"In this uniform," Enjolras said, "it is easy to enter the ranks and escape. Here are four at any rate." And he threw the four uniforms on the unpaved ground; but as no one moved in the stoical audience, Combeferre resolved to make an appeal. "Come," he said, "you must show a little pity. Do you know what the question is here? It is about women. Look you, are there wives,--yes or no? Are there children,--yes or no? Are these nothing, who rock a cradle with their foot, and have a heap of children around them? Let him among you who has never seen a nurse's breast hold up his hand. Ah! you wish to be killed. I wish it too, I who am addressing you; but I do not wish to feel the ghosts of women twining their arms around me. Die,--very good; but do not cause people to die. Suicides like the one which is about to take place here are sublime; but suicide is restricted, and does not allow of extension, and so soon as it affects your relations, suicide is called murder. Think of the little fair heads, and think too of the white hair. Listen to me! Enjolras tells me that just now he saw at the corner of the Rue du Cygne a candle at a poor window on the fifth floor, and on the panes the shaking shadow of an old woman who appeared to have spent the night in watching at the window; she is perhaps the mother of one of you. Well, let that man go, and hasten to say to his mother, 'Mother, here I am!' Let him be easy in his mind, for the work will be done here all the same. When a man supports his relatives by his toil, he has no longer any right to sacrifice himself, for that is deserting his family. And then, too, those who have daughters, and those who have sisters! Only think of them. You let yourselves be killed, you are dead, very good; and to-morrow? It is terrible when girls have no bread, for man begs, but woman sells. Oh, those charming, graceful, and gentle creatures with flowers in their caps, who fill the house with chastity, who sing, who prattle, who are like a living perfume, who prove the existence of angels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth; that Jeanne, that Lise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures, who are your blessing and your pride,--ah, my God! they will starve. What would you have me say to you? There is a human flesh-market, and you will not prevent them entering it with your shadowy hands trembling around them. Think of the street; think of the pavement covered with strollers; think of the shops before which women in low-necked dresses come and go in the mud. Those women, too, were pure. Think of your sisters, you who have any; misery, prostitution, the police. St Lazare, that is what these delicate maidens, these fragile marvels of chastity, modesty, and beauty, fresher than the lilies in May, will fall to. Ah, you have let yourselves be killed! Ah, you are no longer there! That is,--very good,--you have wished to withdraw the people from royalty, and you give your daughters to the police.