DANTON. You want to gag us, but you cannot. My voice will stir Paris to its very entrails. Light! Light!
JUDGE. Silence!
THE PEOPLE. The witnesses! [The Judges become alarmed.]
FOUQUIER-TINVILLE. It is time to cease this scandalous discussion; I shall write to the Convention of your request: we will obey their command. [The People applaud. FOUQUIER-TINVILLE and HERMAN consult together, write the request, and read in an undertone what they have written.]
CAMILLE [exultant]. We have won our case!
DANTON. We'll confound the blackguards. You'll see them fall into their own vileness head-first. If the French people are what they ought to be, I shall be obliged to ask their pardon.
PHILIPPEAUX. Pardon from those who seek our death?
CAMILLE [gaily]. We shall appoint Saint-Just schoolmaster at Blérancourt and Robespierre churchwarden at Saint-Omer.
HÉRAULT [with a shrug]. Incorrigible! They are on their way to the guillotine, and they still hope!
DANTON. Idiots! To accuse Danton and Desmoulins of conspiring against the Republic! So Barère is a patriot now, and Danton an aristocrat. France won't be humbugged like that for very long! [To one of the Jury.] Do you think we are conspirators? See, he smiles. He doesn't believe it.—Write that he laughed!