458 Readings in European History 417. Ca- mille Des- moulins makes a plea for clemency (December 20, 1793). Robespierre recounted to us the other night at the Jacobin Club ; the conduct of the English at Genoa, of the royalists at Fougeres and in the Vendee, — the violence of the fac- tions alone shows well enough that despotism, if allowed to reenter its demolished habitation in a passion, could only establish itself again by reigning as did Augustus and Nero. In this duel between liberty and slavery and in the cruel alternative of a defeat a thousand times more bloody than our victory, it is wiser and less hazardous to carry the Revo- lution too far than to stop short of the goal, as Danton has said ; it has been essential, above everything else, that the republic should remain in possession of the field of battle. In the succeeding number of his newspaper (issued Decadi, 30th Frimaire, second year of the republic, one and indivisible) Desmoulins no longer extenuates the work of the guillotine but pleads for clemency. Some persons have expressed their disapproval of my third issue, where, as they allege, I have been pleased to suggest certain comparisons which tend to cast an unfavor- able light on the Revolution and the patriots, — they should say the excess of revolution and the professional patriots. My critics think the whole number refuted and everybody justified by the single reflection, "We all know that the pres- ent situation is not one of freedom, — but patience ! you will be free one of these days." Such people think apparently that liberty, like infancy, must of necessity pass through a stage of wailing and tears before it reaches maturity. On the contrary, it is of the nature of liberty that, in order to enjoy it, we need only desire it. A people is free the moment that it wishes to be so, — you will recollect that this was one of Lafayette's sayings, — and the people has entered upon its full rights since the 14th of July. Liberty has neither infancy nor old age, but is always in the prime of strength and vigor. . . . Is this liberty that we desire a mere empty name ? Is it only an opera actress carried about with a red cap on, or
