Romain Rolland

“ I have defended the most sacred things in the world: fraternity, holy equality—the heart and soul of Republican maxims, the res sacra miser; respect for misery, which is commanded by our sublime Constitution. I have made men love liberty. I wished to light up the eyes of all peoples with the radiant image of happiness.
ROBESPIERRE. Happiness! There is the fatal word with which you draw to you every form of selfishness and covetousness. Who does not wish for happiness? We are not offering the happiness of Persepolis to the people, but the happiness of Sparta. Happiness is virtue. ”

“ Let the harvests and men grow once more and become a new Patrie. Let us love one another and cultivate our fields.
CAMILLE. May some god give us the chance, Danton! We are counting on you.
DANTON. What is it, my children?
PHILIPPEAUX. We need your help to fight.
DANTON. How can I help you? Must I always do everything? You are all alike. Here is Westermann; he is a man; he has fought; he has saved the Patrie two or three times; and before he sits down to supper, he cuts a man's throat as an appetizer. I must aid him, too! Do you want me to ride a horse and carry a saber, besides? ”

“ ROBESPIERRE. Happy the man who strives on the field of action, and is not forced to stay at home.
SAINT-JUST. Who strives more than you? The liberty of the world is here in Paris.
ROBESPIERRE. Here we have the agonizing task of stamping out viciousness. It soils every one who takes part in the nasty business. I must confess, when I contemplate the vicious crimes which the torrent of the Revolution rolls along with all its virtue, I am afraid that I shall catch up some of the nastiness and be identified with it in the eyes of posterity. ”

“ ROBESPIERRE. The idiot! Will he not learn to hold his tongue?
BILLAUD-VARENNE [like a monomaniac] . The guillotine!
SAINT-JUST [reading the proofs with ROBESPIERRE] . Like a prostitute, who cannot but bring dishonor upon herself.
ROBESPIERRE. And Danton?
BILLAUD-VARENNE. Danton is at it again; he is speaking at the Palais-Royal. He insults Vadier, and me, and all the patriots. Desmoulins is with him. They're all together with the women and Westermann, too. They make obscene allusions to the Committee. The people are gathering about them, and laughing. ”

“ Our light is in the people: its salvation is our law. We have but one question to ask ourselves: do the people want Danton put down? Once that question is decided, the whole matter is ended. We must wage war to win. Justice means that that which is just shall triumph. We cannot wait: Danton must be laid low. To allow him to arm himself would be to offer our breast to the dagger of an assassin; military and financial despotism would rule the Revolution, and civil wars lay waste our land for a hundred years. We would be hated in history, though we deserve to be loved. ”

“ Do you think our revolution is going to be merely some gallant little story? Ah, you little women! During the fifty years you have been governing France, and had everything brought you, done for you, did it never enter your heads that there might be something more important than your dainty selves? Play is over and done with, Madame. This is a serious game, in which the stake is the world itself. Make way for the men! If you dare, follow us to battle, help us, share our faith, but, by God, don't dare try to shake it. ”

“ The aristocrats? I begged the Committee to be merciful, for I wanted the people to enjoy the liberty which they have acquired, but which seems intended now merely to satisfy the grudges of a handful of scoundrels! I asked men to put an end to their quarreling, and that they be bound together by love into a great family. It appears that these desires are criminal. But what I call a crime is this mad political game which soils the nation and the people, forcing it to plunge their hands into innocent blood before the whole universe! ”

“ ROBESPIERRE maintains silence, and twists his hands impatiently. WESTERMANN sits down, trying to appear at his ease, while ROBESPIERRE stands. WESTERMANN then rises.] There are some idiots who say that I'm your enemy. I don't give a damn what they say. How can I be the enemy of virtue? Nonsense! Aristides the enemy of Leonidas? The bastion of the Republic and the rampart of the Patrie! Why, they're meant to help each other! Good fellows like us always put the glory of the nation above everything, don't we? We understand, don't we? [He offers his hand. ROBESPIERRE does not move a muscle.] ”

