The terrible man looked at him with a soft smile, and he continued: “Men will be what they ought to be, when one can say, ‘The world is my country, the world is mine;’ but till then, there are more proscriptions, more banishments, more exiles. Nature is one; why is not society one? They are divided forces, which strike one another when nations are driven against each other by the breath of hatred, and, like clouds, they strike and are scattered. Tyrants, we wish not that, and the proof is that we demand not your death. Kill yourselves, slay each other. Descend, O kings, from your thrones, and we will give you your choice ’twixt misery and a scaffold. Usurpers of sovereignty! Balthazars of modern times! is it possible that you see not on your palace walls, amid the glare of your thousand lamps, the shouts of your revelries, and the crash of your song, the writing, not in fire, but in your people’s blood, _Mené, Mené! Tekel Upharsin_? Lay down your sceptres and your crowns, and head a revolution which delivers kings from the grasp of kings, and the people from the rivalry of the people.” “A-a-amen!” stammered Camille Desmoulins. “Ana-Anacharsis wishes to carry me away by the hair of my head, as the angel did Habakkuk.” “Long live Camille Desmoulins!” said Thèroigne, while the friends of the true son of Voltaire tendered him their hands. “If ever I have love, it shall be for you, I promise you. By the bye, you are fond of Sieyes?” “Yes, truly,” replied Thèroigne. “Between you and me, he is the only one who gives me the idea of a man.” “What am I, then?” said Danton. “What are you?” said Thèroigne, scanning him from head to foot. “You are only a bull.” “Well re-re-replied,” said Camille; “that is what I call taking the bull by the horns.” “In the meantime,” cried Marat, “you are losing sight of the public safety. I speak to you of a great treason, and you will not listen, Lafayette!” “Ah, good!” said Camille. “Go on, Marat!” “Lafayette has caused to be made in the Faubourg St. Antoine ten thousand snuff-boxes, all of which are embellished with his portrait as General of the National Guard. Lafayette aspires to the dictatorship.” “Of tobacco merchants?” queried Camille Desmoulins. Marat’s yellow skin assumed a green tinge, and perspired with rage. “He has some scheme beneath that,” continued he; “so I pray all good citizens in whose hands these snuff-boxes may fall, to destroy them.” “In order to discover the names of his accomplices?” asked Camille. “There are many of them. I told you that twenty thousand pieces of cord would suffice, but bring thirty or forty thousand, and you will not have enough.” The applause drowned the voice of Marat, but eventually their breath failed them, and they could hear Camille Desmoulins, who, like a swimmer who had dived, again remounted to the surface. “Always tragic, friend Ma-Marat—always tragic! hypertragic, in fact.”