l
speculations; and our death would be their life. They are like those
beasts of prey, who wait the issue of the battle that they may batten
and feast on the corpses of the slain. (Loud applause.)

"They know that the expenses of your preparations for defence are
numerous; and they reckon upon the failure of the credit of the
treasury, and the scarcity of specie; they reckon upon the weariness of
those citizens who have abandoned their wives, their babes, to hasten to
the frontiers, and who will abandon them, whilst millions, distributed
at home, will arouse insurrections, in which the people, armed by
madness, will themselves destroy their rights, whilst they imagine they
are defending them; then the emperor will advance at the head of a
powerful army to rivet your fetters. Such is the war that they make on
you, and that they seek to make. (Loud applause.)

"The people has sworn to maintain the constitution, because in that lies
its honour and its liberty; but if you suffer it to remain in a state of
troubled immobility, that weakens its force and exhausts all our
resources, will not the day of this exhaustion be the last of the
constitution? The state in which we are kept is one of annihilation that
may lead us to disgrace or to death. (Applause.) To arms, citizens! to
arms, freemen! defend your liberty! assure the hope of that liberty to
the whole human race, or you will not deserve even pity in your
misfortunes. (Applause.) We have no other allies than the eternal
justice, whose rights we defend: but is it forbidden us to seek others,
and to interest those powers who, like ourselves are threatened by the
rupture of the equilibrium in Europe? No, doubtless, let us declare to
the emperor, that from this moment all treaties are broken. (Vehement
applause.) The emperor has himself violated them; and if he does not
attack us, it is because he is not yet prepared; but he is unmasked;
felicitate yourselves upon this. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon you,
show them what is really the National Assembly of France. If you display
the dignity that befits the representatives of a great nation, you will
gain esteem, applause, and assistance. If you evince weakness, if you do
not avail yourselves of the occasion offered you by Providence, of
freeing yourselves from a situation that fetters you, dread the
degradation that is prepared for you by the hatred of Europe, of France,
of your own time and of posterity. (Applause.) Do mor