Echoing Meanings

The passage I chose to write about is the scene from the French rebels after taking the Bastille. In this passage in chapter 21, there was a difficult section that I was able to translate. The section starts on the bottom of page 229 with the line"But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression..." and ends on page 230 with "they are not easily purified once stained red".
To start with the translation, the first line deserves attention.

"But, in the ocean of fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces - each seven in number -  so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners suddenly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high over head: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits.Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day."

 To start, the ocean described in the passage is the mob of rebels, who after sacking the Bastille, have two groups of people not of the revolution. These two groups are both memorable, "never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it" and these two groups are entirely different. The prisoners that have been released are scared, and bewildered at the mob around them, cheering them and their victory over the French fort. The second group of faces are much more gruesome. The faces belong to those that the rebels have killed, those "dead faces" are held above the crowd capturing attention in a totally different way.
The way that I made sense of this passage was simple. I reread it multiple times, with questions in mind about the reading. This helped me look for specific parts of the passage that answered those questions. In all, these strategies helped me translate and understand a difficult passage of chapter 22.