Grantaire shuffled into the café, half hung over and half freshly inebriated, to see Bossuet sitting alone at a table looking very depressed. Grantaire hardly recognized the eagle of Meaux without his general cheerful expression and little doctor companion.

"Where is your little pet malade imaginare?" he asked, dragging a chair from one of the other tables then flopping down in it. "The two of you seemed quite joined at the lip-- hip, as of late."

"We are on the brink of a tragedy, mon ami," Bossuet said, running a hand over his head as if to smooth back hair that was not present. "Do you know the date?"

"Why do you ask that question?"

"Yes, forgive me. When have you ever known the date in your life? Today, my friend, is the first of June."

"Ah, June," Grantaire said, reaching for the center of the table and seeming surprised when there was not a wine bottle within reach. "A month for lovers." He paused. "But you have a lover. Two, in fact."

"It's got nothing to do with love," Bossuet said, waving the question aside with a large hand. "The issue here is that in a week, mon ami, it is my birthday."

"Congrats."

"I am to be thirty."

"…shall I get you a cane, then, old man, or perhaps a pair of spectacles?" Grantaire asked, grinning widely.

"We are the same age. You are to be thirty."

"…damn."

"Our youth is gone!" Bossuet cried melodramatically. "No more are we lazy youths, but grown loafers! Bums! We are not rebels, but madmen! Not students, but beggars! I go from a clumsy boy to a reckless man, you from an aimless youth to a worthless sot."

"In the opinion of most, I was the latter already," Grantaire pointed out, his craving for strong alcohol growing. "But now I will have the age to match it. Time has run out for us, my eagle. We can no longer delay. We are to be worthless forever, without the folly of youth on which to blame it."

"What will we do?" Bossuet asked, sounding genuinely distressed. The man's low spirits appeared to be infectious, and Grantaire felt his mood slowly plummeting.

"Get drunk," Grantaire replied immediately, opening his mouth to bellow for Louison.

"But even if we stay drunk for a week straight, we shall still have to wake on the seventh day to being thirty."

"Half of sixty," Grantaire muttered. "Half of… old." He was rather too sober to be eloquent.

"We must think," Bossuet said. "We could lie about our ages, but Joly knows mine."

"The window's not high enough," Grantaire noted.

"No, no," Bossuet said. "Enjolras would kill us if we died before--"

He broke off abruptly, and the two men exchanged a look.

"General Lamarque's funeral…!"

"It's on the fifth, that's two days before…!"

At that moment, Enjolras entered the café. Bossuet leapt to his feet and raced to the younger man's side.

"Mon ami!" he cried, slinging an arm around the blond boy's shoulders. Enjolras looked rather startled. "I've a brilliant idea, absolutely brilliant."

"Have you?" Enjolras asked, trying not to sound completely skeptical. Bossuet nodded and led Enjolras over to the table he and Grantaire had been sharing.

"It's the most brilliant idea you've ever heard," Bossuet said, pausing dramatically before going on. "On the day of the funeral… we shall stage an insurrection!"

"We shall what?" Enjolras asked, clearly expecting Bossuet's brilliant idea to have been anything save that.

"An insurrection! A rebellion! We'll… we'll…"

"We'll build a big barricade across the whole street!" Grantaire cried, flinging his arms out wide. Both men stared, then Bossuet slapped his leg enthusiastically.

"Genius! A barricade!" Bossuet cried.

"Yes… quite…" Enjolras said, too bewildered too protest.

"It will be perfect, mon ami, simply perfect. The people will be angered over the loss of their champion, they will turn formerly deaf ears to you! Grief will light fires in hearts that were once cold!"

"Yes… yes," Enjolras said with a nod, his own heart slowly warming to the idea. "The whole of the city will be in the streets, waiting for--"

"For us to spur them to action!" Bossuet cried, leaping gleefully to his feet.

"We must plan!" Enjolras cried, mimicking the motion and slamming his palm on the table. "L'aigle, you tell the others!"

As he turned and left, Bossuet sunk back into his seat, a contented smile on his face.

"This may be the best idea I have ever had."

"It is completely idiotic," Joly said. Bossuet, sitting Indian-style at the foot of the bed, tried to protest, but Joly held up a hand to silence him. "Completely! Barricades are a leading cause of death among impressionable rich young boys playing games, I hope you are aware!"

"I thought that was the pox."

"It is not, it is barricades!"

"Joly, mon cher, I don't believe you understand. I shall be thirty. My youth--!"

"So getting killed is your solution?"

"Absolutely!"

There was a lengthy pause, then Joly sighed.

"Well, I shall be dead of this fever before the week is out, anyway."

The rest of the Friends of the ABC proved much easier to convince, mostly because Bossuet somehow neglected to mention that the goal of the barricades would be to get him, Bossuet, and Grantaire killed before they turned thirty. He had somehow doubted that the idea would fly with the likes of Feuilly, who seemed quite attached to being alive, and Bahorel, who wanted to die in a blaze of glory, not because "two pansy students are afraid of turning twice fifteen." (As he had not been told, Bahorel never actually said this, but Bossuet imagined the true explanation would be greeted with a statement along similar lines, perhaps with a little more cursing and a few more skulls meeting the pavement.)

Of course, Grantaire drinking himself into a stupor had not been part of the plan. But each to his own, Bossuet supposed on the eve of June the fifth. There was always alcohol poisoning. As for him, well. This was clearly the best idea he had ever had.