Les Misérables Chapter 6 Summary

Summary

Enjolras convenes a secret meeting at the Café Musain to take stock of the society’s strength and assign immediate tasks in case of sudden conflict. He issues a brisk, metaphor-laden roll call, sending Courfeyrac to the polytechnic students, Combeferre to Picpus, Feuilly to the Glacière, and others to target neighborhoods and professional groups. He identifies the Barrière du Maine—where marble-workers and studio journeymen gather at Richefeu’s—as a weak but important point and at first laments the absence of Marius to handle it.

Grantaire unexpectedly offers to go to the Barrière du Maine and, after a skeptical exchange in which Enjolras questions his reliability, is grudgingly accepted and promptly returns wearing a red Robespierre waistcoat. The meeting disperses; Enjolras plans to visit the Cougourde of Aix at Issy himself, but decides first to check on Grantaire. He arrives at Richefeu’s around one o’clock and finds Grantaire engaged in dominoes and bombast rather than active agitation. The scene ends with the smoky salon, the game in progress, and the implication that the revolutionaries are being set in motion across Paris by this careful, almost military, division of tasks.

Key events

1. Secret meeting at the Café Musain to take a census of supporters.
2. Enjolras assigns members to rouse specific student and worker groups across Paris.
3. Enjolras singles out Barrière du Maine and needs someone to rekindle its artisans.
4. Grantaire volunteers despite skepticism and dons a red Robespierre waistcoat.
5. Members disperse to their posts; Enjolras heads toward Issy but stops at Richefeu’s.
6. Enjolras finds Grantaire at a domino table, talking loudly rather than organizing.

Analysis

This chapter functions as an organizational snapshot, showing Enjolras as the strategic heart of the group and demonstrating the movement’s shift from talk to disciplined preparation. The scene frames revolutionary energy as logistical as well as ideological: Enjolras’s meticulous assignment of neighborhoods and professions reads like military planning, turning disparate youthful idealism into a coordinated network. This structurally advances the novel by broadening the setting beyond the Café Musain into neighborhoods and workplaces, implying a larger social web ready to be activated. The contrast between Enjolras’s seriousness and Grantaire’s comic, drunken bravado deepens character dynamics: Enjolras embodies disciplined moral fervor, while Grantaire represents skeptical, performative attachment. Grantaire’s theatrical adoption of revolutionary symbols (the red waistcoat) and his domino game at Richefeu’s symbolize the gap between rhetoric and action—he can mimic commitment but remains unreliable. The narrator’s language mixes metaphor and military imagery (furnace, powder train, electric spark), which both romanticizes and mechanizes revolution, foreshadowing that passion alone must be matched by coordination. The chapter also emphasizes collective identity through the A B C friends’ varied talents—philosophy, enthusiasm, science—suggesting that the uprising, if it comes, will be a composite effort. Narratively, the chapter raises tension by preparing forces offstage while concluding on the ambiguous note of Grantaire’s performance, keeping readers uncertain whether the planned mobilization will succeed.

Important quotes

“It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may count. If combatants are required, they must be provided.”

EnjolrasEnjolras opens the meeting with a rapid, organizing speech that turns revolutionary zeal into a practical census and assignment of duties.

“I am capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.”

GrantaireGrantaire insists on his ability to travel to Richefeu’s, answering Enjolras’s doubts with theatrical bravado that mixes humor and uncertainty about his real commitment.

“The furnace was being heated. He had at that moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris.”

NarratorThe narrator uses industrial and military metaphors to convey Enjolras’s satisfaction that the network of activists is ready, blending romanticism with a sense of imminent action.

Characters in Chapter 6

• Enjolras
• Courfeyrac
• Feuilly
• Combeferre
• Bahorel
• Prouvaire
• Joly
• Bossuet
• Grantaire
• Marius
• Richefeu