Robespierre. What a pleasure it is for me to live here! It's a feast for the soul! This is no selfish retreat from the tempests. No, the door is opened to all the care and troubles of the nation; they assume a certain dignified air when they enter. We receive destiny here, without flinching, our eyes in its eyes. I never cross the threshold without breathing the air of that court, with the smell of fresh-cut wood, peace, and hope. The honest face of Duplay, your mother's welcome voice, your hand, Éléonore, extended toward me like the hand of brotherhood, all the loyal affection you have for me, inspire in me the greatest, the rarest, thing of all, the thing I most need and of which I always had least!
Éléonore. What?
Robespierre. Confidence.
Éléonore. Is there some one you don't trust?
Robespierre. I trust no man. I can read lies in their faces, I see intrigue in their protestations. Their eyes, their mouths, their hands, their whole body lies. Suspicion poisons every thought I have. I was intended for a quieter existence. I love men, and I wish to believe in them. But how can I, when I see them perjure themselves ten times a day, sell themselves, their friends, their armies, their Patrie, for motives of fear, or ambition, or viciousness, or malevolence pure and simple? I have seen Mirabeau, Lafayette, Dumouriez, Custine, the king, the aristocrats, the Girondins, the Hérésists—all of them betrayed one after the other. The soldiers would have surrendered the nation twenty times had they not feared the guil-
