A/N This story was written for Hazellwood in the Frenchboys Secret Santa project. It's terribly overdue for a couple of reasons - one of which is that after reading the other stories, and in particular Orestes Fasting's exquisitely beautiful "A Star in the Jaws of the Clouds" (one of the best fanfics, IMHO opinion, ever written in this fandom), I thought this work suffered badly in comparison. It took me a while to suck it up and just go ahead, finish it and publish.

The description of the Sergeants' execution is taken from contemporary accounts, including a British eyewitness who left us a detailed impression of what took place down to timings and the reaction of the crowd. Blanqui was present at the executions. I apologise in advance to those who find historical details excessively dry - you might find this story not to your taste. I work in the field of history and interpretation and sometimes it permeates what I write.

"...it is consoling to-day, after having lost successively all the pieces of [the death penalty's] armor, its luxury of torment, its penalty of imagination and fancy, its torture for which it reconstructed every five years a leather bed at the Grand Châtelet, that ancient suzerain of feudal society almost expunged from our laws and our cities, hunted from code to code, chased from place to place, has no longer, in our immense Paris, any more than a dishonored corner of the Grève,-than a miserable guillotine, furtive, uneasy, shameful, which seems always afraid of being caught in the act, so quickly does it disappear after having dealt its blow." – Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris

January 17, 1827

It was axiomatic that one could not buy a gift for the man who had everything. Enjolras, while he might not have everything, certainly was not without means to gratify any passing material whim he might have...if he'd had them.

It was easier for women, Combeferre thought with a sigh as he hurried his way along the quais. This business of gift giving. He had peered curiously into any volume that came his way as a boy, even his sisters' keepsake books with their endless advice on returning calls and managing one's gloves at table, so he knew that a handmade gift was the ideal solution for a woman without the means to buy presents, and was in fact to be regarded as far superior to a store bought gift, coming as it did from one's own hands. A piece of embroidery, a sketch...

He chuckled, thinking of Enjolras' likely reaction were he to present his friend with a sketch of a moth or – better yet – one of his anatomical drawings. Unflappable politeness, of course. He wondered sometimes if Enjolras' expression in such circumstances bore a resemblance to the well-bred recipients of one of the monarch's white elephants in distant Siam.

Perhaps, he thought with a wry smile, he should go for the embroidery. A case for Enjolras' watch, as that seemed to be virtually the only possession that went everywhere with him.

He'd just have to learn the embroidery part.

Robespierre was said to be good at needlework, after all.

They had never been much for New Year's gift giving rituals for each other, even in their younger years. It was not, as Courfeyrac pointed out, that Enjolras did not like to give gifts. He simply tended to give them at times other than those that were socially prescribed. Combeferre had often been presented, with an elegant diffidence, with a volume he required, or some curious old print or publication that had evidently struck some note of recognition in Enjolras' mind that said "Combeferre". He picked them up absentmindedly and presented them just as offhandedly. But engage in the New Year's tradition of giving and receiving presents? Combeferre snorted. His own gifts to Enjolras were of similar order – scarves, books, all very safe and easy.

This year, however, Combeferre felt that something more distinctive was in order. He wanted to present his friend with something to mark the year that had been and the advent of the year 1827, to celebrate and the stirrings around them. The previous year had seen the formation of Les Amis de l'ABC – as yet loosely knit, still a society in embryo, but growing in numbers and in the intimate circle of trusted friends with development of networks around the city and beyond, the contributions to certain publications, the coalescing of ideas...

It needed only a token, but he wanted to give Enjolras something. Enjolras, who spared himself nothing in the name of their cause...who demanded nothing of his friends that he would not ask of himself.

Enjolras…who was his dearest friend. Whose quiet, indomitable faith and still presence had become essential to the weft and weave of his life. Combeferre's personal doctrine of questioning everything, while fuelling his voracious curiosity and providing endless sources of fodder for his questing mind, lead sometimes to feeling that the earth was not entirely steady under his feet.

It was sometimes glibly observed by their friends that Combeferre grounded Enjolras, lest his thoughts and ideas tended too far into the abstract, and that his own humanity invested some broadness of horizon to Enjolras' implacable and sometimes narrow vision. There was truth in this.

What was less remarked upon was what Combeferre felt deeply himself – that Enjolras' ideas imparted vigor to his own when they threatened to become too diffuse in a sea of conflicting natural and human variables, and that his friend's unconquerable belief in justice contributed to the fundamental bedrock of Combeferre's own belief.

No tangible tokens of mutual esteem – of affection – were required between friends such as they were. Under the wrong circumstances, such a gesture might seem very hollow. But under the right circumstances...

They were meeting that evening in a small backroom in a cafe that best afforded them a meeting point. It stood almost in the shadow of the Pantheon, and was approached by winding passageways within and a door onto the labyrinth of medieval streets outside, conveniently placed for the students that, thus far, made up the bulk of their society, although some tentative contacts had been made with the workers. Combeferre was perhaps the only one to know that the mysterious M. Rebecque who rented the room for the use of their society promoting literature was none other than Enjolras himself. It was best sometimes, in men with their interests, to ensure that the left hand did not know the occupation of the right.

This was their first meeting of the New Year, and there was bound to be an exchange of gifts among those friends who had not seen each other since the old. What better opportunity to present his friend with something emblematic of their friendship and their shared endeavor than this setting, among their mutual friends?

But still, the question of what to buy eluded him. He had wandered for an hour or two among the shops in the Palais-Royal arcade the previous day and nothing had presented itself as a possibility, until finally he realized he wasn't actually looking anymore and was just drifting aimlessly (and was becoming rather tired of being accosted by the prostitutes that frequented the gardens). All morning he had trudged through the Latin Quarter, and the coldness of the snow was beginning to penetrate even his stout shoes, the dampness soaking through the leather, and still no luck. He was beginning to think rather desperately that a box of pastries might be the best option, which was rather laughable, and finally in despair turned to his favorite book and print seller, located almost opposite the île de la Cité on the left bank. He had hoped to avoid giving a book, as that was the present he always fell back upon for all his friends and family when no better idea presented itself, but he had to admit himself defeated this time.

Glancing over to the river, his attention was drawn by the Pont d'Arcole, crossing from the île de la Cité to the Place de Grève, and he paused a moment to examine it curiously. Only recently, in the New Year's revelry, he had attended the salon of a friend in the Académie des Sciences and had found himself introduced by Arago to no less distinguished a man than the engineer Marc Seguin, Most of the talk had centered on the railways – Seguin had been in England to witness the opening of the first public railway two years previously and, thoroughly absorbing the new locomotive technology, was busy on a similar project for France – but they had digressed long enough to discuss his newest bridge project. The Pont d'Arcole was finally to be upgraded, and the much-improved design of a suspension bridge with two wide carriageways supported by a central pier reflected the current engineering trends.

