"Well, my dear sir, there you have it! With a thousand francs in paper money--which is not enough to buy ten pounds of bread from the baker--the poor man can purchase an acre of land, which he can cultivate himself, and with which he can furnish bread for himself and his family." "Who will dare to buy stolen property?" "Confiscated; which is by no means the same thing." "What difference? No one would take upon himself to become the accomplice of the Revolution." "Do you know how much has been sold this year?" "No." "More than a thousand million francs' worth. Next year double that amount will be sold." "Next year! But do you think that the Republic will last till next year?" "The Revolution--" "Well, the Revolution--why, Vergniaud says that the Revolution is like Saturn, and that it eats all its children." "It has a great many children, and some of them are hard to digest." "But you see that the Girondins are already devoured." "The Cordeliers are left." "Some day the Jacobins will devour them at a gulp." "Then the Jacobins will be left." "Good! but they have no men like Danton, and Camille Desmoulins, to make a formidable party." "They have men like Robespierre and Saint-Just, and they are the only party that are in the right." "And after them?" "After them I see no one else, and I fear much that with them the Revolution must end." "And in the meantime, think of the rivers of blood that will flow." "Revolutions are ever thirsty." "But these men are tigers." "In a revolution I do not fear tigers as much as I do foxes." "And you will consent to serve them?" "Yes, because they will still be the ruling power of France. A Sylla or a Marius does not exhaust a nation; a Caligula or a Nero enervates it." "Then in your opinion each of the parties that you have named will rise and fall in turn." "If the genius of France is logical, it will be so." "Explain yourself." "Every party that comes into power will accomplish great things, for which it will be rewarded by the gratitude of our children; it will also commit great crimes, for which its contemporaries will punish its members; and that which has happened to the Girondins will happen to all the others. The Girondins brought about the death of the king--mind I do not say royalty--and they were in turn destroyed by the Cordeliers; the Cordeliers destroyed the Girondins, and they will in all probability be destroyed in turn by the Jacobins; and the Jacobins, the last outgrowth of the Revolution, will in turn be destroyed. By whom? I have already told you that I do not know. When they have disappeared, come and see me, M. Fauche-Borel, for then bloodshed will have ceased." "And then, where shall we be?" "We will probably be ashamed of ourselves! Now, I can serve a government that I hate, but I never could serve one that I despised; my motto is that of Thraseas: _Non sibi deesse_ (Never be wanting to one's self)." "And your reply?"