“ We are quits. Do as I do, hold your nose and save the nation.
ROBESPIERRE. I believe no man indispensable to the nation.
DANTON. Every envious man says that. According to that fine way of reasoning the nation would soon be emasculated.
ROBESPIERRE. There is no power where confidence is lacking!
DANTON. So, you mistrust me? Do you really believe those absurd stories about me? Those wild ravings invented by Billaud-Varenne? Look at me. Have I the face of a hypocrite? Hate me, if you will, but don't suspect me!
ROBESPIERRE. I judge men by their actions. ”

“ CAMILLE. I am a representative of the nation, and I have a right to speak for her.
ROBESPIERRE. You owe it an example in obeying the law.
CAMILLE. We know only too well how those laws are made. We are all lawyers, Robespierre; we know what masquerades beneath the majesty of the law. I would laugh seeing us together here, if I did not think of the tears that are shed at the comedy we now play. We cost mankind too much. Virtue itself is not worth the price we pay for it—and crime, all the more so. ”

“ ROBESPIERRE. The Republic is not yet, Desmoulins. We are making it. You cannot found liberty with liberty. Like Rome in troubled times, the nation must be under a dictator who shall tear down all obstacles, and conquer. It is ridiculous to maintain that since Europe and every faction menaces the Republic, you have the right to say everything, do everything, and with word and deed, put weapons into the hands of the enemy. ”

“ On to Versailles! We've suffered too long! We want to be happy! We'll be happy!
DESMOULINS [carrying a green branch] . The forest of Liberty has sprung up from the stones. Green leaves wave in the wind. The old heart of Paris will flower once again. Spring has come!
THE PEOPLE [bursting with joy and pride, all wave branches, and decorate themselves with green cockades, green ribbons, etc] . Free! The Heavens are free! [The sunset filters in through the draw-bridge opening, and bathes in purple the inner court of the Bastille and the People with their waving branches.] ”

“ ROBESPIERRE. You boast that you feel no hatred—you don't hate the enemies of the Republic, but yet that is what is destroying the Republic. Pity for those hangdogs means cruelty toward the victims. You see, this weakness has forced us to raze whole cities; some day it may mean thirty years of civil war.
DANTON. But you see crime everywhere! It is sheer madness. If you are sick, you must be taken care of, but don't make every one take your medicine. The Republic is killing itself. It is high time to put a stop to that absurd and ferocious Terror which is consuming France. ”

“ Too many brains are thinking about the State. No nation can stand a Mirabeau, a Brissot, a Vergniaud, a Marat, a Danton, a Desmoulins, a Robespierre. One of these geniuses could have gained the victory for Freedom. But all together, they fight with each other, and France bleeds. I took too prominent a part myself, though I must do myself the justice of saying that I never fought a Frenchman unless my life depended upon it, and even in the fury of the combat I did everything in my power to save the defeated enemy. ”

“ ROBESPIERRE. Let us not honor Danton by trying him alone: it would attract too much attention.
BILLAUD-VARENNE. Let us overwhelm him in a general accusation.
VADIER. Whom shall we put with him, to fill out the menu?
SAINT-JUST. Every one who has tried to corrupt the cause of Liberty by means of money, evil example, or brains.
VADIER. Let us be clear. You're too vague.
ROBESPIERRE. Danton loved gold. Let him be buried with gold. Let us implicate him in the bank affair. Put him in with the embezzlers. He will find himself in company with his friend, his secretary, his Fabre d'Eglantine. ”

“ DANTON. The most odious of hypocrisies: the hypocrisy of the dagger. The virtuous guillotine!
PHILIPPEAUX. We have destroyed Capet, only in order that Talien, Fouchet, and Collot d'Herbois might repeat their persecutions and massacres as at Bordeaux and Lyon!
CAMILLE. These maniacs have established a new religion—an obligatory and lay religion, giving the proconsuls a free hand to hang, slash, and burn—all in the name of virtue.
DANTON. There is no danger in any state as great as that of the men with principles. They don't try to do good, but to be in the right; no suffering touches them. ”

