Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-06-05 12:37 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-06-05 12:37 pm
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Er... hello. My secretary would like to make it clear that she normally disapproves of letting us take over, but since it's Barricade Day as she calls it, she's relented a bit. This is Jean Prouvaire, and it's been 174 years to the day since my execution.
It feels strange, even after all this time, to say 'execution;' I never expected a glorious death, you realize. I suppose it's the old conceit that no matter how dangerous the activities you're throwing yourself into, you never expect to die in them. You expect to live to a ripe and boring old age and go out quietly, rather more like a candle burning down than like a candle that's been snuffed out. I wanted to die shouting "Vive la république!", certainly, but I never expected the honour. I didn't expect it of myself, to be honest. To have visions of standing erect and strong before approaching death, while knowing yourself to be too timid to realize them--the thought tormented me while I was alive. And yet somehow, staring down the barrel of a rifle and knowing with absolute certainty that this was the end, I mustered the courage to stand firm. If there is one thing in my life that I am proud of, more so than all the verses I have ever penned, it is that I found the strength to face my death like a true republican and like a man.
I have also been told that Bahorel was killed in the fight where I was taken prisoner. I didn't see it; one loses track of things so easily in the madness of battle. But I like to think that I knew the man enough to say that if there is anything he regrets, it was probably not being able to take out more enemies before he died. He died as he lived, with raucous and violent good humor; in this strange afterlife we all inhabit, he is the only one who has never mourned his own passing.
I find it odd that so many who remember our story hold such nihilistic perceptions about our deaths, but I leave Enjolras to address that tomorrow. He, eternally a priest of the future and the most hopeful man I have ever had the honour to meet, will doubtless do better than I; I will confine myself to saying that I doubt a single one of us believes he died for naught.
It feels strange, even after all this time, to say 'execution;' I never expected a glorious death, you realize. I suppose it's the old conceit that no matter how dangerous the activities you're throwing yourself into, you never expect to die in them. You expect to live to a ripe and boring old age and go out quietly, rather more like a candle burning down than like a candle that's been snuffed out. I wanted to die shouting "Vive la république!", certainly, but I never expected the honour. I didn't expect it of myself, to be honest. To have visions of standing erect and strong before approaching death, while knowing yourself to be too timid to realize them--the thought tormented me while I was alive. And yet somehow, staring down the barrel of a rifle and knowing with absolute certainty that this was the end, I mustered the courage to stand firm. If there is one thing in my life that I am proud of, more so than all the verses I have ever penned, it is that I found the strength to face my death like a true republican and like a man.
I have also been told that Bahorel was killed in the fight where I was taken prisoner. I didn't see it; one loses track of things so easily in the madness of battle. But I like to think that I knew the man enough to say that if there is anything he regrets, it was probably not being able to take out more enemies before he died. He died as he lived, with raucous and violent good humor; in this strange afterlife we all inhabit, he is the only one who has never mourned his own passing.
I find it odd that so many who remember our story hold such nihilistic perceptions about our deaths, but I leave Enjolras to address that tomorrow. He, eternally a priest of the future and the most hopeful man I have ever had the honour to meet, will doubtless do better than I; I will confine myself to saying that I doubt a single one of us believes he died for naught.