His body was lying against the side of a building in the rue de la Coutillerie, overlooked for at first he appeared to be a sleeping drunkard. The bandage of his wound had soaked through and begun to hemmorage, due to an unhappy accident that had caused him to be swept away from his comrades in the chaotic retreat of the first minute, and also to a bayonet that had got him in the lung, besides.
He was taken into the Hôtel de Ville and lain on a table therein, about which a remarkable conference was held.
"Here is the hero of the Revolution," said Jeanne to the Citoyen Louis-Phillipe, who recoiled to see the enormous ogre stretched out upon his dining table, "He must be installed in the Pantheon, next to Robespierre and Danton."
"No," said Combeferre, "It is passed from us, as all great men must." and then he made a speech, a remarkable speech, at the end of which the face of Enjolras had lost its habitual marble-like pallor and looked rather as scarlet with shock as the cap that he wrenched between his two hands. The rest of the men assembled were fixed with looks somewhat less stricken, though certainly surprised, save perhaps the former king, whose expression aped Enjolras. He would have titled Combeferre on the spot, save there were to be no more titles of that kind: so he made him a General instead.
"It is fitting, I think," said Honoré, "I did not know him well but I do not think it ill befitting."
"You are wrong," said Caudelac to Combeferre, "It is the dead great man that reminds, that teaches, and the name is as important as the deed."
"It is," said Combeferre, and when he smiled it put Honoré and Caudelac in mind of Mephistopheles, "but not to the lessons we teach today."
"Here," muttered Lafayette, "Is an answer without a question." But he did not mean to be heard, and was not.
Enjolras grabbed Combeferre's arm, making his protest felt.
"He was more than that," He said. Combeferre smiled but did not shake his head.
"He would have wanted it this way." And he could almost hear Grantaire's rough, sardonic voice saying, 'let him take that as he will.' When Combeferre turned away he closed his eyes and drew the curtain across the window nearest, so that the others would not see him cry.
And so there was a state funeral, held at the Arc de Triomphe, whereunder were lain together the dead of the insurgency and the Bourbon resistance both in a common grave. Afterwards, for the first time, the constitution drafted by Jeanne, Combeferre, Louis-Phillipe, Lafayette, Reille, Soult and the others present at the conference was read aloud by Armand Clausel to the people. Many wept openly, some cried out in anger, but the world was reborn in that hour, and the grave whereupon the mourners stood was a grave kissed full by the dawn. No names were inscribed upon the plaque which marked the grave, but rather the following, which was the summit of the speech Combeferre had given in the Hôtel de Ville:
The ideas of Tyranny, of Monarchy, and of Doubt
Buried here with these Brave Warriors lies also an Idea
Cancerous to the State:
That the Hearts of the French People are frail,
That their will is not Sovereign,
And that a Man is more glorious than an Idea.
These men died so that those who believe in nothing
Might have Peace.