Page:Rolland - Two Plays of the French Revolution.djvu/34

28 .You can't get grain.

.It won't arrive tomorrow.

.But what are they doing with it?

.I know: they've thrown it into the quarries of Senlis and Chantilly to let it rot, and keep us from eating it.

[incredulously].Nonsense!

.It's true!

.It is true. In Champagne the cavalry ruined the wheat crop in order to starve us.

.Worse than that! They poison the bread they give us: it burns your throat and your insides. Twenty people died of it in my part of the city. The order came from Versailles. They want to kill us like rats.

.Absurd. No king wants to murder his people. Only a Nero would do that, and our king is not a Nero.

[mysteriously].I know what the matter is: there are too many people, and they've given orders to depopulate the country.

.You're sick, my friend, you need attention.

.There's truth in what he says, though. The Queen would be glad to see us all dead.

.Why so?

.She's an Austrian. The Austrians have always been enemies of France. She married our king in order to injure us. We can't help being nervous so long as she is here.