ds are your finances? In the
hands of feuillants, of known cheats, of the Cambons, Mallarmes and
Ramels. Survey the field of victory, look at Belgium; dissensions have
been sown among our generals, the military aristocracy is protected,
faithful generals are persecuted, the military administration is
enveloped with a suspicious authority; they talk to you of war with
academic lightness, as if it cost neither blood nor labor. The truths
that I bring you are surely equal to epigrams.

"There exists a conspiracy against public liberty; it owes its force to
a criminal coalition which intrigues in the very bosom of the
Convention. That coalition has its accomplices in the Committee of
General Security, and in the _bureaux_, which they control. Some members
of the Committee of Public Safety are implicated in this plot; the
coalition thus formed seeks to ruin patriots and the country. What is
the remedy for this evil? To punish the traitors, to purify the
Committee of General Security, and subordinate it to the Committee of
Public Safety; to purify this committee itself, and constitute it the
Government under the authority of the National Convention, which is the
centre of authority and the chief judicial power. Thus would all the
factions be crushed by raising on their ruins the power of justice and
liberty. If it is impossible to advocate these principles without being
set down as ambitious, I shall conclude that tyranny reigns among us,
but not that I ought to hold my tongue; for what can be objected to a
man who is right, and who knows how to die for his country? I am put
here in order to combat crime, not to govern it. The time has not yet
come when good men can serve their country with impunity."

They listened in silence; no applause, no complaint had interrupted the
orator. For a long time the Convention had been unaccustomed to see the
masters of their fortunes and their lives making appeal to their supreme
authority. Their _role_ had long been limited to taking part in
oratorical tournaments and voting decrees. They did not yield, however,
to the seduction, and their faces remained grave and sombre. No one rose
to speak, but they began to exchange a few remarks, and a murmur ran
from bench to bench. The glove was thrown down, but as yet no champion
advanced to take it up. At length, and as if the courage of all was
reanimated at once by the same resolution, Vadier, Cambon, and
Billaud-Varennes rose together to mount