Danton looked strangely at him for a moment, and then, throwing back his great shoulders and raising his right hand high above the crowd, he thundered: "Citizens, Capet must die!" A roar of applause shook the room, and drowned the reverberations of that mighty voice—Danton’s voice, which shook not only the Mountain on which he stood, and from which he fell, but France beyond and Europe across her frontiers. It echoes still, and comes to us across the years with all the man’s audacious force, his pride of patriotism, and overwhelming energy! raised it now, and beckoning for silence—— "We are all agreed," he cried, "Louis is guilty, and Louis must die. If he lives, there is not a life safe in all France. The man is an open sore on the flesh of the Constitution, and it must be cut away, lest gangrene seize the whole. Above all there must be no delay. Delay means disintegration; delay means a people without bread, and a country without government. Neither can wait. Away with Louis, and our hands are free to do all that waits to be done." "The frontiers—Europe—are we strong enough?" shouted a voice from the back. Danton’s eyes blazed. "Let Europe look to herself. Let Spain, Austria, and England look to themselves. The rot of centuries is ripe at last. Other thrones may totter, and other tyrants fall. Let them threaten—let them threaten, but we will dash a gage of battle at their feet—the bloody head of the King!" At that the clamour swallowed everything. Men cheered and embraced. There was shouting and high applause. Danton turned from the riot and fell into earnest talk with Robespierre. In Hébert’s ear Marat whispered: "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? Marat’s face was convulsed for a moment.