Ninety-Three.

Scene: A café in Paris. Time: June 28, 1793.

Characters:

Danton. Listen! There is only one thing imminent—the peril of the Republic. I only know one thing—to deliver France from the enemy. To accomplish that all means are fair. Let us be terrible and useful. Does the elephant stop to look where he sets his foot? We must crush the enemy.

Robespierre. I shall be very glad. The question is to know where the enemy is.

Danton. It is outside, and I have chased it there.

Rob. It is within, and I watch it.

Marat. Calm yourselves. It is everywhere, and you are lost.

Rob. A truce to generalities. I particularize. Here are facts. In fifteen days they will have an army of brigands numbering three hundred thousand men, and all Brittany will belong to the King of France.

Marat. That is to say, to the King of England.

Rob. No, to the King of France. It needs fifteen days to expel the stranger, and eighteen hundred years to eliminate monarchy.

Danton. Very well, we will expel the English as we expelled the Prussians.

Rob. Sit down again, Danton, and look at the map, instead of knocking it with your fist.

Danton. That is madness! Robespierre, the danger is a circle, and we are within it. If this continue and we do not put things in order, the French Revolution will kill the King of France for the King of Prussia’s sake.

Marat. You have each one his hobby. Danton, yours is Prussia; Robespierre, yours is the Vendée. I am going to state facts in my turn. You do not perceive the real peril. It is the cafés and the gaming-houses. It is the paper money, the famine, the stock-brokers, and the monopolists—there is the danger. You see the danger at a distance when it is close at hand. Yes, the danger is everywhere, and above all in the centre.

Danton. There, there, there!

Marat. What is needed is a dictator. Robespierre, you know that I want a dictator.

Rob. I know, Marat. You or me?

Marat. Me or you?

Danton. The dictatorship! Only try it!

Marat. Hold! One last effort. Let us get some agreement. The situation is worth the trouble. Paris must assume the government of the Revolution. So be it. Well, the conclusion is a dictatorship. Let us seize the dictatorship—we three who represent the Revolution. We are the three heads of Cerberus. Of these three heads, one talks—that is you, Robespierre; one roars—that is you, Danton.

Danton. The other bites—that is you, Marat.

Rob. All three bite.

Marat. Ah, Robespierre! Ah, Danton! You will not listen to me! Well, you are lost; I tell you so. You do things which shut every door against you—except that of the tomb.

Danton. That is our grandeur.

Marat. Danton, beware! Ah, you shrug your shoulders! Sometimes a shrug of the shoulders makes the head fall. And as for thee, Robespierre, go on, powder thyself, dress thy hair, brush thy clothes, play the coxcomb. Fine as thou art, thou wilt be dragged at the tails of four horses!

Rob. Echo of Coblentz!

Danton. I am the echo of nothing—I am the cry of the whole, Robespierre.

Marat. Ah, you are young, you! How old art thou, Danton? Four-and-thirty. How many are your years, Robespierre? Thirty-three. Well, I—I have lived always. I am the old human suffering—I have lived six thousand years.

Danton. That is true. For six thousand years Cain has been preserved in hatred like the toad in a rock; the rock breaks, Cain springs out among men, and is called Marat.

Marat. Danton!

Danton. Marat talks very loud about the dictatorship and unity, but he has only one ability—that of breaking to pieces.

Rob. As for me, I say neither Roland nor Marat.

Marat. And I say neither Danton nor Robespierre. Let me give you advice, Danton. Do not meddle any more with politics—be wise. Adieu, gentlemen.