(Laurent is the first name of my Enjolras. I do not own Les Miserables, except in the sense that a beaten up copy of it lives on my desk. Victor Hugo owns it. I do not own Don Quixote, except for the copy on my shelf which is my only book in worse shape than Les Miserables. Cervantes does. I do not own Rousseau's "Social Contract," except for a copy which is in suspiciously better condition than either other book. Rousseau and Shakespeare own themselves.)

I read Don Quixote when I was twelve. No, not as the victim of some sadistic teacher, only for my own purposes. I did things like that, then. I suppose I should say, instead, "I did things then." It is said that what I do now amounts to doing nothing. Back in those days, I could still believe those fairy stories. I read it straight through that first time, though it has digressions which made my head spin in spite of the fact that I was sober, and which even I would be hard pressed to surpass. Today it makes me wonder if Cervantes, between sheathing his sword and lifting his pen, did not first pull the cork from whatever was then the concoction in fashion that most resembled the one in the bottle I see before me now. My favorite parts centered in the second volume, when people humored the Knight of the Rueful Countenance and let his squire believe himself a governor. Those are the stories which can make a young boy want to be Don Quixote as much as Alonso Quixano wanted to be Roland. By Olympus, we already know I have the countenance to make anybody rueful.

You may have come closer to reaching me than either of us knew, Apollo, for after going home from Richefeu's, I took that aging book down from the shelf, interrupting its task of collecting dust. No doubt you would have preferred that I chose the one beside it, Rousseau's "Social Contract." Yes, I have them both, and a few others of similar nature, which came with me to Paris when I was no older than you look. To make me touch any of them was a triumph, as I long ago realized that words on a page are as ineffective a way to change the world as any other. This time, as I flipped through the pages, the episodes which caught my eye were closer in nature to the one of Andres, the shepherd boy who was thrashed sounder because the valiant Don Quixote ordered his master to stop. There is nothing like wanting to be Don Quixote at twelve to ensure that by the time a young man turns eighteen, he will have less faith than Sancho, who like a Sunday Christian managed to convince himself to believe when he thought it would ensure prosperity.

I may have been beginning to suspect your giants were windmills by the time you began to tilt at them, Laurent, but I can still recognize them through this green fog. If I was merely afraid, perhaps I would listen when you told me to turn aside and pray, but I have seen and read of enough adventures. A government is very like a windmill; it spins around much the same as ever, changing with the wind of the day. So no matter what name we call it by- monarchy or republic, giant or windmill- the nature of the beast will not change in any important way. A rose by any other name bears thorns, with no apologies to the Bard, as he has been in the ground as long as Cervantes and should be glad I bother to use any of his words at all. Windmills only topple their assailants into the mud, and should you be flung towards heaven first, you will only land harder.