VADIER [aside]. The cat-tiger has scruples, but he licks his chops all the same!
ROBESPIERRE. A regrettable necessity. We mutilate the Republic in order to save her.
SAINT-JUST [somber and exalted]. The philosopher Jesus said to his disciples: "And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." And I say to you: if your friend is corrupt, and corrupts the Republic, cast him from the Republic; if your brother is corrupt and corrupts the Republic, cast him from the Republic. And if the blood of the Republic, if your own blood, flows from a gaping wound, let it flow. The Republic must be purified, or die! The Republic is virtue. If that virtue be stained, the Republic ceases to exist.
VADIER [aside]. They are all mad. They ought to be put into strait-jackets. They must be put in cells.—On, then! [He starts to go.]
BILLAUD-VARENNE. Wait until I sign.
VADIER. You have already signed.
BILLAUD-VARENNE. Where? I don't remember. What have I done? Was I right? Tristis est anima mea! Oh, if I could only stretch out in the fields, on the fresh earth; smell the scent of the woods; see a brook running between banks of willows! Rest! Rest—
ROBESPIERRE. The founders of the Republic have no rest this side the grave.