As Gavroche falls on his face and stops moving, two waifs are wandering hand in hand through the deserted Luxembourg Gardens. They are the two brothers whom, unknown to himself, Gavroche took under his wing. Today, June 6, 1832, the gardens are an earthly paradise, a riot of flowers, birds, and insects, bathed in sunshine. But to this festive tableau the two little boys add a somber accent, for they are hungry.
Their solitude is disturbed by a prosperous bourgeois accompanied by his six-year-old son, who is listlessly eating a brioche. The father is giving his offspring such edifying instruction as the maxim "The wise man is happy with little." When his son tires of his brioche, he advises him to feed it to the swans, to teach him compassion. With laudable thrift he tries to attract their attention before the brioche sinks. Then the noise of the insurrection grows louder and the father, as prudent as he is wise, takes his son home. As soon as the pair is out of sight, the older Thénardier boy fights the swans for the soggy brioche and shares it with his brother. It is their meal, both food and drink.
Back at the barricade, Combeferre and Marius run out to retrieve the basket and carry back the child's body. Gavroche's cartridges are distributed to the men, fifteen apiece. Valjean refuses his share. Paradoxically, as the situation grows more hopeless, the occupants of the barricade become calmer. They seem to ignore the imminence of death. The tranquility, however, only masks an apocalyptic mood. The barricade fighters experience the ultimate emotions, anticipate the future, sink to unplumbed depths of feeling, touch eternity.
