You must have seen Duplay's carpenters making the stocks when you came by. Jewelers are making the locks; there are forges in all the public places.
Saint-Just [after a pause]. Food is very scarce. Whole divisions are out of provender. We have very little time; the campaign begins in three weeks at the latest. All the blood of France must flow to the North.
Robespierre. The orders have been given. France is starving in order that the soldiers may have enough to eat.
Saint-Just. When you no longer need my advice, send me back. The first engagements will be decisive. Every effort must be made.
Robespierre. Doesn't the life you lead wear you out?
Saint-Just [sincerely, but without emphasis]. It affords me some rest from useless discussion. Thought and action out there are identical, like thunder and lightning. Every desire immediately becomes a fact, forever; it is written in the blood of men and the destiny of the world. The task is a truly grand one, and the agony divine! At night, in the snow, at the out-posts of the army, along the weary stretches of the Flemish plain, under the vast winter sky, I feel a thrill of joy run through my body, and my heart's blood throb in my breast. Alone, lost in the midst of the shadows of the Universe, surrounded by enemies, with one foot in the grave, we are the guardians of Reason, the living Light. We are decisive factors in the destiny of the world. We re-create Man.
