# The Horizon Which One Beholds from the Summit of a Barricade explained — Les Misérables

> Chapter companion for Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

## What happens

Enjolras delivers a visionary speech from atop the barricade, envisioning a future of universal liberty, equality, and fraternity, where science and progress have conquered nature, and humanity lives in peace. He frames the revolution as a sacrifice that will bring about a new dawn for the human race.

## Themes in this chapter

### Revolution and Social Upheaval

Enjolras frames the barricade as the crucible of a revolution that will illuminate all humanity.

### The Human Condition and Fate

The speech contrasts present suffering with a prophesied future happiness, linking death to a radiant dawn.

### Suffering and Sacrifice

The barricade is described as a heap of woes and ideas, where sacrifice purchases the future.

## Character check-ins

### Enjolras

Delivers a prophetic speech about the future of humanity and the revolution.

### Combeferre

Mentioned as having influenced Enjolras's ideas toward a broader, more progressive vision.

### Feuilly

Addressed directly by Enjolras, praised as a valiant artisan who adopted humanity as his mother.

## Key lines

> We have vanquished the hydra, and it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of vanquishing the griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon.

Humanity has conquered the mythical hydra through the invention of the locomotive, and is about to conquer the griffin through the balloon.

_Enjolras uses classical monsters as metaphors for technological progress._

> This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins.

Individual self-rule is liberty, and when several such sovereignties join, the state is formed.

_Enjolras defines the foundational principles of his ideal society._

> Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn.

Those who die on this barricade die bathed in the light of a future utopia, entering a tomb filled with the promise of a new day.

_Enjolras concludes his speech with a poetic vision of death as a triumphant passage into a better world._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se/chapters/v-the-horizon-which-one-beholds-from-the-summit-of-a-barricade
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se/chapters