Nous sommes des juges et non des assassins

Enjolras’s declaration, “Nous sommes des juges et non des assassins,” rejects killing as the answer to a dispute over how to deal with a man called an informer. Its force lies in the line it draws: the barricade’s armed authority, he insists, does not make its members executioners.

The Line in Context

The statement follows an exchange about the use of force. One speaker says that they are conserving their gunpowder; another proposes finishing the matter with a knife. Enjolras answers by naming a limit on what they may do, addressing the accused as an informer before declaring, “nous sommes des juges et non des assassins.” The sequence gives the maxim its immediate stakes: it is spoken not as an abstract principle but in response to a practical suggestion of lethal violence.

Judgment and Violence

The contrast between judges and assassins casts restraint as a question of legitimate authority. Enjolras does not deny that the group is judging the man; he distinguishes that judgment from killing him. The declaration therefore exposes a tension within the insurgents’ position: they wield force, yet must decide whether their cause permits them to use it without limit.

The Moment’s Turn

Immediately after speaking, Enjolras calls Gavroche and orders him to attend to his business and do what he had been told. That abrupt shift from moral pronouncement to action keeps the exchange within the urgent activity of the barricade. The text does not specify here what judgment will follow or explain Gavroche’s task; the line’s significance rests on the restraint Enjolras asserts at this particular moment.