ON SAINT-JUST
479
lived in their faith, to be absorbed in the Republic as the saints are
lost
in
God.
If
dead republics could be brought to life, with what
voice would that of the Year II speak, after Danton was executed,
if
not with
his?
To live
in
history was to demand a few eternal
dreams
in
return for unremitting service to the nation. In his time,
which was one of the greatest periods of hope, no one hoped so pas–
sionately as he to
change man
by compelling him to undertake an
epic action.
And perhaps his aura comes from the fact that the blade, falling
in
the evening sun, put an end not only to the murderer of Louis
XVI, the prosecutor of Danton, the architect of Fleurus, but to the
greatest adventure of the Revolution.
(Translated from the French by Lionel Abel)
