"As you said. The bull has roared, and we all follow."
"All?" asked Hébert significantly.
"Some people have an inexplicable taste for being in the minority," said Marat, shrugging.
"As, for instance?"
"Our young friend Dangeau."
"Ah, that Dangeau," cursed Hébert, "I have a grudge against him."
"Very ungrateful of you, then," said Marat briskly; "he saved Capet and his family at a time when it suited none of us that they should die. We want a spectacle—something imposing, public, solemn; something of a fête, not just a roaring crowd, a pike-thrust or two, and pff! it is all over."
"It is true."
"See you, Hébert, when we have closed the churches, and swept away the whole machinery of superstition, what are we going to give the people instead of them? I say La République must have her fêtes, her holidays, her processions, and her altars, with St. Guillotine as patron saint, and the good Citizen Sanson as officiating priest. We want Capet's blood, but can we stop there? No, a thousand times! Paris will be drunk, and then, in a trice, Paris will be thirsty again. And the oftener Paris is drunk, the thirstier she will be, until——"
"Well, my friend?" Hébert was a little pale; had he any premonition of the day when he too should kneel at that Republican altar?