BARÈRE
for their grateful brushes and chisels to repeat to posterity what the founders of the Republic thought great, noble, or useful. The monuments erected to the heroes of Homer exist no longer save in his verses. The fame of Agricola reposes no more in the urn made by a celebrated artist; it breathes again in the writings of Tacitus. Let us, then, open an honorable competition in poetry, sculpture and painting, and let national prizes, awarded at a civic festival, regenerate art and encourage artists; or, rather, David, take up thy brush again, and let thy genius wrest from the bosom of the sea the famous vessel whose crew has wrested admiration from the English themselves.[1]
Frenchmen, be brave and great like the Republicans who manned the Vengeur, and England will soon be destroyed. Free the seas from these pirates and traffickers in men, and the shades of the sailors who immortalized themselves upon the Vengeur will rejoice together in their tomb hollowed in the depths of the sea.
- ↑ The Convention passed a formal vote embodying all of Barère's suggestions, including the artistic and literary competitions.
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