Marius had entered Monsieur Gillenormand’s house with little hope. He exited it in deep despair. He began to walk the streets of Paris, not knowing what else to do. At two o’clock in the morning, he returned to Courfeyrac’s apartment. Marius threw himself on his mattress fully dressed; it was dawn before he fell asleep.
When Marius woke up, Courfeyrac was there. So were two other friends, Enjolras and Combeferre. The three of them were getting ready to go out.
"Are you coming with us?" asked Courfeyrac.
Marius shook his head. Sometime after they left, he put Javert’s pistol into his pocket. After a while he went out and roamed the streets again, dark thoughts flooding his mind.
At nine o’clock he arrived at the house on the Rue Plumet. It had been 48 hours since he had last seen Cosette. Now he was going to see her again, and all other thoughts faded away. He pushed aside the bar on the gate and entered the garden. Cosette was not in the spot where she usually waited for him.
"She must be waiting for me on the bench," he said to himself.
But she was not there. He looked up at the house. All the shutters were closed. He walked around the garden and returned to the house. Mad with love, he pounded on the door. He did not care if her father answered the door.
"Cosette! Cosette!" cried Marius in a loud voice.
There was no response. Nobody was in the garden, nobody in the house. Marius fixed his eyes on that house as dark and silent as a tomb. Feeling hopeless, he sat on the steps.
"Since Cosette has gone," he said to himself, "there’s nothing for me to do but die."
Suddenly he heard a voice coming from the street beyond the garden gate.
"Monsieur Marius!"
He arose. "Yes?"
"Monsieur Marius, your friends are expecting you at the barricade on the Rue de la Chanvrerie."
The voice sounded like Eponine’s. Marius rushed to the gate and looked out. He saw someone who looked like a young man rapidly disappearing down the street.
What was this barricade? While Marius had been in despair, Courfeyrac and the others had joined what would later be called the Paris Uprising of 1832. A large group of students and workers decided to rebel against the monarchy, and they took their fight into the streets of Paris.
Outside the Corinth Tavern, fifty men were building a barricade to block the Rue de la Chanvrerie. Iron bars were ripped from the grates in front of the tavern. Twenty yards of pavement were torn up. Piles of stones and barrels were also added. An omnibus was even tipped over and incorporated into the barricade. Despite all these preparations, the barricade did not exceed six or seven feet in height. Similar barricades were going up throughout Paris.
When the barricade was completed, a table was dragged from the tavern, and Courfeyrac distributed ammunition. There was not much ammunition; each man received only thirty cartridges. A powder keg sat nearby.
The fifty men in the Chanvrerie barricade loaded their guns and waited as darkness fell over Paris. Nothing happened. The government forces were taking their time.
Among the men in the barricade was the street urchin Gavroche, who was also Eponine’s brother. While the rebels waited for the attack, Gavroche looked around. Suddenly he recognized someone, a new recruit to the rebellion. Gavroche ran to Enjolras, one of the leaders in the barricade.
"See that fellow over there?" Gavroche indicated a tall man. "I think he’s a spy! He’s really a policeman; two weeks ago he tried to arrest me."
Enjolras approached the man. "What are you doing here? What’s your name?"
"I’m an officer of the government and my name is Javert."
Enjolras gave a signal and four men pounced on Javert. They threw him to the ground and searched him. They found a piece of paper instructing him to look for the rebels’ hideouts.
"You are a spy, and you’ll be shot ten minutes before the barricade is seized," said Enjolras.
"Why don’t you shoot me now?" asked Javert.
"We don’t want to waste the ammunition."
By this time Marius was heading for the barricade. He knew it would be a dangerous place, but he no longer cared. It was clear that Cosette no longer loved him. She had left without sending him a single word. There was no excuse for this because she knew his address. He could not abandon his friends, who clearly needed him. They were perhaps a handful of men against an entire army that was defending the monarchy.
Forty-three rebels crouched behind the barricade. The other seven were stationed in the two upper stories of the Corinth Tavern. Suddenly there was the sound of marching footsteps. A loud explosion burst over the barricade. The attack had begun!
Two National Guards climbed over the barricade. One knocked Courfeyrac to the ground. The other threatened Gavroche with his bayonet.
Two shots rang out, and the guards fell over. Marius had just entered the barricade and fired Javert’s pistol. More soldiers entered the barricade, but Marius was out of ammunition. As he frantically looked around, a guard aimed at him. Suddenly a young workingman in velvet trousers reached out in front of Marius. When the gun fired, it was the workingman who fell to the ground.
Marius looked around again and spotted the keg of gunpowder. "Clear out or I’ll blow up the barricade!" he shouted.
Everyone turned to look at him as he picked up a lit torch.
"If you blow up the barricade, you’ll blow up yourself too," said a soldier.
"That’s right." Marius waved the torch near the keg.
The soldiers fled over the top of the barricade as fast as they could."Who’s in charge here?" Marius asked the rebels.
"You are!" said Enjolras, patting him on the back. Other men did too. Marius was a hero.
"Monsieur Marius!" cried a voice.
Marius recognized Eponine’s voice, but he didn’t see her anywhere.
"At your feet," said Eponine.
Marius bent over. The torchlight revealed the face of the young man in the velvet trousers.
"Eponine! What are you doing here?"
"I’m dying."
"I’ll carry you into the tavern."
"No . . ." She struggled to talk. "It’s too late. I used my hand to stop the bullet intended for you."
"No one dies from a wounded hand," protested Marius.
"The bullet entered my chest," she said weakly. "I didn’t want you to go to that garden, and yet I showed you where she lived. But it’s all right now. Nobody will get out alive from this barricade—not even my brother. I sent you here so we could die together because I’ve always been in love with you."
Marius gazed at her with compassion.
"I have a letter for you." Eponine held out her hand. "I was supposed to deliver it yesterday, but I didn’t want it to reach you. Now that I know we’ll be reunited after death, I don’t want you to be angry with me."
Eponine died, and Marius took the letter from her hand.