Hugo's account of the revolt of 1832 is taken from his own memories of the uprising as it appeared from the passage du Saumon, where he himself was stationed; from the experiences a friend, Jules Resseguier, recounted to him; and from a book on the revolt, Le Cloitre Saint-Mery by Ray-Dusseuil. In this book, there appear a real gamin and a real student who play the roles and suffer the fates of Gavroche and Enjolras in the novel, but as we have seen, Hugo has made both full-fledged characters in his book. As is natural with such sources, the whole account breathes the realism and immediacy of eyewitness testimony.
The chapters on the revolt form a counterpart to the book on Waterloo, and Hugo uses the same mingled irony and pathos, poetry and action, to arouse our emotions. Chapter 3 is an excellent example of his technique. He has already compared the coming rebellion to the natural phenomenon of a gathering storm, and he describes the progression of the revolt here in terms of the same metaphor. He describes first the "rumors" among the populace—the first faint rumblings of thunder on the horizon; then the massing, aligning, and re-mingling of the mob behind the cortege that, watched by the hidden eyes of fearful women and children, resemble the rapid shifting and massing of the thunderclouds; and finally the shots that, like the first lightning bolt, open the sky for the deluge. Interspersed with these images are precise and convincing details of conversation, visual impressions, and incidents, and two observations that underline the historic irony and grandeur of the moment: the Duke of Reichstadt, Napoleon's heir, is dying at the same moment the crowds are considering him as their next king; and Lafayette, hero of the American War of Independence, serves as rallying-point for this new insurrection in the cause of freedom.
