Remember that the prosperity of every aristocrat has been purchased by the infamy of above a hundred slaves! How much better is it that one man should die, than that a hundred men should suffer worse than death!" When he had finished his letter, he read it accurately over, and then having carefully wiped his pen, and laid it near his inkstand, he leant back in his chair, and with his hand resting on the table, turned over in his mind the names and deeds of those who were accounted as his friends, but whom he suspected to be his enemies.

He had close to his hand slips of paper, on which were written notes of the most trivial doings of those by whom he was generally surrounded; and the very spies who gave him the information were themselves the unfortunate subjects of similar notices from others.

The wretched man was tortured by distrust; as he had told his brother, there were not among the whole body of those associates, by whose aid he had made himself the ruling power in France, half-a-dozen whom he did not believe to be eager for his downfall and his death.

Thrice, whilst thus meditating, he stopped, and with his pencil put a dot against the name of a republican.
Unfortunate men! their patriotism did not avail them; within a few weeks, the three had been added to the list of victims who perished under the judicial proceedings of Fouquier Tinville.
It had now become nearly dark, and Robespierre was unable longer to read the unfriendly notices which lay beneath his hand, and he therefore gave himself up entirely to reflection.

He began to dream of nobler subjects--to look forward to happier days, when torrents of blood would be no longer necessary, when traitors should no longer find a market for their treason, when the age of reason should have prevailed, and France, happy, free, illustrious, and intellectual, should universally own how much she owed to her one incorruptible patriot.