Maximilien Robespierre

“ I would have wanted to share the fate of the brave defenders who preferred an honorable death to a shameful capitulation (applause) . And since one must be republican, since one must have energy, I say to you that I wouldn’t be member of a committee in which such a man could participate.
This might seem harsh, but what is harsher still for a patriot is that for two years, 100,000 men have been killed by treason or weakness; it is weakness before traitors that harms us. We are tender towards the most criminal men, towards those who deliver the fatherland to the enemy’s steel. ”

“ Can it then be that the Citizens you have charged with the most difficult functions have lost the title of imperturbable defenders of freedom because they've accepted this burden? Are those who attack them more patriotic because they haven’t received this mark of confidence? Do you claim that those who defended freedom here at the risk of their lives, in the midst of daggers, should be treated like vile protectors of aristocracy? We will brave calumnies and intrigues. But the Convention is attached to the Committee of Public Safety ”

“ The truth is the only weapon that remains in the hands of the intrepid defenders of freedom in order to bring down the perfidious agents of aristocracy. He who seeks to debase, to divide, to paralyze the Convention is an enemy of the fatherland, whether he sits in this hall or is a foreigner (applause) . Whether he acts by stupidity or perversity he is of the party of the tyrants who make war upon us. ”

“ The men who perpetually declaim, whether here or elsewhere, against those men who are at the head of the government have themselves given proof of lack of civisme and baseness. Why then do they want to debase us? ”

“ Without a doubt, if such men manage to prove that the Committee isn’t composed of good men, then liberty is lost, for it will doubtless not be to them that enlightened opinion will give its confidence and hand over the reins of government! And don’t think that it is my intention to render imputation for imputation. Jep commits to never dividing the patriots, but I don’t include among the patriots those who only wear the mask, and I will unmask the conduct of two or three traitors who have here been the artisans of discord and dissension (applause) . ”

“ The head of headquarters being justly suspect, we replaced him by a man whose talents and patriotism were attested to by all the commissioners; a man known by exploits that signaled him at the very time when the most odious treasons sacrificed that army. ”