Looking at the existing bridge, he tried to imagine how it would appear and change the character of that part of the river, overlaying his own mental construction of the new bridge's appearance on the scene before him. But contemplation lead to memory, and even in such a well-known vista familiarity could not breed indifference to certain recollections. He could shudder to recall a time when the bridge, like the surrounds, had been lined with spectators. Waiting for those grim wagons from the Concierge, making their passage to the Place de Grève, in an archaic echo of the parody of justice under the grim medieval era and ancien régime.

September 21, 1822

Combeferre well remembered the day that Enjolras arrived at the Lycée Charlemagne. His provincial cousin had travelled in the care of a family retainer, having made the journey from the south not by diligence, but rather in one of his father's coaches – emblazed, Combeferre noticed with some embarrassment, with the coat of arms to which his mother claimed title.

He had harbored fears for how Enjolras might fare at school. The transition could be a difficult one – he himself had struggled with more than one sleepless, teary night, standing out among his fair Parisian school fellows as a dark-skinned provincial, teased for his bookishness until he showed he was equally adept at games. He dreaded how things might go for his young cousin. Enjolras was not without social skills, instilled by his father and a succession of tutors, but...well, he was such a distinctive child, and never one to bend to fashion or convention if it ran contrary to his nature.

They had not been especially close as children before Combeferre's departure to Paris, not until very close to the time Combeferre left. The difference in their years, which seemed less as they grew older, was significant at that age. For much of their youth, when they saw each other, Enjolras had simply been his slight, pale cousin, all large eyes and with a broad forehead wreathed in white-blond curls, his face tapering down to a small, determined chin, his mouth curved in the pout of an upside-down cupid's bow.

He had just begun to reach an age when he might be interesting – certainly, he was unusual. He had never lost the disconcertingly intense gaze of a child (if anything, it seemed to deepen as he grew older). The "why?" of a toddler had deepened into the "why?" of a young man striving to make more abstract sense of the world. But then Combeferre had gone away to school.

Combeferre had made sure of meeting him when he arrived at the lycée – still a small, pale boy, rather undersized than otherwise (the sudden growth spurt that would make him tall among his peers was still some years away), serious of countenance and with his habitually disconcerting gaze unchanged, though that gaze softened when he saw Combeferre waiting for him along with the school's servants who had come to meet him. Combeferre, who had expected him to be standoffish and awkward, was surprised when the boy threw his arms around him.

"It is good to see you!" He said with a soft spoken fervor as Combeferre walked alongside him, carrying a bundle of his books that must have been reading matter on the journey. "There is so much I want to talk to you about-"

Combeferre had expected the usual confidences and preoccupations of a boy – his changing body, his enthusiasms, a desire to explore the world. Primarily, however, he was to find that what Enjolras wanted to talk about was how to remake the world.

He felt uncomfortably that such desires might make trouble for him among his peers. It was not that the lycée was without its thinkers – there were young men who were already showing remarkable ability in the field of literature, and since the Revolution had reconstituted the school as a bastion of the new learning, excluding religious influence, the school had been a battleground between those who championed enlightenment ideals and those who preferred to see the Church wielding a greater influence in the shaping of young minds. But Enjolras was so terribly earnest, so very implacable, that he feared such seriousness of purpose would sit ill at ease with boys who tended to think such intensity a fair target for mockery.

He thought his fears fulfilled the first time he saw Enjolras speaking with a young man of curling chestnut hair and wide, roguishly red mouth. The boy was the same age as his young cousin and not a fellow classmate of Combeferre's, but Combeferre groaned inwardly nonetheless. Of course he knew the boy – everyone knew him, one of the most popular pupils in the school, known for his irascibility. De Courfeyrac. And that expression, the wicked smile as he asked questions of Enjolras, was precisely the sort of look that prefaced merciless teasing.

"Enjolras...de Courfeyrac," he approached, and the boys turned to him. This must be handled delicately – sometimes it was better to let schoolyard conflicts play themselves out, and sometimes a word at the right time might deter a bully. "What book is it you have there, Enjolras?"

"Benjamin Constant," his cousin dutifully responded, handing him the book. Combeferre raised his eyebrows – "Principes de politique applicables à tout les gouvernements?"

"Enjolras was explaining it to me," de Courfeyrac said suddenly. Combeferre looked at him closely – the expression had not changed, but he detected not a trace of mockery in the tone. Instead, the smile seemed to indicate a genuine enthusiasm. "The liberty of the Ancients and the liberty of the Moderns."

"And such ideas interest you?"

"When he explains them," de Courfeyrac said, rudely pointing at Enjolras. "It makes sense, does it not? That men are creatures of reason, and should have representation in how they are governed by the State, regardless of the aristocracy of blood or money."

De Courfeyrac's father would not think so, Combeferre thought, but held his tongue. Well, well, he pondered, regarding the boy with a new interest. In the weeks that followed de Courfeyrac – or plain Courfeyrac, as he taken to insisting – did not noticeably become more studious or less prone to scrapes that earned him notoriety among his teachers and fame and popularity among his school fellows. But curiously to observers, he had become a boon companion to Enjolras, and those who thought that particular young man's quiet habits and seriousness indicated aloofness or even arrogance were astonished by the ease in which Courfeyrac slung an arm around his waist or teased him.

Combeferre, however, was glad of the companionship, particularly as he was soon to move on to the Polytechnique and eventually to the École de Médecine. He passed his Bacs, fulfilling the admittedly high expectations of his teachers and doing well in the prizes, carrying off various academic honors, and was now spending his brief span of freedom before the next stage in his education staying at the home of a family friend who had the discretion not to impinge upon a young man's freedom.

And that was where he was to be found in his rolled up shirt-sleeves this September morning, working on specimens at his desk. His entry into the École de Médecine was still some way off, but he had managed to beg one of his medical student friends to secure a hand for him from the dissection rooms – a great prize. It was not particularly fresh, which was why he had all the windows open and was allowing the breeze in.

Seeing it spread out on the table, gnarled and work worn, looking rather like a large dead spider, he thought how curious the gap between theory and experience was. His own hands were not entirely steady when he started slicing open the flesh, revealing the calcification of the joints, pulling out the strings of the tendons. Soon he was lost in the work, however, and therefore not a little vexed when the concierge knocked and announced visitors.

