Page:Voices of Revolt - Volume 1.djvu/72

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
68
SPEECHES OF

procession of mourners and weep for their own victims. Blood has flowed all over the country on their account, but we need this blood in the struggle against the tyrants of Europe. The foreigners have set themselves up as the arbitrators of public peace; they have sought to do their work with money; at their behest, the people found bread; when they willed it otherwise, the bread was not available; they succeeded in inaugurating gatherings in front of the bakeshops and in securing the leadership of bands of famished men. We are surrounded by their hired assassins and their spies. We know this, we witness it ourselves, and yet they live! The perfidious emissaries who address us, who flatter us—these are the brothers, the accomplices, the bodyguard of those who destroy our crops, who threaten our cities, massacre our brothers, cut down our prisoners. They are all looking for a leader, even among us. Their chief interest is to incite us to enmity among ourselves. If they succeed in this, this will mean a new lease of life for the aristocracy, the hour of the rebirth of the Federalist plans. They would punish the faction of the Girondistes for the obstacles that have been placed in their way. They would avenge themselves on the Mountain for its splendid spirit of self-sacrifice, for their attacks are aimed at the Convention. We shall continue to make war, war against England, against the Austrians, against all their allies. Our only possible answer to their pam-