The real tragedy about the barricade is that we don’t know how much is true. Victor Hugo was there at the June Rebellion, so what is fact and what is fiction? That question gives me chills because we’ll never know.
Charles Jeanne (who I think is probably actual real life Enjolras) wrote an in-detail account of the ACTUAL barricades in a letter to his sister after the fact
I’mso glad somebody asked this, because the answer is: when they finally ran out of ammunition, Charles Jeanne rounded up everyone who was still standing, went, “look, if we’re going to die, we might as well die fighting,” and led a suicidal ten-man charge against an entire flippin’ infantry column, armed with nothing but bayonets. The first few ranks of soldiers were so unprepared for such a spectacularly insane attack that they were too surprised to shoot. They crossed bayonets and tried to hold the insurgents off in hand-to-hand combat, but Jeanne’s swordsmanship was apparently aces, because he held off a bunch of them at once and covered his friends as they tried to breach the ranks. And once they were in, nobody could shoot them for fear of taking out their own guys.
So the last stand that the insurgents had intended as a noble suicide ended in them breaking through the ranks entirely and winding up in the next street over, outside the combat zone, going “well shit, what do we do now?” (I’m guessing the infantry column wasn’t very deep; central Paris at that point was a rabbit warren of narrow twisty streets, and assembling troops en masse for an organized attack was a logistical nightmare.) Unlike the National Guard, the army weren’t total chumps and got themselves turned around to give chase and start shooting once they weren’t at risk of friendly fire any longer… and that’s when all the civilians holed up in their houses went “no way, you’re not getting your hands on these crazy bastards” and started hurling furniture and crockery down on the soldiers’ heads. Jeanne was understandably distracted at the time, but afterwards somebody informed him that the barrage of unlikely projectiles included a piano. A piano. That is some straight-up Looney Tunes slapstick right there. No wonder Hugo went for the heroic death scene instead; if he’d stuck to real life, he probably would’ve gotten complaints that he’d wrecked his readers’ suspension of disbelief.
Anyway, someone opened an alley gate for them to shelter in and take stock of the casualties–most of them survived(!!!), but a few were pretty nastily wounded. Their host then had to lock Charles Jeanne in to keep him from charging right back out and taking on the whole goddamn army singlehanded. He probably would’ve broken down the door if the poor man hadn’t pointed out that going back out would give away his wounded comrades’ hiding place and the identities of the people sheltering them. They sat there listening to the gunfire gradually slow and go silent, and then in the middle of the night the ones who could still walk were allowed to slip away one by one at long intervals from each other. Charles Jeanne went straight home, slept like the dead for a few hours, was woken up at five in the morning with a warning that he’d been denounced and the building was surrounded, and then slipped out in disguise and managed to evade the police for four months before a former comrade ratted him out and he was arrested.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Charles Jeanne’s letter is an absolute treasure that deserves to be available to anyone in Les Mis fandom who wants to read it. Incidentally, “how Actual Historical Enjolras survived the barricades by being too good at his suicide mission” is also one of the stories I tell when anyone asks me what the hell is so interesting about researching people nobody’s ever heard of from an obscure chapter of French history.
Bringing this back for Barricade Day! To answer a few questions that keep coming up in the reblogs: here’s my translation of Jeanne’s letter, which was my main source. Jeanne stood trial, was imprisoned instead of executed (because can you imagine what a martyr he would’ve made), and died of tuberculosis just a few years later. Despite his improbable survival story, the RL June Rebellion was notan everybody-lives AU–like the revolt in Les Mis, it ended in a hard-fought retreat into one of the buildings on the street, followed by a massacre. The guys who led a suicide charge and accidentally won were, unfortunately, the exception.
And, with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty years bent the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his knees in the mire.
Previously on Les Misérables Manga: Cholera stalks the streets of Paris as Les Amis prepare for an imminent revolt. Meanwhile, Bobcat is nowhere near translating this part of the manga.
As always, beneath the cut are scanned pages, followed by my translated script, one line per speech bubble. If you want to see translations of previous parts or overviews of more recent chapters, check out my manga masterpost [here].
And if it’s within your means, I highly encourage supporting the artists by buying the manga! The art is even better in person, and there’s a number of stores that will gladly exchange money for shiny, shiny manga [here]. The entire manga is now available to purchase, in both Japanese and French. No official English translation, alas.
Preview is giving you one minute to start reading this
My barricade day surprise is that I tracked down a copy of I Miserabili, published in 1966 and illustrated by the incredible Renato Guttuso!
His illustrations are absolutely out of this world and he uses so many different styles and levels of polish just in this book. I tried to show a decent sampling here while also getting the most impressive page spreads (imo).