Washing his hands meticulously with the basin and cloths he had close at hand and rolling his sleeves down, he trotted downstairs to the parlor, hardly knowing who might have come to call. He was certainly not expecting his young relative and that young relative's friend, the latter fairly bubbling with excitement. They sat next to each other on the settee, bolt upright, clad in somberly in black, jumping to their feet when he entered the room.

"Enjolras?" he asked in astonishment, quite beyond conventional pleasantries. "What are you and Courfeyrac doing out of school?"

Courfeyrac glanced at Enjolras, his grin widening. Enjolras was rather unruffled, but such was his habitual – and habitually unnerving – demeanor.

"You know what event is to take place today?" Enjolras asked. Combeferre didn't have to wrack his brains for long, instead he groaned and reached his hand up to run his fingers through his hair, noticing as he did so a touch of blood on his starched cuff.

"The Sergeants of Rochelle?" he asked resignedly.

"The Sergeants of Rochelle." Enjolras confirmed. "Courfeyrac and I wish to attend the executions."

Courfeyrac stopped running his fingers through his hair and buried his face in his hand instead.

"Enjolras, this is not a good idea!"

"We came to see if you wished to join us – it is fortunate you were in."

"I won't be a party to this foolish escapade – I admire your fervor, but this may well turn into another riot..."

Courfeyrac's expression indicated he wasn't wholly adverse to the idea.

"How did you two get out of school, may one inquire? Did you slip over the wall?" he asked, with grudging admiration. He'd done it a few times himself, but not during the day.

"No – a note was delivered to the master, saying that we were to be released to pay a call on you, as you'd be escorting us out to Saint-Cloud to see my visiting parents."

"You – what?"

"Courfeyrac forged it," Enjolras added helpfully.

"It's true" Courfeyrac said with pride. "Enjolras had even saved some blank sheets of his father's embossed letterhead we were able to use."

Combeferre shook his head. "I had not thought you capable of such duplicity, Enjolras. If they fell for that, then they deserve to be duped. But while you've earned yourself a day of liberty, I'll not see you put it to such ill purpose."

"You know better than to assume that this is a matter of amusement," Enjolras said in that quiet way of his. It was a curious technique he had, and Combeferre wondered how conscious it was – dropping his voice so one had to be quiet and still in return to hear what was being said. "The deaths of these men represent a new phase of tyranny – they are dying as conspirators, but what they really die for is their belief in our republican ideals. It is our duty to witness their last moments, to see it all, and to remember."

He did have a point. But they were not much more than boys – the thought of exposing them to the dangers of the Place de Grève was not one he found attractive. It would be better to...

To do what? How could one protest this deed? Where were their voices? Anonymous pamphlets, a few sympathetic newspapers?

"Very well," he sighed. "And much against my better judgment. But remember – if we arrive, and I find the atmosphere is too threatening, we leave. I don't want to explain to parents how you came to spend a night in a lock up. Or worse how you came to be in the morgue, if this turns into a full scale émuete. This is not a theatrical performance" – here he looked sternly at Courfeyrac, already known for attending the theatre at every opportunity (and making his own opportunities to do so when none were provided to him). "Four men are going to die, and this will be a bloody spectacle. It would be bad if you took pleasure in it, worse if you were indifferent."

"I understand," Enjolras said.

Combeferre took his hat, hesitated over taking his weapon, finally deciding to leave it upstairs in his desk. If they were caught up in a brawl, it would do little good to anyone, and it would not do to be caught with it on his person. Unsure of what other precautions to take, he rejoined them and they made their way in the direction of the river.

Courfeyrac, who had never seen a man executed (and thus had to endure the insufferable superiority of two brothers who had) was full of questions for Combeferre, who found his medical knowledge taxed to its limits. Courfeyrac soon moved from questions of volume of blood to how long consciousness lingered in a severed head. "Is it true that Charlotte Corday's severed head blushed when the executioner slapped it? And did Antoine Lavoisierreally move his eyes afterwards in response to questions?"

Enjolras did not seem to notice the imploring looks Combeferre threw him, and found that Courfeyrac did not seem to be particularly squelchable (really, Lavoisier was a bridge too far – the man deserved to be remembered for more than that macabre anecdote!)

The Place de Grève seemed curiously apropos for the barbarity of the spectacle they were to witness today – the execution that was an echo of the medieval tortures and terrors with which this place had been for so long synonymous, only slightly brought up to date with the precision of the guillotine. The irregular sides of the place were bordered on one edge by the quai, and by tall and rather gloomily decrepit buildings on the other three, predominantly in the style of Louis XV. Squeezed between two of these was a small turret, centuries of crude plastering smothering its elegant lines – one of the few architectural reminders of the Gothic past. The Hôtel de Ville dominated the whole, but even its tall windows, high ceilings and Renaissance lightness could not noticeably alter the character of the Place de Grève. The past here left a scar on the collective mind, even if its only modern manifestation was the guillotine occupying a corner.

Courfeyrac gawped at the sight. "It is…smaller than I expected" he said. No doubt, thought Combeferre, the guillotine loomed very large in the imagination of the aristocratic de Courfeyrac family – a monstrous, towering edifice. To see the actual device was so comparatively small affected even Combeferre, who had seen one before. "Do they leave it here always?" his young friend asked curiously, beginning to regain his equilibrium.

"No, it is removed between executions." Combeferre did not bother to disguise his distaste for it. The thing before him, the instrument of state justice, was anathema to his ideas of human progress. The sooner it might be done away with, the better. It was a humane step away from the terrors of the rope and the axe, not to mention the more extreme tortures visited on men like Francois Ravaillac before merciful release might be granted to them, but it was still only a step towards an enlightened future free of the punishment of death. Now, though, with four men to be done to death and others suffering similar fates at the hands of the state in other French cities -

"Hey, Enjolras!" came a voice behind them.

"Blanqui?"

Combeferre recognized the dark young man – they had been of a similar age when he had started at the lycée, although it had been Enjolras with whom he had enjoyed the most connection. It was already hinted at that he knew more of the Charbonnerie francaise than was prudent in a young man under a Restoration monarchy. Indeed, whatever one said about blood guilt having been eliminated, he could have been said to be shadowed from birth by his parentage – his father had been a conventionnel, and with that association came a dubious sort of mystique. There was a strange glamour in having for a father a man who – regardless of the truth of such reports – had voted for the death of the king, and had been imprisoned for signing a protest against the proscription of the Girondists. Even those boys who detested him on this basis, some having lost relatives under the Terror, were fascinated by the connection. Certainly it had interested Enjolras, although he was not overly awed by anyone's lineage. Blanqui pere had gone on to success under the Empire.

