There's a narrow ridge in the churchyard

Would scarce stay a child in his race,

But to me and my thoughts it is wider

Than the star-sown vague of space.

James Russell Lowell, "After the Burial"

"I don't understand," Courfeyrac said, his inquisitive curiosity to the fore. "The quality of the illustrations doesn't seem any better than those in my yellow-bound novels of dubious reputation. You can get better pictures from the grubbiest print-stand along the Seine. And the typefaces have all the eccentric faults of your wardrobe, completely lacking in harmony."

Prouvaire batted Courfeyrac's hand away from the copy of l'Histoire du Roi de Bohême. The book was laid reverently atop his coat on one of the Musain's tables, Prouvaire having also carefully wiped away any residual stickiness on the surface as a precaution. It was meant for Combeferre's perusal, but any new object, activity or person was bound to attract Courfeyrac's attention sooner or later, and now his curly head was bent over the book as he flipped through the pages with merry abandon and no sense of defence for the books rarity.

"No, you're missing the point, Courfeyrac! Books may still incorporate copperplate illustrations, but look at how the woodblock engravings have been integrated into the stereotype plate. The vignette technique blends the two, so that the picture becomes one with the text and the page itself."

"It seems that Nodier is interested more in producing fantastical effects than in a coherent narrative," Combeferre said cautiously. The book was a curiosity, no doubt of it – heralded as the advance of the Romantic movement into the world of the printing press, it was as startling in its own way as one of the newly popular and wildly erratic dances by Musard, the Galopes.

"You remember that vignette by Chartelet of Napoleon crossing the Saint-Bernard Pass -"

"The Corsican is never a good argument on your side, Prouvaire."

"My point, Courfeyrac, is the technique. The way in which the image was integrated into the text – the white of the page becomes the snows of the mountain pass. The entire work is one of unity with the author's purpose."

"Hrm." Combeferre said thoughtfully. Leafing through the pages, he began to gain a sense of how the work, apparent nonsense, showed an ingenious use of different typefaces, some of them in playful pictorial arrangements. The book made liberal use of woodblock prints, and even to his untrained eye it was evident that they were used in a unique manner. "It would seem the illustrations are not confined to alignment at the top or bottom of the page."

"Yes!" Prouvaire cried, squeezing Combeferre's arm in his enthusiasm. "You see! Imagine the potential – words and images united visually, no longer treated as separate, disconnected elements but as an artistic whole!"

Combeferre smiled. Prouvaire was right, and Nodier's whimsy suddenly revealed itself in its full potential.

"Ah!" said Courfeyrac, the light breaking through at last. "I see! A work of artistic unity."

He bent his head over the book again.

"Do you think Diderot's publishers could be persuaded to do such an…artistic version of 'Les bijoux indiscrets?'" Courfeyrac asked with his widest grin.

1856

Combeferre's understanding of printing techniques had come far since that conversation in the Musain's back room, and he – like the reading public – had long since become accustomed to the innovations that had so excited Prouvaire. When he acquired his illustrated edition of Paul et Virginie, his thoughts had been as much of the light in his poet friend's eyes, the fired enthusiasm, as they had been of what the press had to say about the masterful illustrative technique.

Long familiarity had bred, if not contempt, then at least a weary resignation to the tedious processes of translating images to the finished product in his own work. His Histoire dela Révolution de 1848 had been generously illustrated with some fifty woodblocks and eight fine copperplate engravings, a satisfactory end result achieved by many hours of meetings and correspondence and a great many rejections where an engraved plate had failed to properly convey the original illustration.

And the process was to begin again. Combeferre was not near to completing the work – he had the final volume to write and significant material to add to the earlier chapters to flesh out his notes on the 1830 barricades as a prelude to 1832 – but his publisher, Léon Renault, had been keenly forging ahead with his advance publicity, and had notices distributed to the provincial sellers via the Dépôt Central de Librairie, an association of publishers. It was for this reason that he had called Combeferre into his offices in the rue de Richelieu.

