Rene Courfeyrac

About

"Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac was the center. The others gave more light, he gave more heat; the truth is that he had all the qualities of a center, roundness and radiance."

Personality

Rene Courfeyrac could easily be summed up in one word: enthusiasm.

In friendship, in love, in anger, in politics, he attacks the world with a shameless and infectious joy. Subtlety is a trait of lesser men than he, caution and patience a waste of precious time. A tornado of energy, Courfeyrac is difficult to ignore, and easy to fall for.

Victor Hugo compares Courfeyrac to Tholomyes, Cosette's selfish, absent father and Fantine's downfall. Both men share a dangerous combination of charm and ego, a sort of innocent selfishness that can leave disaster in its wake. In Courfeyrac's case, he can mock and tease too freely, hurting friends with carelessness. He “collects” women, makes jokes when a situation calls for seriousness, and won’t let go of arguments out of sheer stubbornness. He can be bluster without substance, as when he argues with Combeferre about the Louis XVIII Charter, burning the offending document for dramatic effect without actually engaging with his friend. One would not be faulted for thinking that the kind of fellow who would insist on wearing a new top hat to Lamarque’s funeral didn’t take the enterprise completely seriously.

But much lies beneath his shallow surface. To quote Hugo, Courfeyrac is a splendid fellow. He is forever gathering friends about him, not for the sake of having an audience or with hope of some gain, but because he truly loves people – even, and especially, those who do not know what to do with his love. This is the man who, moments after meeting the homeless Marius, invites him home and into his life, embracing him as a friend despite (or even because of) their many differences. That laugh of his might sometimes seem inappropriate, but when he uses it to break the tension in a room or lighten a dire situation, those around him are grateful. His bluster nearly always hides deadly seriousness and a steel trap of a mind, and even in the midst of the most dramatic debate, he can pull facts and statistics out of the air. Obnoxious, proud, stubborn, and melodramatic he might be, but he is also loyal, loving, and big-hearted, Les Amis own embodiment of Republican fraternite.

Appearance

Tall, dark hair and eyes, medium build. Fashionably dressed, whatever the fashions of the place/time in which he finds himself. Lounges when sitting and makes a lot of big gestures when talking, often taking up a lot of space in a room (literally and figuratively). Usually looks as if he has just heard an amazing joke that he is dying to tell you.

History

Rene de Courfeyrac was raised in a world of privilege. Though his family lacked a noble title - even the de was a product of arrogance and fancy, not a symbol of landholdings - the de Courfeyracs had wealth in abundance. Rene had his share of servants and tutors, his pick of sweets, and silks – and after a certain age, women, too – and a lesser spirit than he might have been made rotten by indulgence. By some miracle, his innate stubbornness and good heart led him down a different path.

Admittedly, the air of danger and defiance, not noble purpose, brought Courfeyrac to politics. He enjoyed the argument that a mere mention of Robspierre's name could bring to any group of his peers and the fury it brought to his father's eyes. Never complacent, he raced off to Paris at the first opportunity, and there he found freedom to be whom he wished.

He met Enjolras, a fellow law student, and knew immediately that this was a man unlike any he had ever known. Their friendship was unlikely as it was instantaneous, Enjolras grave where Courfeyrac was gregarious, serious where he was full of laughter. Most of all, Enjolras believed in a future of liberty, equality, and fraternity that Courfeyrac had only spoken of in half-joking terms. There were others who believed in that same future, more people than Courfeyrac had imagined, trapped at home with bourgeois playing at nobility. Though perhaps few in number in the grand scheme of things, the group of workers and students who gathered around them forged bonds of loyalty and friendship over a common cause that nothing but death could break.

The next seven years passed in a tumult of wine, and laughter, and gunpowder, and secrets. Lacking Enjolras' natural vision or Combeferre's calming practicality, Courfeyrac made his place as a leading member of their band through sheer friendly charisma, swiftly becoming the most likely fellow to recruit new members or mend fractured relationships. Even Marius, sad, solitary, Bonapartist Marius, was swept up in his cheerful Republican cyclone. Standing with his friends, Courfeyrac tore up paving stones, composed pamphlets by fading candlelight, escaped the grasp of police officers and soldiers – always with a laugh on his lips, and never ceasing to find new friends.

1832 proved to be a dark year. Cholera hit the city hard, and those unsatisfied by the half-measures of the 1830 revolution reached the end of their never particularly long patience. When General Lamarque died, Courfeyrac attended the hero's funeral with his friends, equipped with a new hat for the occasion – but also a sword cane and carbine hidden under his coat, ready for the fighting that was sure to start. That they would start, if necessary.

They were full of hope and excitement when they erected the barricade on the Rue de la Chanvrerie, sure that Lamarque's funeral was the spark Paris needed to bring about a true revolution, but that hope died with tragic speed. By the next sunrise, after a night of fighting and loss, Courfeyrac and the others knew that death, not freedom, awaited them.