The younger may not be worth the elder, but if they die as their elders died, what more can you ask ?" "Let them beware! If I determine upon a campaign against the Vendee I shall send neither Santerre nor Rossignol!" "The Convention sent Kleber, and the Directory, Hoche!" "I shall not send; I shall go myself." "Nothing worse can happen to them than to be killed like Lescure, or shot like Charette." "It may happen that I pardon them." "Cato taught us how to escape the pardon of Caesar." "Take care; you are quoting a Republican!" "Cato was one of those men whose example can be followed, no matter to what party they belong." "And suppose I were to tell you that I hold the Vendee in the hollow of my hand ?" "You!" "And that within three months, she will lay down her arms if I choose ?" The young man shook his head.
"You don't believe me ?" "I hesitate to believe you." "If I affirm to you that what I say is true; if I prove it by telling you the means, or rather the men, by whom I shall bring this about ?" "If a man like General Bonaparte affirms a thing, I shall believe it; and if that thing is the pacification of the Vendee, I shall say in my turn: 'Beware! Better the Vendee fighting than the Vendee conspiring.
The Vendee fighting means the sword, the Vendee conspiring means the dagger.'" "Oh! I know your dagger," said Bonaparte.

"Here it is." And he drew from a drawer the dagger he had taken from Roland and laid it on the table within reach of Morgan's hand.
"But," he added, "there is some distance between Bonaparte's breast and an assassin's dagger.

Try." And he advanced to the young man with a flaming eye.
"I did not come here to assassinate you," said the young man, coldly.
"Later, if I consider your death indispensable to the cause, I shall do all in my power, and if I fail it will not be because you are Marius and I the Cimbrian.

Have you anything else to say to me, citizen First Consul ?" concluded the young man, bowing.
"Yes.

Tell Cadoudal that when he is ready to fight the enemy, instead of Frenchmen, I have a colonel's commission ready signed in my desk for him." "Cadoudal commands, not a regiment, but an army.