s.
They belong, in a certain measure, to history:
Enjolras, Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or Laigle, Joly, Grantaire.
These young men formed a sort of family, through the bond of friendship.
All, with the exception of Laigle, were from the South.
This was a remarkable group.
It vanished in the invisible depths which lie behind us.
At the point of this drama which we have now reached, it will not perhaps be superfluous to throw a ray of light upon these youthful heads, before the reader beholds them plunging into the shadow of a tragic adventure.
Enjolras, whose name we have mentioned first of all,--the reader shall see why later on,--was an only son and wealthy.
Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He was angelically handsome.
He was a savage Antinous.
One would have said, to see the pensive thoughtfulness of his glance, that he had already, in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary apocalypse.
He possessed the tradition of it as though he had been a witness.
He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great affair.
A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth.
He was an officiating priest and a man of war; from the immediate point of view, a soldier of the democracy; above the contemporary movement, the priest of the ideal.