Enjolras was taciturn about their discussions, but Combeferre knew they already significant differences were developing in their strains of republicanism, and Blanqui had wondered (perhaps in petulance) whether Enjolras' ideas might not be tainted by the aristocracy of money and even by the aristocracy of title, given that a noble ancestry – however mixed with his father's merchant blood – ghosted over his mother's line.

Still, he was a fellow traveler – of a sort – and there were seats at his Cafe table, which was occupied by only one other person, a young man with the impressive beginnings of a beard. Combeferre found some particularly disturbing that here, not 20 yards from the guillotine, officers were playing billiards in the background. Evidently they were no comrades of the doomed men.

"Found myself at a loose end, now that I've finished with the Bacs" Blanqui explained as the three approached and sat down. "Thought I'd come and see...this." His hand wave encompassed the entire spectacle, crowds and guillotine.

"And one never knows what events might unfold," the young man at his side said, grinning to reveal a gold tooth and raising his eyebrows meaningfully. Combeferre could have sighed – not another street brawler. "Name's Bahorel," he said, proffering cigars. The others introduced themselves.

"And how do you know Blanqui?" Enjolras asked. If there was significance in the question – and Combeferre suspected there was – it was not given away by his voice.

"I'm a law student. He's going to the Sorbonne soon where he'll be studying law...and other things."

"Bahorel is a friend," Blanqui confirmed. Now the significance of that was unmistakable. Enjolras nodded in acknowledgement. Courfeyrac took one of his cigars, and tried not to cough as Bahorel lit it for him.

"You're too young for that vice," Combeferre remonstrated mildly. Bahorel laughed.

"What do school boys do when they sneak out of classes but smoke, loaf, play a bit of sport..."

"This is no sport here today," Enjolras said.

"But there may be...later." Bahorel countered.

Courfeyrac gave up the struggle and gave a couple of hacking coughs. Bahorel patted him on the back.

"You'll learn some savoir-faire, my lad – give it time. Or try a pipe."

"Have a drink," Blanqui pushed a bottle of wine over to Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac looked to Enjolras, who shook his head slightly.

"No, thank you" Courfeyrac said promptly, eyes still red and watering. "I think I'd like to keep a clear head today."

"The wagons left for the Concierge hours ago," Blanqui said. "They say the executions will be at 4.00 pm"

They fell silent as more mounted gendarmes entered the square, issuing forth from under the porch of the Hôtel de Ville, the clatter of hooves on paving stones leave a moment's quiet in their wake as the crowd parted to let them pass. "The Place du Châtelet is full of reserves," Bahorel observed quietly. "They're stationed in force throughout the quartier."

"There must be five hundred soldiers here," Courfeyac said, taking in the surrounds as more civilians filed in around them.

"Four or five regiments represented," Enjolras assessed coolly, taking note regimental insignia.

"It seems like such an overwhelming use of the machinery of the State to exterminate four lives," Courfeyrac said in some wonder.

"This is a message for liberal opposition." Enjolras' voice had lost none of its precise clarity as he laid the issues out for Courfeyrac, circumstances notwithstanding. He would not be carried away by the high emotion of the day and – if anything – seemed more focused and thoughtful. Courfeyrac – eager to learn, quick witted, launched into him with questions.

"From whom? The King? Or those who support the throne?"

"All kings are bastards," Bahorel unhelpfully supplied. "He's like his older brother – a Capet, and not to be trusted..."

Enjolras responded as if Bahorel had not spoken.

"The King himself is mild – he learned many of the lessons of the Revolution. Either through perception or lack of will, he would not of his own volition seek to undo all that has been done, and would merely reign quietly and ineffectually, allowing his country to decay along with the remains of the ancien régime. While that erosion of our liberties through indifference is hardly preferable to their active dismantling, he is surrounded by fanatical reactionaries, who wish to do the impossible. They desire to destroy all the years between us and 1789, and take us back to absolute despotism."

One could not exactly call him detached, but there was no violence or even detectable anger in his underlying tone. Rather, his voice had taken on that curiously intense quality that it assumed sometimes, as of one piercing to the heart of the issue. It seemed to Courfeyrac in such moments that Enjolras was reading from a text where each word was incised deeply with fire, but the clarity itself was cool. Either way, the words so uttered burned their way into the brain.

"Villèle?" asked Courfeyrac. Enjolras nodded.

"Among others. They sense the mood for change and the encroaching liberalism in the country."

"France is recovering from the exhaustion of the war years," Combeferre supplied. "Youth is on the march."

Enjolras nodded. "The Chief Minister knows that the liberals are listening to calls for electoral reform and enfranchisement for all classes. Lafayette and D'Argenson are among those who would lend an ear to the call for change. Thus this intimidation – they raise the specter of the Terror again, and conflate liberalization with destruction, terrifying the petit-bourgeois as much as the aristocracy. A shopkeeper might be amenable to reform and freedom, embracing the idea of equality, but not if he believes it comes at the expense of his livelihood or possibly his life. At such times, it is very convenient to discover a plot, that one might appropriate such despotic powers under the guise of protecting the citizenry."

" '...This vast conspiracy against social order, against the families of citizens, which threatened to plunge them once more into all the horrors of anarchy'" quoted Combeferre. Bahorel spat on the ground.

"Yes," Enjolras agreed.

"So the Sergeants are innocent of all conspiracy?" Courfeyrac asked.

"In the eyes of the government, undoubtedly not. Marchangy, at Villèle's bidding, has no doubt arranged facts to his liking and perhaps introduced elements not in accordance with the strictest veracity. That they have Republican sympathies is beyond doubt – though the precise nature of their beliefs is no longer the issue here. They may well be Buonopartists, as many of the lower orders in the military resent the privilege of aristocracy that presents a barrier to their advancement."

"That will make a man inclined to remove a Bourbon or two from power" Courfeyrac said. "If I were a sergeant, I'd be all for sending a few Aristos to the lantern if their birthright blocked my advancement."

"We must give them the benefit of believing their motives are more than mere career opportunism," Enjolras mildly rebuked his friend. "After all, they are about to die for them, and no mean consideration of saving their own lives has lead them to recant their avowal of their belief in liberty, in spite of inducements to do so if they were to betray any co-conspirators."

"Bravo the men of the 45th Infantry!" said Bahorel with enthusiasm. "They refused to shout vive le Roi – which is why they were transferred to Rochelle in the first place. That and the fact that we students in the Latin Quarter where they were stationed were a poorly seditious influence."

