_Robes._ (_solus_.) Blood on its base--upon its every step-- Yea, on its very summit--still I climb: But thickest darkness veils my destiny, And standing as I do on a frail crag Whence I must make one desperate spring to power, To safety, honor, and unbounded wealth, Or be as Danton is, why do I pause? Why do I gaze back on my past career, Upon those piles of headless, reeking dead? Those whitening sculls? those streams of guiltless blood Still smoking to the skies?--why think I hear The shrieks, the groans, the smothered execrations That swell the breeze, or seem as if I shrank Beneath the o'ergrown, yet still accumulating, Curse of humanity that clings around me? Is not my hate of them as fixed, intense, And all unquenchable as theirs of me? But they must tremble in their rage while I Destroy and scorn them. (_reads a letter_.) "Exert your dexterity to escape a scene on which you are to appear once more ere you leave it forever. Your dictatorial chair, if attained, will be only a step to the scaffold, through a rabble who will spit on you as on Egalité. You have treasure enough. I expect you with anxiety. We will enjoy a hearty laugh at the expense of a people as credulous as greedy of novelty." He but little knows, Who wrote this coward warning, what I am. I love not life so well, nor hate mankind So slightly as to fly this country now: No, I will ride and rule the storm I have rais'd, Or perish in its fury. (_Madame de Cabarus enters_.) Ha! a woman! How entered you? _Lady._--Your civic guard were sleeping; I pass'd unquestioned, and my fearful strait Compels appeal to thee, great Robespierre! Deny me not, and Heaven will grant thy prayer In that dread hour when every mortal needs it. Repulse me not, and heaven thus at the last Will not repulse thee from eternal life. I am the daughter of the unhappy Laurens, Who hath but one day more to live on earth. Oh, for the sake of all thou holdest dear, (_kneeling before him_.) Spare to his only child the misery Of seeing perish thus her much lov'd sire. His head is white with age--let it not fall Beneath yon dreadful axe. Through sixty years A peaceful and reproachless life he led. Thy word can save him. Speak, oh speak that word, For our Redeemer's sake redeem his life, And child and father both shall bless thee ever.