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"Beside Enjolras who represented the logic of the revolution, Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the revolution and its philosophy, there is this difference -- that its logic could conclude with war, while its philosophy could only end in peace. Combeferre completed and corrected Enjolras. He was lower and broader. His desire was to instill into all minds the broad principles of general ideas... and about the steep mountain he spread the vast blue horizon. Hence, in all Combeferre's views, there was something attainable and practicable.... Combeferre was gentle, as Enjolras was severe, from natural purity. He read everything, went to the theatres, attended the public courts, learned the polarisation of light from Arago; he kept pace with the times, followed science step by step, deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebbles which he found and talked about geology, drew a moth-butterfly from memory, pointed out the mistakes in French in the dictionary of the Academy, affirmed nothing, not even miracles; denied nothing, not even ghosts; looked over the files of the Moniteur, reflected. He declared the future was in the hands of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with questions of education.... He was learned, purist, precise, universal, a hard student, and at the same time given to musing. ...Enjolras was a chief; Combeferre was a guide. You would have preferred to fight with the one and march with the other. Not that Combeferre was not capable of fighting; he did not refuse to close with an obstacle, and to attack it by main strength and by explosion, but... of the two lights, his inclination was rather for illumination than for conflagration. Combeferre would have knelt down and clasped his hands, asking that the future might come in all its radiant purity and that nothing might disturb the unlimited virtuous development of the people. "The good must be innocent," he repeated incessantly." |