Combeferre, as a rule, thought rather kindly of Renault even if – as now – the publisher cut quite an affected figure, leaning back behind his desk in his swivel chair, surrounded by proofs, books and ledgers, chewing on the end of a cigar. Though not quite lolling about like Dauriat, Balzac's fictional sultan of publishing, he was exuding a general air that gave his office a spiritual kinship to the seraglio of the presses. A great deal of that, Combeferre knew, was a facade for the benefit of his editors and competitors in the world of print. Renault had left the world of the yellow cloth bound books and entered the more rarefied world of respectable leather clad volumes only a decade before, and while he had shelves full of excellent historical and scientific titles to his publishing credit – including Combeferre's entire oeuvre to date – one's perch on the teetering pile of Parisian publishers could never be taken for granted.

But Renault had a sense of humour as well as a keen eye for good properties that came his way, and regarded with amusement some of Combeferre's more waspish comments when he became exasperated. The story of how Combeferre had written Renault an acerbic note "congratulating" his printers on their collaborative contribution to the second edition of his History, attaching a long list of typographical errors they had introduced after the final proofs had been corrected, had become one of the publisher's favourite tales. He had told it to third parties in Combeferre's presence at least half a dozen times.

Now, he was all enthusiasm for a new marketing technique. "Let us get their names out there – I want people curious about their characters before the first livraison is sold. As soon as that article for the Journal de Paris is published, we'll have some of the copperplate etchings selling at the print shops and stands." He gave a wide, encompassing smile across the desk, before taking the cigar out of his mouth to enunciate his point with emphasis. "By the time we go to press, half the reception rooms in France will have your friends' portraits in their scrapbooks or hanging on the walls of their front rooms!"

Combeferre shifted uncomfortably. "As long as they talk about them and their ideas as well as admiring their visages," he said pointedly.

"Talk of them? Of course they'll talk of them! But look at these!" He thrust a plate at Combeferre. A finely etched image, wreathed in a complicated border of entwined laurel, flags and Phrygian caps and all sorts of Republican paraphernalia. Combeferre squinted at the portraits. Nine of them. He read the caption - The Chief and Lieutenants of Les Amis de L'ABC

"You included Grantaire and myself?"

"Well you, of course. Must weave you into the story, for all you underplay your part. If you won't play the omniscient and invisible narrator then we must insert you in to the story. And Grantaire seems to have been an intimate of your circle, from what I've read of the text so far."

Combeferre was silent. There was truth in that. It hadn't been until one of their discussions, when Renault had asked him a number of questions about Grantaire's presence in so many scenes, that Combeferre had consciously thought to himself of just how much a part of the story he was. And it made it even more difficult to ascertain and accord him his precise place. Oh, there were anecdotes – Grantaire managing to talk gendarmes out of searching Lesgles on one occasion, and another when he'd almost seen the lot of them rounded up when he was apprehended sloppily pasting up placards too near the Tuileries – but assigning Grantaire his rightful position in their group was not easy.

Grantaire had not been his closest friend, it was true - Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Joly and Bossuet had been his most intimate companions – but they had been friends nonetheless. Grantaire had an irresistible warmth that made one overlook his more irritating traits. And when remembering the backroom of the Musain with the soft-lit tones of memory, Grantaire stood out in much more vivid colours than many who had passed through those doors, the foot soldiers under Enjolras' lieutenants. Reboux for instance, who was forever writing plays with his Italian friend Cama (Reboux, he recalled, had died in the early stages of the epidemic. Cama had drifted away from the group some time before, and Combeferre did not know what had become of him). Even their friend Évariste Galois, companion of Bahorel and – if not officially a member of the cell – a frequenter of their meetings, and one who would certainly have been on the barricades in June had a duel not claimed him the month before. Grantaire was a lively presence in his memories of the ABC, and always the questions. Enjolras' curious trust of the man, his faith that whatever his flaws, Grantaire would never betray them by accident or intent, not matter how much he disavowed their Republican ideals.

Having thought about it – and the remembrance that Grantaire had died at the barricade where he himself had not – Combeferre did not feel right according him the part of the buffoon, there to lighten with a comedic touch. He made a poor Greek Chorus, too, having never been particularly insightful in his rambling cynicism – to try to pin Grantaire to an argument or a position was to try to pick up mercury with a fork. He eluded Combeferre, neither rightfully in nor out of the story, and it was as he worked on his notes on the final chapters that Combeferre looked for an insight, a clue, on where to place him. Grantaire's end would help to determine his beginning. Or so Combeferre hoped.

Putting on his glasses, he examined the plate more closely, and recoiled a little in distaste.

"Is that…that…meant to be Enjolras?"

