"Bon voyage, my dear Cathelineau," said Bourbotte, following his example.
"Cathelineau was a brave man," said Chouardin. "I am glad he died of his wounds; I should have been sorry that so gallant a fellow should have had to submit his neck to the sharp embraces of Mademoiselle Guillotine."
"That is hardly a patriotic sentiment, citizen General," said Barrère. "Gallantry on the part of an insurgent royalist is an inspiration of the devil, sent to induce man to perpetuate the degradation and misery of his fellow-men. Such gallantry, or rather such frenzy, should give rise to anything but admiration in the breast of a patriot."
"My fidelity to the Republic will not be doubted, I believe," said Chouardin, "because, as a soldier, I admire high courage when I find it in a soldier."
"If your fidelity be unimpeachable, your utility will be much questioned, if you wish to spare a royalist because he is a brave man," said Barrère. "By the same argument, I presume, you would refrain from knocking an adder on the head, because he rose boldly in your path."
"Who talked of sparing?" said Chouardin. "I only said that I would sooner that a brave enemy should die in battle than be handled by an executioner. Talk as you will, you cannot disgrace such a man as Cathelineau."
"Cannot I, indeed, citizen General?" said Westerman, rising from his seat and coming into the middle of the room. "I do then utterly despise, scorn, and abominate him, and all such as him. I can conceive nothing in human form more deplorably low, more pitiably degraded, than such a poor subservient slave as he was."
"There, Westerman, you are grossly wrong," said Santerre. "Your cowardly Marquis, run-fling from the throne which he pretends to reverence, but does not dare to protect; whose grand robes and courtly language alone have made him great; who has not heart enough even to love the gay puppets who have always surrounded him, or courage enough to fight for the unholy wealth he has amassed: this man I say is contemptible. Such creatures are as noxious vermin, whom one loathes, and loathing them destroys. You no less destroy the tiger, who ravages the green fields which your labour has adorned; who laps the blood of your flocks, and threatens the life of your children and servants, but you do not despise the tiger; you keep his hide, as a monument of your victory over a brave and powerful enemy. Cathelineau was the tiger, who was destroying, before it had ripened, the precious fruit of the Revolution."