freedom for all.
He also didn't know that the little girl would die over seventy years later having fought not only for the abolishment of slavery, but for temperance, new women's land laws, equality in the workplace, and an avid supporter of the woman's suffrage movement. Though the girl outlived the blond boy who had one day inspired her to fight, both still remained the same in two ways: They spent their lives fighting for what they believed, and neither lived to see the new world that they wished to create.