"You have a wife who loves you.--You have your old mother.--You have neither father nor mother; what will become of your three little brothers?--You are the father of five children.--You have a right to live, for you are only seventeen, and it is too early to die." These great revolutionary barricades were meeting-places of heroisms. The improbable was simple there, and these men did not astonish one another. "Make haste," Courfeyrac repeated. Cries to Marius came from the groups. "You must point out the one who is to remain." "Yes," the five said; "do you choose, and we will obey you." Marius did not believe himself capable of any emotion; still, at this idea of choosing a man for death all the blood flowed back to his heart, and he would have tamed pale could he have grown paler. He walked up to the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his eye full of that great flame which gleams through history on Thermopylæ, cried to him,-- "I! I! I!" And Marius stupidly counted them. There were still five! Then his eyes settled on the four uniforms. All at once a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven, on the other four; the fifth man was saved. Marius raised his eyes, and recognized M. Fauchelevent. Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade; either through information he had obtained, through instinct, or through accident, he arrived by the Mondétour Lane, and, thanks to his National Guard uniform, passed without difficulty. The vedette stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondétour had no cause to give the alarm-signal for a single National Guard, and had let him enter the street, saying to himself, "He is probably a reinforcement, or at the worst a prisoner." The moment was too serious for a sentry to turn away from his duty or his post of observation. At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, no one noticed him, for all eyes were fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms. Jean Valjean, however, had seen and heard, and silently took off his coat and threw it on the pile formed by the other coats. The emotion was indescribable. "Who is this man?" Bossuet asked. "He is a man," Combeferre replied, "who saves his fellow-man." Marius added in a grave voice,-- "I know him." This bail was sufficient for all, and Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean. "Citizen, you are welcome." And he added,-- "You are aware that you will die." Jean Valjean, without answering, helped the man he was saving to put on his uniform. CHAPTER V. THE HORIZON ONE SEES FROM BARRICADE'S SUMMIT.