Page:Rolland - Two Plays of the French Revolution.djvu/225

Rh 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 not 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.

therefore confess?

lie! I have just denied. I have lived freely, honestly, carefully, on the money that was