"I have heard," Blanqui spoke up for the first time in quite a while, "that the comrade who turned on them and betrayed them was a police spy, his sobbing confession to his superior officer about the plot a ruse for which he was well-paid."

"Perhaps," said Enjolras. He did not need to remind them of the warning such a possibility meant for them all.

"And the Charbonnerie francaise?" asked Courfeyrac. Even though his voice was low, Combeferre made a quietening gesture with his hands, darting a glance at Blanqui and Bahorel. Of course, the connection was only rumored, but...

Enjolras murmured to him under the concealment of a shout from the billiard playing officers at some turn in their game. "Now is not the time, Courfeyrac. To all things their time and place."

"But was it really Lafayette that Faute de mieux was referring to when he spoke of conspiracy at the trial?" Courfeyrac asked, a little awed. "'Où sont-ils ces seigneurs qui, dans l'insolence de leur turbulente aristocratie, disent à leurs serviteurs : – Allez tenter pour nous les hasards d'une insurrection dont nous sommes les actionnaires!'"

"They wish to create an impression of peril, of an enemy within the government's own ranks, and it serves their purpose to suggest that it extends to the very highest and most respected of those with liberal leanings. Proof in such circumstances is unnecessary – the suggestion is enough, and one that they could never prove. And the sergeants refused to implicate any leaders."

"Well, they've made martyrs of them," Combeferre said. "Republicans, Buonopartists, Orléanists – all are united in deploring the execution of men who were not caught in actual rebellion, but who hold opinions not to the taste of the Restoration."

"Look," said Bahorel. "The executioner."

Bahorel had evidently attended such events before, as Combeferre would never have picked out the man he pointed out as the State's instrument to deliver death. Somewhere in his mind lurked the grim figure of countless historical plates, hooded and bearing an axe or wielding the terrible power of the guillotine. The ominous Samson, so much an icon of the Terror...if this man was related in any sense, one of the guild of executioners, he was certainly not formidable in himself. He was followed by a small white dog, who took up station beside the scaffold.

Courfeyrac whistled, the vulgar gesture drawn out of him by surprise. "That man is the executioner? That tall, elderly, decent looking chap?" Bahorel nodded.

"Wouldn't take him for Charon's boatman, would you?"

"I had no idea that the job paid well enough to encourage sartorial statements!" It was true – the man in question was wearing a fashionable blue silk handkerchief around his neck and black straw hat.

"My friends," said Enjolras, looking at his pocket watch – after four o'clock, and still no sign of the wagons – "perhaps it is time to take our stations closer to the guillotine, before the crowd presses too tightly."

"Angling for a better view, Enjolras?" Blanqui asked. Enjolras gave him one of those looks – the ones that made most of his schoolmates swallow jibes. Even Blanqui, made of sterner stuff, seemed a little daunted, though of course he did not back down completely.

"We are here to bear witness. I will not sit while they die, and stand back like one who wishes to enjoy the spectacle but is unwilling to see the blood at close proximity. A scaffold, even one surrounded by the mob, is a lonely one if it is unattended by friends. These men are our brothers. You may join us or not as you choose."

"Careful of those heights, Enjolras – you may fall off the pulpit."

Enjolras did not acknowledge the ad hominem, merely taking up his hat and leaving coins to pay for the coffee the others had drunk. Blanqui trailed them away, and Bahorel joined him. Combeferre heard the latter asking Blanqui if Enjolras always stood perched at a lectern and to his surprise Blanqui seemed to mutter something in return about him being a good fellow, and very solid.

Following Enjolras as he wove through the crowd, they drew as close as they could. The short distance between the cafe and the scaffold had already filled out with people, who were beginning to spill from the Place to the Quai de Grève. The bridges, windows of surrounding buildings, and even the distant towers of Notre Dame were filled with observes, although at such a distance they could hardly be afforded much of a view of procedures. Perhaps for them it was the crowd itself that comprised the spectacle. By and large, this was hardly a mob. They were quiet, and in scanning their faces Combeferre found himself unable to gain a sense of what the fundamental mood might be. Already there were murmurs that, as the wagons had yet to arrive, there might be a reprieve. Some sounded hopeful, others seemed disappointed at being deprived of the deadly performance.

"Look at those women!" a well-dressed man next to him exclaimed, by his accents British. He turned to Combeferre and asked earnestly, gesturing to where a number of women sat on the footway approaching the scaffold, within a couple of yards of the guillotine. "Do they not know that they will be drenched in blood if they sit there?"

Combeferre was not a little annoyed. Perhaps he did him an injustice, but it was not unlikely that this man was steeped in foreign and royalist propaganda about the Revolution, with its vivid images of howling mobs screaming for blood and women who knitted while the blade came down on a procession of white-clad noble martyrs. He remembered the Gillray cartoons a London friend had shown him once, and had been mesmerized by the inhuman, howling sans-culottes – faces hardly recognizable as men and women rather than ogres - that were supposed to embody the spirit of the Terror and Jacobinism. Did this man expect them to bathe themselves in the blood of the martyrs before dancing around a Liberty Tree howling the Carmagnole?

"Perhaps," he said with studied politeness, "they are only sitting there out of weariness, and will resume their feet when the wagons arrive. They are late, after all."

"I had thought such scenes ended with the Restoration. Still, we have our own mobs at executions in England." The second sentence was clearly meant to negate any offence he had given. "Tell me...what is the feeling about the executions? Most of my Paris friends are inclined to believe that the example is a necessary one, but a few are inclined to believe that it is a step too far. And this business about soldiers forming alliances in the North to create a Belgian republic and spread this madness – is there any truth to be found in it?"

"Such things are difficult to determine. Was there truth in the Cato Street conspiracy?"

Combeferre had pondered the similarities between the case of the sergeants and that of the British Spencean Philanthropists, some of whom had been executed two years before for allegedly trying to spread the fires of Republicanism in England. They, too, had an informant in their midst, one whom, if Combeferre's sources were to be believed, had largely inspired the idea of assassinating cabinet members and establishing a provisional government before transitioning to the Republic…or so the same informant accused them of planning.

The other man smiled. "Ah...I see your point. Sometimes one must...draw out these plots into the open air with somewhat ignoble tactics, and be somewhat liberal with the truth in order to quench the latent fires of Jacobinism. Examples must be made."

"You may find that Jacobinism is less easy to destroy than a few individual men who had the misfortune to be betrayed by an informer," Enjolras interrupted. He did not sound angry, but there was a terseness to his voice that bordered on rude.

