"If we could warn those men in time for them to change the course of '93 -- to save the Republic--!"
It's an astonishing dream. And like the best of dreams -- all the ones really worth cherishing -- it's utterly possible. Whether or not it happens, it could; why not, after all? Combeferre's right. There's no reason Camille Desmoulins couldn't walk through that door, or Marat, or Saint-Just, or Robespierre, or any of the other giants of the Republic.
His expression, which had been glowing -- literally, in the morning sunlight, and figuratively with a fiercely joyful idealism -- turns more solemn. "Yes. It would be. A revolution is a tollgate, we've often discussed that." And a revolution's toll is never paid only by those who set out intending to pay it, even if they pay first and often dearest. "It's the same principle. And the same moral compromise; still, to refuse to act would be a worse stain."
(also omg just imagine if one of those guys came in and we got to talk to him though, says a tiny and well-squelched portion of Enjolras's soul. Admittedly, in a different vernacular.)
no subject
It's an astonishing dream. And like the best of dreams -- all the ones really worth cherishing -- it's utterly possible. Whether or not it happens, it could; why not, after all? Combeferre's right. There's no reason Camille Desmoulins couldn't walk through that door, or Marat, or Saint-Just, or Robespierre, or any of the other giants of the Republic.
His expression, which had been glowing -- literally, in the morning sunlight, and figuratively with a fiercely joyful idealism -- turns more solemn. "Yes. It would be. A revolution is a tollgate, we've often discussed that." And a revolution's toll is never paid only by those who set out intending to pay it, even if they pay first and often dearest. "It's the same principle. And the same moral compromise; still, to refuse to act would be a worse stain."
(also omg just imagine if one of those guys came in and we got to talk to him though, says a tiny and well-squelched portion of Enjolras's soul. Admittedly, in a different vernacular.)