If intellect was less conspicuous than in the ranks of the Gironde, it was by no means absent, and many faces there bore its stamp, and that of ardent sincerity. For the most part they were young, these men whose meeting was to make History, and they carried into politics the excesses and the violence of youth.
Here leaned Hérault de Séchelles, one of the handsomest men in France; there, declaiming eagerly, to as eager a circle of listeners, was St. Just with that curious pallor which made his face seem a mere translucent mask behind which there burned a seven-times-heated flame.
"I say that Louis can claim no rights as a citizen. We are fighting, not trying him. The law's delays are fatal here. One day posterity will be amazed that we have advanced so little since Cæsar's day. What—patriots were found then to immolate the tyrant in open Senate, and to-day we fear to lift our hands! There is no citizen to-day who has not the right that Brutus had, and like Brutus he might claim to be his country's saviour! Louis has fought against the people, and is now no longer a Frenchman, but a stranger, a traitor, and a criminal! Strike, then, that the tocsin of liberty may sound the birth hour of the Nation and the death hour of the Tyrant!"
"It is all delay, delay," said Hérault gloomily to young Cléry. "Désèze works hard. Time is what he wants—and for what? To hatch new treasons; to get behind us, and stab in the dark; to allow Austria to advance, and Spain and England to threaten us! No, they have had time enough for these things. It is the reckoning day. Thirty-eight years has Louis lived and now he must give an account of them."
"My faith," growled Jean Bon, shaking his shaggy head, to which the winter moisture clung, "My faith, there are citizens in this room who will take matters into their own hands if the Convention does not come to the point very shortly."
"The Convention deliberates," said Hérault gloomily, and Jean Bon interrupted him with a brutal laugh—
"Thunder of Heaven, yes; talk, talk, talk, and nothing done. We want a clear policy. We want Danton to declare himself, and Robespierre to stop playing the humanitarian, and say what he means. There has been enough of turning phrases and lawyers' tricks. Louis alive is Louis dangerous, and Louis dead is Louis dust; that's the plain truth of it."
"He is of more use to us alive than dead, I should say," cried Edmund Cléry impetuously. "Are we in so strong a position as to be able with impunity to destroy our hostages?"
Hébert, who had joined the group, turned a cold, remembering eye upon him.
"Austria does not care for Capet," he said scornfully; "Antoinette and the boy are all the hostages we require. Austria does not even care about them very much; but such as they are they will serve. Capet must die," and he sprang on a bench and raised his voice: