"Then a terrible state of affairs results. While the king prays for the success of the arms of his family--which means the disgrace of France--and while the queen, seeing the Prussians at Verdun, counts the days that it will take them to reach Paris, France, beside herself with hate and patriotism, rises as one man and recognizes that she has enemies on the frontier--Austrians and Prussians; enemies in her very capital--the king and the queen; secret enemies--nobles and aristocrats. She defeats the Prussians at Valmy, the Austrians at Jemmapes; she stabs her aristocrats in Paris, and beheads both king and queen on the Place de la Révolution. By means of this terrible convulsion she believes that she is saved, and breathes freely. "But she is mistaken; for the family that made war under the pretext of replacing Louis XVI. on the throne, continues to make war under pretext of crowning Louis XVII., but in reality that France may be invaded and dismembered. Spain wishes to regain Roussillon; Austria wants Alsace and the Franche-Comté; Prussia the Margraviates of Anspach and Beyreuth. The nobles form three divisions; one attacks us on the Rhine, another on the Loire, and a third conspires. War within, war without! Foreign war and civil war! On the frontier thousands of men lying on the battlefields; in France itself thousands of men massacred in prison, thousands of men dragged to the guillotine. Why? Because the king, after taking the oath, did not keep it, and instead of trusting to his people, to France, threw himself into the arms of his family, the enemy." "But then you approve of the massacres of September?" "I deplore them. But what can you do against a people?" "You approve of the king's death?" "I regard it as a terrible thing; but the king should have kept his oath." "Do you approve of political executions?" "I think them abominable; but the king should not have called in the enemy." "Oh! you may say what you like, general; the year '93 is a fatal one." "For royalty, yes; for France, no." "But aside from civil and foreign wars, aside from all these massacres and executions, it is nothing short of bankruptcy to issue all those thousands of francs in paper money." "I should be glad to see the country bankrupt." "So should I, if royalty could have the credit of restoring her credit." "Credit will be re-established by the division of property." "How so?" "Have you not seen that all the lands belonging to the emigrated nobles, and to the Church, have been confiscated by the Convention; and that it has been decreed that they shall belong to the nation?" "Yes; but what of that?" "Have you not perceived that they have issued another decree to the effect that these lands can be bought with paper money at par value?" "Yes."