Enjolras

Enjolras
Enjolras at a meeting of the Friends of the ABC
Created by	Victor Hugo
Information
Aliases	Apollo, Antinous, Orestes
Gender	Male
Occupation	Student Revolutionary
Nationality	French

Enjolras (French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃ʒolʁas]) is a fictional character who acts as the charismatic leader of the Friends of the ABC in the 1862 novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. In both the novel and the musical that it inspired, Enjolras is a revolutionary who fights for a France with more rights for the poor and oppressed masses, ultimately dying for his beliefs in the June 1832 rebellion.

Enjolras is described as "a charming young man who was capable of being terrible" and as "Antinous wild". He is said to have the appearance of a seventeen-year-old girl, with "long fair lashes, blue eyes, hair flying in the wind, rosy cheeks, pure lips, and exquisite teeth".

Enjolras is a republican, whose views are significantly shaped by the Montagnards of the French Revolution. The "divine right" of revolution that he expresses is said to go "as far as Robespierre," and Hugo declares that "in the Convention, he would have been Saint Just." His social philosophy is influenced by that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; whom he declares himself to "admire," in particular by Rousseau's Social Contract.

Late in the novel, Enjolras "come[s] to accept... the transformation of the great French Republic into the immense human republic," and speaks of a "revolution of the True" that will "light up the whole human race." In the same speech, he seems to draw a religious parallel, declaring the barricades of the failed 1832 uprising to be a place where "day embraces night, and says: I will die with thee and thou shalt be born again with me."