se vain phantoms still affect our minds. Ah! it is time
that this great level of equality, which has passed over France, should
at length take its full effect. Then only will they believe in our
equality. You should fear by this evidence of impunity that you may urge
the people to excesses. The anger of the people is but too often the
sequel to the silence of the laws. The law should enter the palaces of
the great, as well as in the hovel of the poor, and as inexorable as
death, when it falls upon the guilty, should make no distinction between
ranks and titles. They try to lull you to sleep. I tell you that the
nation should watch incessantly. Despotism and aristocracy do not sleep;
and if nations doze but for a moment, they awake in fetters. If the fire
of heaven was in the power of men, it should be darted at those who
attempt the liberties of the people: thus, the people never pardon
conspirators against their liberties. When the Gauls scaled the walls of
the capital, Manlius awoke, hastened to the breach, and saved the
republic. That same Manlius, subsequently accused of conspiring against
public liberty, was cited before the tribunes. He presented bracelets,
javelins, twelve civic crowns, thirty spoils torn from conquered
enemies, and his breast scarred with cicatrices; he reminded them that
he had saved Rome, and yet the sole reply was to cast him headlong from
the same rock whence he had precipitated the Gauls. These, sirs, were a
free people.

"And we, since the day we acquired our liberty, have not ceased to
pardon our patricians their conspiracies, have not ceased to recompense
their crimes by sending them chariots of gold: as for me, if I voted
such gifts, I should die of remorse. The people contemplate and judge
us, and on their sentence depends the destiny of our labours. Cowards,
we lose the public confidence; firm, our enemies would be disconcerted.
Do not then sully the sanctity of the oath, by making it pause in
deference before mouths thirsting for our blood. Our enemies will swear
with one hand, whilst with the other they will sharpen their swords
against us."

Each violent sentence in this harangue excited in the Assembly and the
tribunes those displays of public feeling which found expression in loud
applause. It was felt that, for the future, the only line of policy
would be in the anger of the nation; that the time for philosophy in the
tribune was passed, and that the Assembly would not be slow