Upon the sacrifice of women and old men follows the sacrifice of children and heroes, and the tragic atmosphere deepens. Eponine and M. Mabeuf wanted to die; the Friends of the A.B.C. did not, though they accept their fate with gaiety and courage. Indeed, they had a great deal to live for: forty years of shaping a better world; and it is just this dream of a fuller life that brings them to their deaths. Moreover, Hugo suggests, through France's indifference to their dream, France has lost the flower of their generation. Each of them was a young man of intelligence and ability, and in the revolution they have given proof of their ability in action as well as thought, of bravery as well as brilliance. Even Grantaire, cynic and drunkard, dies as gracefully, as courteously, and as courageously as his friends.
The death of Gavroche is an even greater tragedy, for he possessed the talents of all of them combined: courage and ingenuity, humility and joy, wit and compassion; and society had even less time to profit from his gifts. The world is poorer without him—a truth that Hugo underlines by the vignette of the two lost boys scrabbling for the swans' bread after his death.
Only Jean Valjean and Marius escape, and this is not really due to any deliberate act of will or heroism on Valjean's part. He has made no attempt to shield Marius during the battle; indeed, he seems rather to be waiting for fate to decide whether it will be Cosette's father or Cosette's lover who survives. In any event, it is Javert's unexpected presence that decides the question. As the situation evolves, it becomes apparent that it is not in Valjean's nature to kill Javert in cold blood; if he cannot kill Javert, he has lost Cosette anyway. Marius survives, Valjean picks him up, and carries him off—not out of kindness to Marius, but because it is perhaps the last gift he will ever be able to give his child.
And yet the self-sacrifice implicit in the rescue of his rival is genuine. Physically, he could have killed the snipers on the roof, could have killed Javert, could have left Marius to die. Morally, he cannot, and this was as true when he arrived at the barricade as when he left it. The obscure forces of character in him have not changed; they have simply emerged, tough and unscathed, from the ultimate test. Jean Valjean has been a good man for so long that he cannot do evil even when he would.
