"Marius Pontmercy survived," he says slowly. "And a few others that might, I suppose, have told their stories." Because who else would know about barricade speeches? He'll have to see Hugo's account, of course, to judge its accuracy. "Have you the book here?"

Bahorel wouldn't be the only one to think, now and then, that he might be fictional. The last two years of Bossuet's life--the last days and hours of it in particular--had a certain feeling of immutability. The way Prouvaire had been lost, the man Enjolras executed. It had felt like a story whose essential points had already been determined.

But that's part of an idea he's still forming, and perhaps not something to test on Bahorel right this moment.