Page:Voices of Revolt - Volume 1.djvu/63

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ROBESPIERRE
59

the galleries against the masses of the Parisians. They will not succeed. I have informed these gentlemen to this effect, and if the entire people of France could hear me, the entire people of France would be on my side.

Citizens! Do not be dismayed. We are told of immeasurably large foreign armies, of their connections with La Vendée, of their connections with Paris. Very well! What will all their efforts avail them against millions of sans-culottes?

We have an immense people of strong sans-culottes at our disposal, who cannot be permitted to drop their work. Let the rich pay! We have a Convention; perhaps not all its members are poor and resolute, but the corrupt section will for all that not be able to prevent us from fighting. Do you believe that the Mountain has not enough forces to defeat the adherents of Dumouriez, Orléans and Coburg combined? Parisians, the fate of all France, of all Europe, and all humanity is in your hands. The Mountain needs the People. The people needs the Mountain. And I brand the reports that the provinces are turning their arms against the Jacobins as fabrications on the part of our enemies.

In conclusion, I demand what I demanded in the Convention this morning, namely, that the Parisians shall be the revolutionary nucleus of the army, strong enough to drag the sans-culottes with them, that an army should remain in Paris in order to