Let me know if anyone wants to see illustrations of any particular character/scene because he drew them all and I mean that I will happily post more pics below of some faves. Marius looks like a particularly forlorn shade of grey rat in this one, I will say.
Enjolras had noticed the old man who had joined them at Rue Lesdiguières almost immediately: his white hair and uneven walk had made him stand out even in the ragtag group they had gathered over the course of their march from the other side of the river; and his silent vigil at the wineshop counter, once they had secured their position on rue de la Chanvrerie, had drawn the concerned attention of more than one insurgent. However, Courfeyrac had seemed to know him, had been speaking to him, so Enjolras was quite sure that the old man’s choice to remain with them had been made in full knowledge of their intentions and the danger such choices presented. If he refused to withdraw, even after being urged to do so several times, it was only to be assumed he was quite firm in his convictions, whatever they were.
As for the rumors he had heard passed on in whispers during the march and the construction of the barricade… well, that a member of Convention, particularly one who had voted for the king’s death, could live in Paris, unknown and undisturbed, defied credulity; and the idea that he was a scepter of one of those great men, coming back to exact justice for his fallen Republic, even more so. But the awareness of the facts had done little to deter insurgents in desperate need for hope and inspiration and Enjolras couldn’t see any sense in trying to shut down such speculations. After all, the spirit of 1793 reached far beyond the handful of men who had wielded power on the convention floor, and there was nothing to scorn in a support of any man who had served as an eyewitness to that great and terrible epoch.
But a regicide or not, a scepter or not, there were some things owed by the young and hale to the old and frail, in this place of fraternity more than anywhere else. Their freshly minted barricade was as prepared for an attack as they could make it. The red flag was secured on an ombnibus pole, illuminated by the torchlight in a mournful prediction of inevitable bloodshed. Enjolras checked and rechecked all the defenses, before quietly asking Combeferre to take over the guard duty for a few minutes and made his way inside the wineshop, where Jean Prouvaire had taken it upon himself to keep the spirits up.
The old man sat alone at the counter, seeming completely unaware of his surroundings. Enjolras approached slowly, taking care not to startle the man. He stood beside the counter for a moment: when no acknowledgement of his presence seemed to be forthcoming, he seated himself and waited, until eventually it seemed to him that something had flickered in the older man’s expression.
“Is there anything you need, citizen?” he asked, taking care to keep his voice quiet. “We’re already out of food, I’m afraid, but there is wine, or water if you prefer.”
Slowly, very slowly did the white head rise for a fraction and the pair of watery blue eyes, dulled with unspeakable grief, met his own. The old man shook his head slowly, before lowering his glance. For a moment it seemed that was going to be his only response, but eventually the man spoke, his voice thin and soft, with a hint of bewilderment underlying the obvious pain.
“I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid there is nothing anyone here can do for me,” he said, then hesitated for a moment, as his voice took on a tone of pained confession. “Not any more. I have sold all my books. You see?”
“I see,” Enjolras confirmed, honestly enough. The exact circumstances of the old man’s tribulations were unknown to him, but the tone of his loss, the confused pain of grief was all too common; something he had heard several times over this day of insurgency and weeks, months, beforehand. We had to sell every-thing we had. Our home, they took it. They took our jobs. Our freedom to speak, to gather. Our words, our works, our dignity, our lives, our freedom, they took it all.
“I sold them all, one by one.” The sense of urgency in the old man’s voice now would have seemed impossible even a minute ago. The words blurred into each other, tumbling out with uneven speed, as if a great dam had been unleashed. “My own Flora of the Environs of Cauteretz, my life’s work. I sold the texts as waste paper and pawned the plates. They were sold to some copper-smith, who melted them down for stewpans.” Enjolras winced. “Then I sold my other books – Les Quadrins Historiques de la Bible, edition of 1560; president Delancre's De l’Inconstance des Démons;Florilegium Rabbinicum of 1644; a Tibullusof 1567 – all of them rare copies, for twenty or thirty sous a piece – but what can you do? Then my Diogenes Laertius ” His voice broke a little. “I never meant to sell it at all. What difference does it make, to die now with one book, or in a few weeks with none at all? But my poor Mother Plutarque… My poor mother Plutarque was terribly ill, so I sold it. I brought her the money and the medicine. Then I came here.” He fell silent for a moment, his eyes suddenly focusing on Enjolras, as if truly noticing his presence for the first time. “Books are important,” he whispred, his voice low and urgent and for a moment it seemed to Enjolras that he truly carried the full weight of the old Republic in his words. “But people are important too.”
Enjolras could only nod, unable to bring himself to say anything that might break this moment of great clarity.
