have done more than this—­it was I who gave Brissot and Condorcet to France.  These great philosophers have unquestionably ridiculed and opposed the priests; but they have not the less courted kings and grandees, out of whom they have made a pretty good thing. (Laughter).  You do not forget with what eagerness they persecuted the genius of liberty in the person of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the only philosopher who, in my opinion, has deserved the public honours lavished for a long time on so many political charlatans and so many contemptible heroes.  Brissot, at least, should feel well inclined towards me.  Where was he when I was defending this society from the Jacobins against the Constituent Assembly itself?  But for what I did at this epoch, you would not have insulted me in this tribune; for it would not have existed.  I the corrupter, the agitator, the tribune of the people!  I am none of these, I am the people myself.  You reproach me for having quitted my place as public accuser.  I did so when I saw that that place gave me no other right than that of accusing citizens for civil offences, and would deprive me of the right of accusing political enemies.  And it is for this that the people love me; and yet you desire that I sentence myself to ostracism, in order to withdraw myself from its confidence.  Exile! how can you dare to propose it to me?  Whither would you have me retire?  Amongst what people should I be received?  Who is the tyrant who would give me asylum?—­Ah! we may abandon a happy, free, and triumphant country; but a country threatened, rent by convulsions, oppressed; we do not flee from that, we save, or perish with it!  Heaven, which gave me a soul impassioned for liberty, and gave me birth in a land trampled on by tyrants—­Heaven, which placed my life in the midst of the reign of factions and crimes, perhaps calls me to trace with my blood the road to happiness, and the liberty of my fellow men!  Do you require from me any other sacrifice?  If you would have my good name, I surrender it to you; I only wish for reputation in order to do good to my fellow-creatures.  If to preserve it, it be necessary to betray by a cowardly silence the cause of the truth and of the people, take it, sully it,—­I will no longer defend it.  Now that I have defended myself, I may attack you.  I will not do it; I offer you peace.  I forget your injuries; I put up with your insults; but on one condition, that is, you join me in opposing the factions which distract our country, and, the most dangerous of all, that of La Fayette:  this pseudo-hero of the two worlds, who, after having been present at the revolution of the New World, has only exerted himself here in arresting the progress of liberty in the old hemisphere.  You, Brissot, did not you agree with me that this chief was the executioner and assassin of the people, that the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars had caused the Revolution to retrograde for twenty years?  Is this man less redoubtable because he is at this time at the head of the army?