Do we not all stand at the foot of
the guillotine, all, beginning with myself?" Again, twenty years
later, in a private conversation, on being interrogated as to the
veritable object, the secret motive of the Committee of Public Safety,
he replied:
"As we were animated by but one sentiment,[51] my dear sir, that of
self-preservation, we had but one desire, that of maintaining an
existence which each of us believed to be menaced. You had your
neighbor guillotined to prevent your neighbor from guillotining
you."[52]
The same apprehension exists in stouter souls, although there may have
been, along with fear, motives of a less debased order.
"How many times," says Carnot,[53] "we undertook some work that
required time, with the conviction that we should not be allowed to
complete it!" - " It was uncertain[54] whether, the next time the
clock struck the hour, we should not be standing before the
revolutionary Tribunal on our way to the scaffold without, perhaps,
having had time to bid adieu to our families. . . . We pursued our
daily task so as not to let the machine stand still, as if a long life
were before us, when it was probable that we should not see the next
day's sun.
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