Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Revolution Never Dies

Today would be Décadi, the day of rest, tenth day of the month of Floréal in the two hundred and seventeenth year since the dawn of the republic, if the Calendrier républicain had stood.

I was there at the Bastille when we broke through. Léon, Gaspard, and I fought under Desmoulins, and even amid the gunfire and flames we felt the joy of new birth. Everything old would be wiped away! We would make all things new!

But the dream is never like the waking, n'est pas? And when the blood of the royalists was all spilled, we turned to drain the blood of friends. How could we think to write a constitution with such ink?

      Liberated from the monarchy, but not from fear.
      Equally able to kill and be killed.
      Brothers, but only once beneath the earth.

For me there is no day of rest. I must outlive it all. Forever forward, yet never fully alive. Is this the punishment for my crimes?

La terreur n'est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible.

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