The seven men repeated the oath, standing up with uncovered heads, a sombre gathering.
“We are pledged to one another,” said Balsamo when the last word was spoken; “let us waste no time in idle arguments. I have a report to make to the Committee on the principal work of the year. France is situated in the center of Europe like its heart, and it makes the other parts of the body live. In its agitations may be sought the cause of the ills of the general organism. Hence I have come out of the East to sound this heart like a physician; I have listened to it, sounded it and experimented with it. A year ago when I began, monarchy was weakening. To-day, vices are destroying it. I have quickened the debauchery and favored what will be deadly.
“One obstacle stood in the way—a man, not merely the First Minister but the foremost man in the realm. It was Choiseul whom I have removed. This important work was undertaken by many intriguers and much hatred during ten years, but I accomplished it in a few months, by means which it is useless to describe. By a secret, which is one of my strong means, the greater as it must remain hidden from all eyes and never be manifested save by its effect, I have overturned and driven away Choiseul. Look at the fruit of the toil: all France is crying for Choiseul and rising to bring him back as orphans appeal to heaven to restore their father. Parliament uses its only right, inertia. But if it does not go on, there will be no work and the wage-earners will earn no money. No money for the workers—no rent, no tax paying—gold, the blood of a realm, will be wanting.
“They will try to make the poor pay—and there will be a struggle. But who will struggle against the masses? not the army, which is recruited from the people, eating the black bread of the farm hand, and drinking the sour wine of the vineyard laborer. The King has his household troops, the foreign regiments, five or six thousand men at the most—what will this squad of pigmies do against an army of giants?”
“Bid them rise!” exclaimed the chiefs.
“Yes, yes, let us set to work,” said Marat.
“Young man, your advice is not asked,” coldly said Balsamo. “Yet you may speak.”
“I will be brief,” said Marat; “mild attempts rock the people to sleep when they do not discourage them. Mere chipping at the stone is the theory of the Rousseaus, who are always bidding us to wait. We have been waiting seven centuries! This poor and feeble opposition has not advanced humanity by a single step. Have we seen one abuse redressed in three hundred years? Enough of these poets and theorists! let us have work and deeds. For three hundred years we have been physicking France and it is high time that the surgeons were called in, with scalpel and lancet. Society is gangrened and we must cut away and apply the redhot iron. A revolt, though it be put down, enlightens slaves more on their power than a thousand years of precepts and examples. It may not be enough, but it is much!”
A flattering murmur rose from several hearers.
“Where are our enemies,” continued the young man; “on the steps of the throne, guarding it as their palladium. We cannot reach royalty but over the bodies of those insolent, gold-coated guards. Well, let us fell them, as we read has been done to the body-guards of tyrants before now. Thus will we get near enough to the gilded idol to hurl it down. Count these privileged heads. Scarce two hundred thousand. Let us walk through the lovely garden, which is France, as Tarquin did in his, and cut off the heads of these flaunting poppies, and all will be done. When dwarfs aim to slay a colossus they attack its feet; when men want to fell the oak they chop at the root. Woodmen, take the ax, let us hack at the base of the tree and it will fall in the dust.”