Page:Rolland - Two Plays of the French Revolution.djvu/150

144 [excitedly really think me cruel?

, he's crying this moment!

[deeply stirred, he suffered. When I think of his agony, his terror, waiting for the end—It must have heen atrocious! No matter how vile he was, he suffered like an honest man—perhaps even more. Poor Hébert!

[her arms about  neck poor Bouli-Boula, you're not going to feel so sorry for a villain who wanted to send you to the guillotine?

[angrily. Now, why are you attacking me this way? Si quis atra dente me petiverit, inultus ut flebo puer!

[to  you dare say my Camille is cruel!

do, of course. Dear fellow! He is perhaps the cruellest of us all.

't say that, Hérault; I may end by believing you.

[to , shaking her finger at him it's not true: you are the cruellest.

, no, it is not true: you are the cruellest.

well. I don't mind that.

you say troubles me, Hérault. It is true, I have done great evil, but I am not bad by nature. I have constituted myself the prosecuting attorney for the lamp-post. I have no idea what damnable impish instinct urges me on. It was due to me that the Girondins are now rotting in the fields. My Brissot dévoilé led to the decapitating of thirty young,