"The central figure? Of course."

"That…prim-mouthed child?" Combeferre was more startled than angry. Enjolras' full lower lip had been shortened, that upside-down cupid's mouth turned into small pursed lips, his eyes round and wide, the entire face without force or any character save of the most vapid kind.

"Well, we had only that sketch of him as a youth to work from, and your words."

It was Enjolras and yet not Enjolras, the lines of his features prettified to the point of unrecognizability, and all his character stripped from him.

"It won't do" Combeferre said decidedly.

"You're the one that said he looked younger than his years. We could re-engrave the plate-" Renault said hopefully.

"It won't do in the slightest. Have Berger call on me so we may discuss it. Courfeyrac looks as if his eyes are bruised – what are these dark circles around them? Prouvaire may do – his features are overshadowed by that oversized eccentric plumed hat, but they generally were when he wore it – but Bossuet is altogether too stolid. Oh, no, no – this won't do at all.

"Very well," huffed Renault. "It's fortunate that this is going to sell, or I wouldn't indulge you so. It is not easy to reconstruct portraits from what scanty records you have provided us and almost no visual references."

That was true, thought Courfeyrac, looking at Feuilly's face. His immediate impression was of a hat and side whiskers – much more plentiful than Feuilly had worn in life, as if the artist had decided to compensate for his lack of any portrait at all of this particular man by resorting to a face shadowed by the cap pulled low over the working man's eyes, giving him a furtive look, and whiskers to hide as much as possible of the features beneath.

"How about this barricade plate?" Renault offered in a conciliatory fashion. "It's a very fine barricade."

Combeferre conceded that it was indeed a very fine barricade, if perhaps twice as high as the one in the rue de la Chanvrerie had been.

"Notice the omnibus," Renault said with pride. "See, they picked up that detail well."

They had. There were also a few other details he was pleased to note, such as the shattered glass and the flag made of a sad old man's coat. Combeferre decided to ignore the distant voices – one that spoke of in a whisper of not dampening the general enthusiasm and another ringing in sorrowful pride that "This is our flag now" – in order to critically examine the image. Broadly speaking, it looked as such a barricade should, although the whole gave an impression of greater dimensions than the original – not only the height of the barricade, but the width of the street. When he suggested this, Renault shrugged. "Berger felt it should have a scale appropriate to the sweep of the tale."

"Why is there always such a plethora of barrels in illustrations of barricades?" Combeferre observed testily. "It could do with a few more paving stones and a few less barrels."

"You are sounding annoyed, my friend – so I shall probably annoy you more with my next request. This Enjolras-" he tapped his finger on a plate showing a gesturing man that - in cheerful contradiction of the portrait illustration – showed the prim-mouthed child of the former now looking a good twenty years too old to be a student, but whom the caption assured the viewer was indeed Enjolras "- we need to bring out his pleasures and pursuits more."

"And why should we need to do this?" Combeferre asked guardedly, decidedly not liking where this was going.

"Well, this priestly austerity is all very well – very noble and commendable and all – but we really need a figure of amorous romantic appeal."

"Do we?" asked Combeferre dryly.

"Yes. Now, I know you're not going to like me saying it, but there is tremendous potential to widen the audience for this work. As it stands, every serious minded student of history and politics will like it, yes, and those moved by patriotic sentiment. But the story is more than that – there is so much high minded tragic adventure to the tale that even those who are not sober students of history will want to read it. And forgive me, for I mean no disrespect, but your handsome, noble, doomed paladin of the cause here is going to prove very popular indeed with the feminine segment of our audience."

"Courfeyrac was the paladin," Combeferre said bemusedly. The cigar performed another expansive circle in the air.

"Is there nothing we can say to widen his romantic appeal just a little further? What this story needs is a touch of the affaires de cœur to balance all that high purpose you infuse it with. I would never ask you to lie or distort, of course, but is there not some lady…some tender little interlude, some softness in his heart for one of the fairer sex? Even if it's not a full blown love affair," he said hastily, taking in Combeferre's expression, "just something we can hint at that suggests a tendresse, an impulse of love never allowed to bloom to full fruition, as Enjolras sacrificed his personal happiness for his cause? There must have been some women he knew, and your pages seem remarkably bereft of them, or student life isn't what I recall it to have been."

