Do you say nothing now? I say to you that you have no power to act and this is the reason why. Because you are cowards, because you bear the brand of a threefold degradation. And the first is ignorance through which you cannot answer yes or no, but stand open-mouthed like men bereft of their wits. And the second is the woman, on whom there hangs a curse; and she was made to remain at home and submit to the strong and capable hand; but you have taken the woman to be your mistress. And the third is the spirit of the word and of speech. But I shall let loose upon you a speech that you do not know, Insatiable, irresistible, I shall establish over you the empire of the sword, The sword that pierces and divides, the sword that penetrates and pursues! O imbecility! O inertia! Enormous burden of ignorant men! Behold I have risen, Like a nurse that overlies a child you lay upon me; but I have risen and dashed you to the earth. And the world is crushing me, but I shall prevail against it. _(He marches across the hall with an ominous air, then halting, he turns towards them._ In the name of the infinite ocean! By the tragic birth of this day! By the tempest With which the peaks and pyramids that loom over desolated cities Arm the South, assaulting the bleeding sky! By the echoing crash of the thunder, by the sulphurous lung of ruddy lightning! By the team of the winds that drag their roller over the tossing mass of roaring forests! By the winter With its wind that bends the pines, routs the battalions of clouds, and riddles with sand the withered potato leaves; and with its blinding snow; And with its flooding rain that bombards the roads and the bushes and the windmills and the ploughed fields! By the tranquillity of the murky air! By armed apparitions in the blackness of the pines! By the dreadful force of conflagration and irresistible flood, By the whirlwind! By silence! And by all terrible things! Will not you that are here recognise at last who I am? _(Silence; then a lamentable VOICE in the crowd._ Tête-d'or! Tête-d'or! SOMEONE (_his eyes fixed on the blood_): I have never seen the shedding of human blood! TÊTE-D'OR: I have not come like the humble god of the soup, Benevolent, blinking his eyes in the steam of meat and cabbage. --Utter a bitter cry, my soul, rush forward! Men, I propose to wash away your shame and to lift you from your baseness. Here you are pinched for room, I propose to lead you forth And, having drawn you up in lines and columns, to advance with you against the whole world, That you may become acquainted with all the earth, and indeed that you may make it yours By force and by possession. _(Murmur in the crowd. Four groups form. In the first the TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE and his adherents. In the second the MAN OUT OF OFFICE. In the third, the OFFICIALS OF THE STATE. In the fourth, the BROTHER OF THE KING._