Families ate their mid-day meal on the
pavement; the old and sick were carried into the open air; food and
wine were distributed at the public expense. That was the Feast of
Tabernacles, the recollection of the Exodus from Egyptian bondage;
it was the Saturnalia, the return of the Golden Age! And then...."
"Then came Marat, Danton, and Robespierre."
"Yes! Robespierre, the most hated of all, was not worse than Louis
XI and Henry VIII."
"A murderer."
"The judge is not a murderer, nor is the executioner."
"But the Golden Age passed--as it came."
"Yet it comes again."
"Not with Buonaparte!"
"No, not with him, but through him."
"Who is he?"
"A Corsican, born in the same year in which France annexed his
country. He will avenge it, and, since he can never feel himself a
Frenchman, he will exploit our country only for his own purposes.
But nevertheless, in spite of his unparalleled selfishness, his
wickedness and crimes, he will serve humanity--for everything
serves."
"And afterwards?"
"Who can say? Probably things will go on as they have done hitherto;
sometimes advancing, then a halt; then again advance."
"And then the obsolete turns up again."
"Yes, like a drowning man. Three times he comes to the surface to
breathe, but the fourth time he remains below.
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