Nevertheless, the old man seemed to lose some of his urgency, but he remained far more focused on his surroundings, looking around the tavern room and through the open door, with something almost like curiosity. “Is this why you are all here?” he asked, gesturing towards the general direction of the greater barricade “For the people?”
“For the people, always,” Enjolras answered and thought of Combeferre’s fervor on the subject of general education, of Feuilly spending his rare free hours making the best use of his hard-won literacy. Of his own uncle, the way his brow furrowed when yet another censorship law chipped away on what little freedom they had gained from the last revolution. Of the pamphlets printed in the dead of night and passed around in secret, of Jean Prouvaire and his words echoing even now between them, in this moment of silence Et que, dans notre humble et petit ménage,Tout, même l’hiver, nous était printemps? “and perhaps a little for the books too.” For the abaissé and for the ABC.
Perhaps… if they all survived this fight, something could be done for the old man and his lost books. He hesitated from bringing up the possibility - after all, the books might very well be gone forever, and it would be both foolish and cruel to offer false hope before investigating fist. But Enjolras wasn’t fighting for a future that would forget the little tragedies of its champions the moment it didn’t need every available body to man the barricades. He would at least try.
The old man was looking at him with something akin of wonder, as if he hadn’t been expecting such answer. “And indeed why not,” he mused. “People have a need of books, to be sure. What about gardens,” he asked, suddenly. “Will there be gardens in this future of yours? It is well not to starve, but the people have a need for flowers.”
Enjolras gaze wandered back to Jean Prouvaire, thinking about the pot of flowers his friend had inexplicably decided to bring with him to the barricade, now tucked safely under the main table, out of the way of the construction efforts and fighting.
Nos jardins étaient un pot de tulipe; Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon;
“Yes,” he admitted, biting back a smile at the literal nature of this promise. “We fight for flowers too.”
The old man smiled suddenly, a fleeting expression tinged with melancholy, but genuine, and touched with wonder and something akin of hope. “This future of yours, my friend, sounds the most splendid.”
“Our future,” Enjolras answered. “And yes. It will be.”
The other shook his head, knowingly. “I won’t hold you to that. But the rest of it, yes. People and books and flowers. Yes.” His gaze turned back to the tabletop, lost in thought. He said no more.
(Yes, the Bread and Roses reference is intentional. So is the reference to the mômes in Luxembourg. Prouvaire’s Battle Plant comes, of course, from the Oslo production of Les Mis.)
Time for some extremely funny news that feels fake but isn’t! In case you missed it:
Today on the almost-anniversary of the rebellion featured in Les Mis, the official Les Mis musical twitter account decided to celebrate by…….tweeting an enthusiastic endorsement of the Queen. This is despite the fact that the primary goal of the rebellion in Les Mis was to eliminate monarchy. Despite the fact that all the rebels in Les mis despise monarchy as an institution and consider it inherently evil/useless/tyrannical.
It feels like satire! The fact that they used an illustration of a poor starving child who in the novel symbolizes the Suffering of the French People under tyrants and tried to turn it into a piece of unironic pro-monarchy art is just? (???)
There’s something to say here about how everything political in Les Mis gets stripped away when it becomes a product for mass consumption, including the now relatively popular political belief that monarchy is a Bad form of government. Like the original novel DOES have issues with being overly middle-class/moderate at points— but there many aspects of the book that are radical and anti-authoritarian, and those aspects are always the first things to get sanded away. (See also: the way Les mis adaptations often portray police as Good Heroes fighting for Justice, which is the exact opposite of the ACAB point the book was going for )
But even putting aside all the political stuff—— the reason this fails is also because it’s Bad Branding? XD. If we’re gonna treat Les mis as a brand (ugh), then that brand is not about licking the monarchy’s boots. Les Mis’s brand is about the exact opposite of that. The kind of Jubilee joke I’d expect from a big corporate Les mis twitter account that understood its brand would be something like “Looks as if we haven’t got around to overthrowing that monarchy yet! But there’s still time!. ^_^ come see our next performance in {touring location}”. You know— a lighthearted toothless Revolution joke.
But we don’t even gET lighthearted toothless corporate Revolution jokes!
Instead we get this bafflingly sincere “I want to buy a queen plate with a picture of a starving child suffering under a tyrannical government on it.”
But YEAH my favorite thing about this tweet is the way everyone unanimously mocked it:
Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a passer-by, who cried in bewilderment:–
“Here are the reds!”
“The reds, the reds!” retorted Bahorel. “A queer kind of fear, bourgeois. For my part I don’t tremble before a poppy, the little red hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let’s leave fear of the red to horned cattle.”
ALT
