Ah! Then life would be worth living once again!--Can you have heard
from her--seen her?
LA ROCHE.
You can see her for yourself--save your own life--and bring boundless
joy to hers.
PAUL.
How?
LA ROCHE.
Espouse our cause!
PAUL.
What!--Betray my country?
LA ROCHE.
No.--Redeem your country!--Desert the side of those who bring disgrace
upon your native land--of fiends, who drown her soil in blood!--blood
bred from the noblest heroes of her history.
PAUL.
Heroes who debauched our women, and enslaved our men!--Libertines who
let harlots reign in France! Despots whose arrogant descendants are
crushed to-day beneath their fathers' sins!
LA ROCHE.
What, sir! You, a soldier, justify these Jacobins--anarchists like
Carrac, who slaughter hundreds of defenceless women every day, and
even outrage little children?
PAUL.
Anarchists are monsters your race bred when it brutalized their
mothers.
LA ROCHE.
Enough, sir! I see that I must leave you to your fate.
PAUL.
But Diane, my wife! Give me one word of her.
LA ROCHE.
Yes. You shall know that she believes you innocent, is sick with grief
and desolation in thinking you are dead.
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