JUDGE. You are accused of having kept part of the money intrusted to you by the State. You have used secret moneys for the satisfaction of your pleasures. You have levied on Belgium and brought from Brussels three carriages full of plunder. DANTON. I have already answered those absurd accusations. When I was Minister under the Revolution, fifty millions were left to me. I admit that. I offered to make a strict accounting of them. Cambon gave me 40,000 livres for secret expenses. Half of this I spent openly: I gave free rein to Fabre and to Billaud. I used these funds to help the departments. As to that ridiculous tale of the archduchess' napkins, which were brought from Belgium, do you think me a handkerchief thief? My trunks were opened at Bethune, and I was detained. They found only my own clothes, and a swanskin corset. Does the corset outrage Robespierre's modesty? Is that why I am accused? JUDGE. The charge of embezzlement is proved by your prodigality of the past two years. Your income was not sufficient, and you must have taken State money. DANTON. As a solicitor in the council, I bought a little property near Arcis. I have assured my mother a small income, also my father-in-law, and the good woman who brought me up. These sums are no larger than was my income before the Revolution. As for the life I led at Paris or at Arcis, possibly I have riot confined my expenditures to the level of shameful economy. I do not force my friends when they sup with me to partake of the meager soup of Mère Duplay. I cannot stint myself or my friends. Are you not ashamed to trifle with Danton about how much he drinks or how much he eats? This nasty hypocrisy is threatening to overwhelm the nation. It blushes for nature, and hides its face at a real healthy thing. Its virtues are but negative virtues. So long as a man has a weak stomach and atrophied senses, lives on a little cheese and sleeps in a narrow bed, you call him Incorruptible, and imagine that that is sufficient to allow him to dispense with courage and intelligence. I detest these anæmic virtues. Virtue means to be great, for yourself and for the nation. When you have the honor of holding a great man in your midst, don't begrudge him his bread. All his needs, his passions, his capacity for sacrifice, are built on a different plan from that of ordinary men. Achilles used to eat the whole back of an ox at a single meal. If Danton requires much to feed his furnace, let him have it without a murmur. Here, in me, is the vast fire, the flames of which protect you against prowling beasts that wait their chance to spring at the throat of the Republic. JUDGE. You therefore confess?