"A young Robespierre, I see" the Englishman said, refusing to sound at all put out and exhibiting that quality in his well-bred countrymen that exasperated and charmed Combeferre by turns; that of refusing to be angered by displays of passionate ideas that countered his own and instead affecting amusement. He unobtrusively put a hand on Enjolras' arm – it was unlikely the boy would fly into a rage, but he might be driven to intemperate speech.

"We do not repudiate the ideas of democracy, it is true," Combeferre said. "But we have a slightly different view to obtaining our ideals to some of our friends across the Channel."

The man bowed slightly, then observed "who is that gentleman standing over there, near the stairs? The one in the brown surcoat? He has a look of officialdom about him."

"The rapporteur" Enjolras said (evidently he was getting a head start on the legal studies to which he was to progress). "He will make a make a proces verbal of the execution – and possibly try to extract a last-minute confession." The contempt in Enjolras' voice and in the curve of his lower lip showed what he thought of the likelihood of that occurring.

"Ah. I had thought that the lateness might indicate a reprieve, and that all this-" the Englishman gestured at the surrounding scene – "was merely a show."

At 5.15 pm the first carriage arrived, with the second making its way through shortly afterwards. The words "Hats off" spread among the crowd, and he heard Enjolras repeat them. Even their English companion removed his silk hat. Heads craned to see the occupants, and there was an expectant stillness. Combeferre could not have identified the men by sight, but the word circulated around out that the first wagon held Goubin and Bories, the second Pommier and Roublx.

The condemned men were seated on boards placed across the wagon, and next to each sat a clergyman holding a crucifix. The priests were trying, without much apparent success, to impress the solemnity of religion upon their charges. They were roundly disregarded, as the four men looked around, called out to acquaintances in the crowd whom they recognized, and resolutely ignored the efforts of priests and soldiers to quieten them. Goubin and Bories seemed to be particularly rambunctious, but he clearly heard the rather undersized Roublx call to a friend "Ah – I've already asked the executioner how much of me will remain when my head is gone!" which engendered some nervously humorous rejoinder from the friend.

There was little to denote their former status as soldiers, Bories alone wearing a military jacket, and none of them hat a hat or cravat. Removing such must be part of the preparations, Combeferre thought. The shorter the scaffold scene the better, so any trimming of hair and beards and removal of collars must take place before they boarded the carts.

No hats or cravats. The man in the brown surcoat approached the first cart and said something to them – words that were evidently upheld urgently by the priests at their sides. Neither man deigned to look at him, and the rapportuer made a gesture of frustration. Bories, ignoring him, disembarked from the cart, only to be halted as he made for the scaffold by one of the officers.

"Goubin is to be first," he was told, and Bories called out a somewhat ribald comment to Roublx, who had also stepped down from his cart with Pommier and was standing furthest away of the group. The clergymen were clearly discomforted. Combeferre wondered why there was a designated order – what difference could it possibly make? Was it a legalistic requirement of the warrants? Did they think the crowd's attention would be fatigued by the time they arrived at the more notorious Bories? Or was he being kept back as some sort of salutatory lesson, doomed to see his friends go before him as some additional punishment?

There was little time to ponder the point, as Goubin sprang down and, with startling swiftness, was up the stairs of the scaffold, almost as if he made haste to die. But then hands were on him, and he was strapped to the bascule. As it snapped down into place beneath the blade, the words that the crowd had half expected went up from the doomed man. "Vive la Liberté!"

They caused an almost palpable jolt through the crowd, and certainly Combeferre felt a shiver of emotion that he couldn't rightfully place right then. There was no time for more – he did not even see the signal before the blade descended. He was rather glad that the head of the man in front obscured his view of the actual separation of flesh, sinew and bone – he did not need to see the gouts of blood and the head – but a great groan went up from the crowd, effectively announcing that the sergeant was dead. Beside him, he heard a soft gasp from Courfeyrac. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, but did not further acknowledge the sound lest Courfeyrac feel unmanned. Instead, he turned to the surviving men, and so caught a look between Raoulx and Bories. Their dark and expressive eyes as much as said "he died well," and there was a sense of congratulation in the look they gave each other.

They had determined to do this, he realized. Probably they had discussed it, the resolution to die well sustaining them in the days leading up to this. And now, the first of their number had died with the bravado expected of him, both by their friends and the crowd. Combeferre had never felt entirely comfortable with this. Of course one in such circumstances desired a good death – a stoic, honorable death – but he thought of the Terror, and wondered if, had its victims not been so unmoved in the face of death, the crowd would have found less stomach for the bloody spectacle. No one wanted to die like du Barry, pleading for one little moment more, but it was said that her raw humanity, her naked fear, had caused the crowd's sympathies to gravitate even towards that unpopular woman, so much so that they had to make haste to remove her head lest the mob's sentiments turn wholly in her favor.

Pommier was next. He seemed to lack the animated excitement of his comrade, and was almost absurdly cheerful, if such a word could be used in these circumstances. Quickly he was dispatched, removed from the scaffold as from the stage of life.

Then Raoulx. Raoulx was different. "He has a genuine sang-froid," murmured the Englishman, and Combeferre had to agree. The others seemed more animated by nervous excitement, but Raoulx seemed genuinely coolly indifferent to this gruesome end. Even the unsympathetic foreigner at his side seemed moved by this man – short of stature, but with something charismatic that extended beyond his good looks and long whiskers. A moment, a flurry on the scaffold, and then he, too, was gone. Combeferre was thoroughly sickened by the sight as they hefted the headless torso out of the way and into a waiting coffin. The sheer deliberateness of dealing out death so monotonously, grinding men beneath a mechanized instrument of obliteration, was as chilling as the fact of it. The repetition did not inure him to the sight, it simply added to the horror. But there was only one left now.

Bories, who had captured the popular imagination with his brave, mercurial temperament.

What could it possibly be like, Combeferre wondered, to be left alone with one's friends slaughtered before one's eyes? The last man standing? Bories gave no clue in his countenance, and with the same headlong determination as the others went unassisted up the scaffold stairs.

"O Bories, Bories!" sang out a young man near him, and Combeferre recognized Bahorel's tones, signifying that Bories, too, was gone.

And that was all. The bodies were removed from sight, the wagons carrying the coffins taken away before any sense of prohibiting the actions of the court officers in taking them could take hold among the crowd.

Near him, one man was commenting with satisfaction that they had died bravely, just as they should, while another expressed disappointment that they had not all cried out something as Goubin had before the blade came down.