"I think I'd have as soon imagined the archangel Gabriel striking up a flirtation with the Virgin Mary," Combeferre said firmly.

"But is your friend the Archangel or the Virgin?" Renault sighed. "Well, never mind – we can make something of your friend Courfeyrac, can't we? And I seem to remember a mistress or two elsewhere in your draft. And besides," here he cheered up considerably, "they do say that the women love a priest. Something about all that unapproachable chastity – do they fancy a challenge, do you think? Well, thank you for coming in – here, take these drafts for the publicity with you."

"We seem to be putting the cart before the horse" Combeferre huffed, taking up the portfolio of papers. He caught the header on one: "A Tale of Tragic Grandeur!" it proclaimed in florid letters.

"Or the funeral procession before the barricade," smiled Renault, then patted Combeferre on the arm. "Take my word for it – by the time the last volume is published, Hugo will be writing poems about your friends and Delaroche will be immortalising them on canvas."

Combeferre, emerging into the rue de Richelieu, felt the need to dissipate a sense of nervous unease arising from his conversation with Renault. It was not the publisher's fault. Combeferre knew the business well enough to recognise the necessities of making a book commercially viable. Some of their conflicts over his previous works came to mind, including a fiery argument over Renault's desire to insert connective tissue into the text that would transform some of Combeferre's fellow deputies into figures of what the publisher felt was sufficient grandeur for the heroes of '48. Combeferre also appreciated his editor, Georges Marrinan's, input – he was masterful at bringing what was Combeferre's sometimes wandering narrative back to the a cohesive point. Combeferre had a tendency to become somewhat diffuse in his desire to weigh up all sides to an issue, question all motivations and present all possibilities. Publisher and editor were usually at hand to remind him when he was in danger of losing his audience in a welter of observation and a delight in detail.

He chose to walk back to his rooms, activity the match for his mind's restiveness as he tried to quell the unease.

What was it, then, that had so bothered him about his interview with Renault? Why this disquiet over a process with which he was so familiar?

He had known that this was part of writing about his friends. That if he was to convey their story, he would need to…to present it, to package it, in such a way that people would see, would understand, and embrace it. Grantaire and his part were a case in point, a pat illustration of how people escaped narratives. History and personalities were messy and untidy things – they sprawled and refused to resolve themselves into neat patterns, they could be read many ways. Combeferre's Enjolras was not the Enjolras his parents had known…not even precisely the Enjolras Courfeyrac had known, or Prouvaire. Each man revealed part of himself to others, was read by others in certain ways, and as much as he might reach, as a biographer and historian Combeferre knew that he could never hope to capture the entirety of the friends he had loved. As sincere as his efforts to truthfully portray them, he knew he was, in a sense, reinventing them. Creating them for an audience. It was a subtler version of the broad brushstrokes with which Renault painted, but he, too, was trying to confine the chaos of life into a portrait for the consumption of a broad audience.

Was he doing them a service, or a disservice in doing so?

Enjolras had envisioned a future where the soul would gravitate around the truth. Sometimes Combeferre wished he could see it as clearly as Enjolras had, that pure, simple, burning vision. Enjolras had an effect on one that worked rather like a catalyst or clarifying agent in an experiment – he resolved, he galvanised, he introduced clarity. And Combeferre had found, in his friend's long absence, he would always feel the loss of that missing element.

Combeferre's thoughts wandered along these lines until he reached his rooms – a modest second floor apartment in a building just down from the Place Vendôme. What was there to do but go forward? To present the truth as best he saw it. To imagine those implacable blue eyes and their clear-sighted gaze – that must be his strength and his clarity of purpose. And if the truth was not something to be neatly boxed and beribboned for public consumption, then that was how it was. He would measure, appraise, and record. He saw no need to dilute or shroud the facts – the worst of them was such that only the most narrow of critics could condemn those human frailties when measured against their best.

And the best was transcendent.

He was still musing in this vein as he placed his hat on the hall console and noticed that his concierge had left an envelope there for him. It bore Arago's seal. Opening it, he found it contained a summons to his friend's office the following day in the abrupt, epistolary style they used as old colleagues. Combeferre had to read it twice to take in its full import.

"Please be so good as to call on me in my chambers at the Institute tomorrow in the AM – have found a piece of your puzzle in the form of a National Guardsman who fought at the rue de la Chanvrerie."