DANTON [with a sneer]. It is said that there are certain men who never know it.
ROBESPIERRE [after a short pause, says coldly, his hands twitching nervously]. I have not come to discuss Danton's debaucheries. Camille, in spite of my warnings, you insist on following bad advice and giving in to your own foolish impulses. Your pamphlet is sowing seeds of dissension all over France. You are wasting your mind and destroying public confidence in men who are necessary to the Republic. All the reactionaries are making use of your sarcastic remarks and directing them against the cause of Liberty. For a long time I have combated the hatred you arouse, and twice I have saved you; but I cannot continue forever. The State is alive with sedition; and I have no sympathy for any will that is against the State.
CAMILLE [hurt]. Please spare yourself the trouble of thinking of me. Your solicitude is touching, Maximilien, but I need no one's help. I can defend myself, and I can walk alone.
ROBESPIERRE. You are vain. Don't try to answer me. Your stupidity is your only excuse.
CAMILLE. I need no excuse. I have deserved well of the Patrie. I defend the Republic against the Republicans. I have spoken freely, and I have spoken the truth. The moment it is not good to speak every truth, there is no more Republic. The Republicans' motto is like the wind blowing over the waves of the sea: Tollunt, sed attollunt! It agitates, but raises them at the same time!
ROBESPIERRE. The Republic is not yet, Desmoulins. We are making it. You cannot found liberty with liberty. Like Rome in troubled times, the nation must be under a dictator who shall tear down all obstacles, and conquer. It is ridiculous to maintain that since Europe and every faction menaces the Republic, you have the right to say everything, do everything, and with word and deed, put weapons into the hands of the enemy.
CAMILLE. What weapons have I given the enemy? I have defended the most sacred things in the world: fraternity, holy equality—the heart and soul of Republican maxims, the res sacra miser; respect for misery, which is commanded by our sublime Constitution. I have made men love liberty. I wished to light up the eyes of all peoples with the radiant image of happiness.
ROBESPIERRE. Happiness! There is the fatal word with which you draw to you every form of selfishness and covetousness. Who does not wish for happiness? We are not offering the happiness of Persepolis to the people, but the happiness of Sparta. Happiness is virtue. But you have abused the meaning, and awakened in the minds of cowards a desire for that criminal happiness, which consists in forgetting others, and in enjoying what is unnecessary. A shameful conception! It would soon extinguish the sacred flame of the Revolution! Let France learn to suffer, let her be happy in suffering for the cause of freedom, in sacrificing her comforts, her peace, her affections, for the happiness of the whole world!
CAMILLE [beginning politely but airily, and at the end becoming clear, forceful, and decisive]. Maximilien, as I listen to you, I am reminded of a passage from Plato: "'When I listen to you,' said the good general Laches, 'when I listen to a man who speaks well of virtue, a man who is a real man of the people, worthy of what he speaks of, I experience an ineffable pleasure. It seems to me that he is the only musician who makes perfect harmony; for his practice is in accord with his theory, not according to the Jacobin or Genevese fashion, but the French, which alone deserves the name of Republican harmony. When such a man speaks to me, he fills me with joy, and no one doubts that I am drunk with his talk. But he who sings of a virtue which he practises not, cruelly afflicts me, and the better he appears to speak, the greater aversion do I feel for music.'" [DESMOULINS turns his back on ROBESPIERRE, who rises, without a word or a gesture, and starts to go. LUCILE, who is concerned at the turn in the conversation, and who keeps her eyes fastened on ROBESPIERRE, takes his hand and tries to pass off the matter as a joke.]
LUCILE [pointing to CAMILLE]. He must always be contradicting, the naughty boy! If you only knew how angry he makes me sometimes! Dear Maximilien, you two are always the same. You used to argue like that when you were at school in Arras. [ROBESPIERRE, with a glacial look, does not answer, but starts for the door.]