He looked with concern to his young friends. Courfeyrac was wide-eyed and Enjolras...Enjolras' usual pallor had turned to white. Not, Combeferre realized, with fear. There was a righteous anger in the cold fury of his face that should have looked either vastly amusing or disfiguring awful on the face of someone of his years. Instead, it seemed as if some force had chosen that small body as its avatar. The incandescent rage transcended the frail form. And yet he hardly bore any expression at all – the high forehead had not lowered in a scowl, and there was only a slight compression of the lips. It was in the ice of his eyes that the apocalyptic anger lurked - those wide, piercing eyes.

"Enjolras?" he asked tentatively. Enjolras blinked, and seemed to come back from someplace else.

"Combeferre? Shall we go now? I think we had seen enough."

"Yes – the rest of the day is hardly likely to be any more edifying than this spectacle.

"Stay put," Bahorel suggested. "The day's events might not be over yet."

Combeferre shook his head. "I think we've had enough."

"But there is worse to come," Enjolras said, and Combeferre felt the chill of prophecy in the words. "After Louis comes Charles – whom Louis Capet declared was 'plus royaliste que le roi.'"

Combeferre had no answer. Enjolras was right.

They turned to the northern-eastern end of the square, in the general direction of the Rue de Rivoli, moving within the dispersing crowd. It could be hard to judge the mood of such a large body, and he was alert to signs of violence.

What they had witnessed was beginning to sink in. Four lives, cut short. Those men had been so very much alive. It was a hideous truncation, not just of the body but of life and humanity.

"Perhaps we should see to Courfeyrac," Enjolras murmured in his ear. Courfeyrac, he realized belatedly, was white.

"Sit down –" he urged, taking Courfeyrac's elbow. "You need to lean and down and put your head between your knees..."

"I'm alright!" Courfeyrac gasped, jerking his arm away. "It's just so...abrupt. One moment a man is breathing and thinking and feeling, and then a sheet of metal cuts him loose from life." He took a few deep breaths and Enjolras placed a steadying hand on his arm. He calmed, and continued speaking. 'Back home, our gardeners cut the lawn with scythes, sweeping through spring growth. I always knew the reaper harvesting grain was the right image for death, but it was...never entirely present. A man isn't a blade of grass or stem of wheat. God, that was so...that thud of the blade...it was even more final than the thud of earth on my grandmother's coffin!"

"Yes, it is real," Enjolras said, steering Courfeyrac to a doorstep, seating him and then sitting beside him. "Just as real now as it was during the Terror, or through all those years and years when this place saw the death of men and women at the hands of the State." He settled an arm around his friend and pulled him close, and God – they looked so young, even younger than they were. He was silent a moment before continuing. "And it may be that we shall have to wield death ourselves before we can obliterate the shadow of it as an instrument of justice."

"But you could never be as terrible as those who wield blood, Enjolras," Combeferre said. He wanted to believe it true. Enjolras looked up at him, and those eyes were not young at all – they were so very old and experienced, and not the eyes of a youth yet to attain manhood.

"I could be worse."

Combeferre could say nothing to that, so he turned his attention to Courfeyrac. "Are you alright?" He asked. Courfeyrac looked up, and Combeferre knew it would not do to mention that the shining moisture in his eyes looked like it might spill over.

"I'm fine. It was just so..." he trailed off, the words failing him for once. Combeferre nodded.

"I think it's time we went home," Combeferre said. "We still have an hour or so before I should drop you back at the school, however – and I won't take you back unfed."

"I'm not really hungry," Courfeyac said.

"Just some coffee then," he replied, planning on plying the boy with consoling pastries, but suspecting that those four sergeants would be parading through Courfeyrac's head in a gruesome procession for many years to come. Combeferre reached out a hand to pull him to his feet, Enjolras rising gracefully beside him.

They set off in the direction of the Rue de Rivoli – a turn to the right and they were a short walk from the lycée, leaving the grimness of the Place de Grève behind. The crowd was beginning to disperse, but it was evident that the mood of the clumps of people was turning ugly. They passed a troop of soldiers moving in the opposite direction. Courfeyrac's eyes were fixed on the ground, and Combeferre found his thoughts turning inward.

Then Enjolras lifted his head high, and sang in a surprisingly forceful voice – a voice that did not sound as if it had barely broken, but instead did full justice to the ferocious power of the lyrics.

Contre nous de la tyrannie,

L'étendard sanglant est levé

Courfeyrac, after a moment, joined him on the last lines of the refrain:

Aux armes, citoyens,

Formez vos bataillons,

Marcons, marchons!

Qu'un sang impur

Abreuve nos sillons!

The voices still had much of childhood in them, the sweet shrillness of the untutored singing raised in the defiance of schoolboys, but behind that Combeferre heard the gathering echoes, rolling and rebounding off the streets and buildings, gaining in force.

Hearing their mingled voices, recognizing the emotion that stirred in his own breast - the horror of the nightmarish spectacle of today in which the evils of the past strode abroad in the daylight of this year 1822, an ugly challenge to the ideal that men should be governed with reason - and Combeferre had a sudden awareness of something quite alarming. The revolution might well come to pass. And if it did, not only would Courfeyrac march with Enjolras, it was quite possible that Combeferre might as well.

If it came to that.

Please let it not come to that.

"Enjolras," he said quietly, "I think that's enough."

Enjolras nodded. "You are quite right, my friend."

But the echoes, now raised, would not lie down.

The extreme cold spell that had affected Paris (and, so the newspapers had it, much of the rest of Europe) and driven many inside. The snow was driven into the ground, and no longer had that freshly blanketing appearance, but had the faint grime of soot to it. Still, it was his city, and the thought of what had happened here over four years ago – what loomed over them still – seemed so much at odds with the beautiful view over the frozen river.

"Ahoy! Combeferre!"

Loudly hailed, he turned around with a smile. Why was it, he wondered, that wherever one went in Paris, one could not seem to avoid running into Courfeyrac?

"Saw you down the way," Courfeyrac continued, throwing his arms around his friend by way of a New Year's greeting. "And I said to myself, why, there's our resident philosopher, wrapped up in his lofty musings. But it's too cold for that sort of thing, old man – save the musing, lofty and otherwise, for when the thaw comes. Let us go find a warm cafe and I'll tell you all about my adventures of the last few weeks."

"It is good to see you too, Courfeyrac. But I'm afraid I have a little errand to run."

"Do let me join you – you're going on to the Musain, aren't you? We'll walk together. Where are we going now?"

"To a bookshop along the way –"

"Oh, Barbier's?"

"You know it?"

"Of course – he has a wonderful collection of rather sportive prints concealed under his counter that he shares with trusted customers like me – much better than those crude ones the at the street stalls...oh, don't give me that look. I buy my novels from him. And the odd law text, when I've no alternative but to appear to be studying."

