Page 1980 - les-miserables

the most cordial of men, the most formidable of combatants.
War, strife, conflict, were the very air he breathed and put
him in a good humor. He had been an officer in the navy,
and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he
sprang from the ocean, and that he came from the tempest;
he carried the hurricane on into battle. With the exception
of the genius, there was in Cournet something of Danton,
as, with the exception of the divinity, there was in Danton
something of Hercules.
Barthelemy, thin, feeble, pale, taciturn, was a sort of
tragic street urchin, who, having had his ears boxed by a
policeman, lay in wait for him, and killed him, and at sev-
enteen was sent to the galleys. He came out and made this
barricade.
Later on, fatal circumstance, in London, proscribed by all,
Barthelemy slew Cournet. It was a funereal duel. Some time
afterwards, caught in the gearing of one of those mysterious
adventures in which passion plays a part, a catastrophe in
which French justice sees extenuating circumstances, and
in which English justice sees only death, Barthelemy was
hanged. The sombre social construction is so made that,
thanks to material destitution, thanks to moral obscurity,
that unhappy being who possessed an intelligence, certain-
ly firm, possibly great, began in France with the galleys, and
ended in England with the gallows. Barthelemy, on occa-
sion, flew but one flag, the black flag.

1980 Les Miserables