# VIII: Many Interrogation Points with Regard to a Certain le Cabuc explained — Les Misérables

> Chapter companion for Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

## What happens

Enjolras executes Le Cabuc for murdering an innocent porter during the barricade, then delivers a speech about necessity, fatality, and the future of love and fraternity. The chapter also reveals that Le Cabuc may have been the police agent Claquesous.

## Themes in this chapter

### Justice vs. Law

Enjolras acts as judge and executioner, embodying revolutionary justice over legal order.

### Revolution and Social Upheaval

The barricade setting and Enjolras's speech highlight the revolutionary struggle for a future of harmony.

### Suffering and Sacrifice

Enjolras condemns himself for the execution, and the insurgents face death for their cause.

### Love and Compassion

Enjolras glorifies love and fraternity as the future, despite the violence of the present.

## Character check-ins

### Enjolras

Executes Le Cabuc for murder, then delivers a philosophical speech about justice and the future.

### Le Cabuc

A drunken insurgent who murders a porter; is executed by Enjolras; possibly Claquesous.

### Combeferre

Watches Enjolras with admiration and compassion; offers to share Enjolras's fate.

### Jean Prouvaire

Watches Enjolras with admiration and compassion alongside Combeferre.

### Courfeyrac

Sees a small young man on the barricade who had asked about Marius earlier.

### Gavroche

Mentioned as having departed just before the incident with Le Cabuc.

### Claquesous

Implied to be Le Cabuc; disappears after Le Cabuc's death.

## Key lines

> Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman’s face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis.

Enjolras, with his pale skin, bare neck, and disheveled hair, looked like the ancient goddess of justice, Themis.

_Describes Enjolras's appearance as he prepares to execute Le Cabuc._

> Citizens, in the future there will be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no more Michael. In the future no one will kill anyone else, the earth will beam with radiance, the human race will love.

Enjolras envisions a future without darkness, ignorance, or violence, where humanity lives in love and harmony.

_Enjolras's speech about the ideal future after the revolution._

> Le Cabuc was Claquesous. The fact is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any question of Claquesous.

Le Cabuc was actually the police agent Claquesous, who vanished after his death.

_Reveals Le Cabuc's possible identity as a police spy._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se/chapters/viii-many-interrogation-points-with-regard-to-a-certain-le-cabuc
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/les_miserables_se/chapters