Barbier's was precisely what a bookshop should be, with towering, dusty stacks of volumes and a maze of shelves. Combeferre wondered if Barbier cultivated the chaos quite deliberately, so that the tourists might enjoy the hunt, the feeling of sifting through the detritus to find that one rare, elusive volume. That one was unlikely in the extreme to find an illuminated book of hours such a short distance from Notre Dame where the contents of the shop were regularly gone over by collectors did not seem to deter the amateur enthusiasts, and there were always a few to be found methodically going through the piles and shelves in quest of that one gem of a book.

Barbier himself resembled a little black beetle of a man, with his unfashionably short and slick black hair, dark eyes and brows, and his rounded shoulders. He scurried forth when he saw Combeferre, genuinely pleased to see him.

"Just the man! I have been hoping you'd come in soon. I have the most splendid volume of Feuillée's Journal des observations physiques, mathématiques, et botaniques that I should like your opinion on...came in at the end of last year as part of an estate...quite a find, I could hardly believe my eyes when I reached the bottom of the trunk and there it was..."

Examination of the volume took the better part of an hour, while Courfeyrac prowled around the shelves, picked up a few cheaply bound novels, and finally started making impatient noises. Combeferre dragged his attention back to the task at hand.

"We were hoping that perhaps you could make offer us a suggestion – we are looking for a gift for a friend."

"Ah. A student?"

"Yes – law. You may know him – M. Enjolras."

"Yes, yes – he has been here in your company, has he not?" Barbier looked around at his customers, which included an elderly man dressed like a rural curate and a couple of students boggling over a volume of Diderot's Les bijoux indiscrets, then said in a slightly louder voice "I do believe, gentlemen, that I have something that may interest you in the way of botany…if you'll step this way."

Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow for Combeferre's benefit, who nodded slightly in return. Barbier he knew to be a friend – had had been a teacher until forced out of the education system by the Restoration's attempts to destroy the reforms of the Republic and Empire periods – and was to be trusted to be discreet.

"This way," the little man said – and really, he did look like a beetle with his rounded back and blunt head. "Here, into the annex. I have something that might suit your friend…it is not done to have such things in these days, and it is not particularly old or valuable, merely proscribed but-" and here he looked back at them directly, "to such as us, it has a value not to be measured in gold."

He turned back to his shelves, his hands with sure touch reaching among the prints and maps to find one long, rolled up cylinder of yellowing paper. He took it to the desk under the cobwebbed window and unrolled it, weighing the corners down with paperweights.

Courfeyrac gave a happy exclamation, and Combeferre smiled widely.

It was perfect.

Combeferre had to shift out of his coat as soon as he entered the backroom, such was the press of warmth from the fireplace and the people. It was cozily intimate – all the faces were familiar ones, who had gathered as much for sociability on this cold day as for shared political objectives. Bahorel hailed him as he walked past – that was something of a relief, they had missed Bahorel for two meetings before Christmas, unpredictable as he was in his comings and goings – and he skirted around Feuilly and Prouvaire's game of dominoes. There was something that had taken root in this group of young men, the lieutenants of the movement – a camaraderie that extended beyond the acquaintanceship of friends in a cafe. True familial spirit was here – they were not overly careful of each other's feelings, and Courfeyrac felt quite comfortable in laughing at Bahorel's waistcoat ("it is not blood-red, Bahorel – at least, not like the any blood I've ever seen. I'd say it's tending more to a rose color..."). There was a sympathy that did not express itself in a pedantic observation of forms of manners.

And in the corner – yes, there was Enjolras. Always the quiet one. It had taken some of their members quite a while to realize that his silence was not censorious aloofness. Just as when they were children, there were always those who would read judgment and disdain in his stillness, who thought that not actively participating in their sport meant that he found them wanting. But not the young men here tonight, his intimate friends. Each of them had come to accept that Enjolras knew them all well, and actually seemed to like them – to value their diversity - as well as drawing on them as the instruments to realize his vision. When he spoke of their verve, their humor, their melancholy and their wisdom, he did so with an unmistakable smile...the smile he now turned on Combeferre.

"Don't get up-" Combeferre began, but Enjolras was already on his feet and – negotiating his way around Joly, who was lying on his back on a table with his head over the edge, trying to prove it was possible to drink upside down from a tall thin glass that Lesgle was holding for him – drew his friend into an embrace.

"It is good to see you," he said, conveying more in his tone that the bald words suggested. "And you, too, Courfeyrac-" here he was muffled by Courfeyrac's enthusiastic hug.

"I wish you had stayed with me over Christmas!" Courfeyrac began. "I was distressed – distressed in the extreme, I tell you – when I found you chose to remain in Paris-"

"I am truly sorry to have caused you distress," Enjolras said very seriously, leaving Combeferre to suspect he was amused.

"No matter – to demonstrate you are forgiven, we have found what is simply the most splendid gift for you!"

"Oh!" Enjolras was slightly startled. "You are too kind-"

Well, at least he wasn't so discourteous as to reject it.

Combeferre hoped he had not creased the rolled up parchment – his gloves were thick, but the cold had seeped through even that to numb his fingers, killing their sensitivity. He handed the paper to Enjolras.

"A New Year's gift. A celebration, a caution and a promise."

Enjolras deftly undid the sting tying it closed while Courfeyrac cleared the writing detritus of unfinished plays and articles off a nearby table, then helped Enjolras roll it out and weighed the corners down with bottles.

"Ah!"

Enjolras' soft exclamation of surprise was followed by silence. He ran his hands over the map with something betwixt reverence and curiosity, barely touching it, and Combeferre knew that a landscape was unfolding in his mind. Not only the physical landscape of the mountains, vineyards and valleys, but the landscape of the country in its essence, the ideal as well as the physical, as revealed by the names of the departments. France under the Republic.

And in one corner, pulled out in detail in a box flanked by scrolling tricolors and Phrygian caps mounted on pikes, was Paris and its environs. Enjolras' long, slender fingers touched lightly on the Place de la Révolution, then moved across to hesitate over the Place de Grève.

"Thank you," he said, very softly. And then he raised his voice for the men who had dropped their occupations and were gathering around the table, a little awed by this historical token.

"This is our past, yes – but it is also contains the seeds of our future."

"Let us hang it on the wall!" Courfeyrac exclaimed.

"Perhaps some place a little less...conspicuous" suggested Joly. Enjolras shook his head.

"No – let us hang it here," he exchanged a look with Combeferre. "A celebration, a caution… and a promise" he repeated. His expression had all the radiance of his unconquerable belief.