“ You will hear the truth. You are too accustomed to flatterers who court your favor and betray you. You are vain, proud, frivolous: you have neither strength, character, nor virtue. You waste your strength in talk. You are effeminate, vacillating, will-less; you tremble at the sight of a musket—
CROWD. That'll do!—Enough!
MARAT. You shout "Enough"! I, too, and even louder: Enough of vice, enough of stupidity, enough of cowardice! Band yourselves together, strike from your midst all who are false to the cause, purify your minds, and gird your loins. ”

“ HÉRAULT. You are not so sick of women, it seems?
DANTON. The women at least are frank enough to be merely themselves and nothing more. They are what we all are: animals. They seek pleasure directly, and never lie to themselves and cover up their instincts with the cloak of reason. I hate the hypocrisy of the intelligence, the sanguinary idiocy of these idealists, these dictators of impotence, who call the natural needs corruption, and pretend to deny nature, in order to flatter their own monstrous egotism and their mad desire for destruction. ”

“ You wear a red cap, a dirty shirt; you have a hoarse voice, the fixed ideas of a maniac, the pedantic manner of a schoolmaster!
HÉRAULT. You are an Athenian among barbarians.—Ovid among the Scythians. You will never reform them.
CAMILLE. I shall at least try.
HÉRAULT. You are wasting your time—perhaps your life.
CAMILLE. What have I to fear?
HÉRAULT. Beware of Robespierre.
CAMILLE. I have known him since we were children: a friend may say anything.
HÉRAULT. A disagreeable truth is more easily forgiven by an enemy than a friend.
LUCILE. Stop! He must be a great man and save the Patrie. ”

“ These spoils, these trophies, are yours. [The women strew Liberty with flowers. The men then lower their pikes, banners, branches, and trophies in her presence.] But all this is not yet enough: we will give you a deathless triumph. Daughter of the People of Paris, your eyes shall inspire every enslaved nation. We will carry across the universe the great banner of Equality. We will take your chariot into the midst of battles, with the aid of our sabers, our cannon, toward Love, toward the brotherhood of all mankind! ”

“ ROBESPIERRE. Danton is my enemy. If my friendship counts for nothing in our deliberations, my hatred, on the other hand, should not weigh in my judgment. Before entering the fray, let us consider in cold blood what risks we incur in thus dismantling a fortress of the Revolution.
BILLAUD-VARENNE. A fortress for sale!
VADIER. The scarecrow of the Revolution! In time of public danger such monstrous idols are brought out to rout the enemy. He rather inspires fear in the breast of those who hear him. His hideous face frightens Liberty. ”

“ At moments, you think you see in their troubled eyes some faint reflection of your own thoughts. Whose conscience, at least one day in a lifetime, is not in harmony with the conscience of the masses? But that harmony cannot long exist, and it is folly to try to keep it. The brain of the people is a surging sea, alive with monsters and nightmares.
CAMILLE. What big words! We puff out our cheeks to say things to the people, and we say them solemnly, in order that Europe may believe in some mysterious power of which we are the instruments. ”

“ HÉRAULT. A good Jesuit trick! [He and FABRE D'EGLANTINE laugh.]
DANTON. I see! My colleagues will be allowed to murder me, and I shall not be permitted to bring confusion on my murderers!
FOUQUIER-TINVILLE. You dare insult the national representatives!
PHILIPPEAUX. Are we here as a mere matter of form? Do you want us to remain mute?
CAMILLE. People, you hear! They are afraid of the truth! They fear the testimony that will confound them!
JUDGE. Address the court, and not the people.
PHILIPPEAUX. The people are our sole judges; you are nothing without them.
CAMILLE. I ask the Convention! ”

“ Military discipline makes every man a slave; men cannot like it: we abhor it as much as you do. We have ourselves just broken the blind power that was in our hands. Open your arms to us, make room for us at your tables, give us back our lost liberty, our cramped consciences, our right to be men like you, your equals and your brothers. Soldiers, become again part of the People. And you, People, all of you, become the Army; defend yourselves, defend us, and defend our souls, which are being attacked. ”