This is the sword which we found but a few steps from the spot on which we first observed him.
He hands a sword to Pancratius.
Pancratius (examining the sword). Drops of blood stain the handle, but here are the arms of his house! It is the sword of Count Henry!
He alone among you all has kept his plighted faith; to him be endless glory—to you, traitors, the guillotine!
General Bianchetti, you will see that the fortress of the Holy Trinity is razed to the ground, and will also superintend the execution of the prisoners!
Leonard!
He withdraws with Leonard.
A bastion on the north tower. Pancratius, Leonard.
Leonard. You require repose after so many sleepless nights; you look wearied and exhausted with ceaseless labor.
Pancratius. The hour of rest has not yet struck for me, and the last sigh of the last of my enemies marks the completion of but half my task. Look upon these heavy mists, these swamps, these desert plains; they stand between me and the realization of my plans. Every waste on earth must be peopled, rocks removed, lakes and rivers everywhere connected; a portion of the soil must be awarded to every human being; the teeming hosts of the living must far outnumber the multitudes who have perished; life and universal prosperity must fill the place of death and ruin, before our work of general destruction can be at all atoned for. If we are not to inaugurate an era of social and widespread happiness, our work of havoc and devastation will have been worse than vain!