"We want to know it."
"Tell us, tell us!" cried the giantess. "Give me your hand once
more, that I may press it in the name of all the women of Paris!"
Marat with an assuring smile reached his great, bony hand to the
woman, who held it in both of her own for a moment, and then
retreated and was lost in the crowd.
But in Marat's hand now blazed the jewelled ring which had a moment
before adorned the large, soft hand of the woman. He, perhaps, did
not know it himself; he paid no attention to it, but turned all his
thoughts to the people who now filled the immense square, and hemmed
him in with thousands upon thousands of blazing eyes.
"You want to know why you have no bread?" snarled he. "You ask why
you starve? Well, my friends and brothers, the answer is an easy one
to give. The baker of France has shut up his storehouse because the
baker's wife has told him to do so, because she hates the people and
wants them to starve! But she does not intend to starve, and so she
has called the baker and the little apprentices to Versailles, where
are her storehouses, guarded by her paid soldiers. What does it
concern her if the people of Paris are miserably perishing? She has
an abundance of bread, for the baker must always keep his store open
for her, and her son eats cake, while your children are starving!
You must always keep demanding that the baker, the baker's wife, and
the whole brood come to Paris and live in your midst, and then you
will see how they keep their flour, and you will then compel them to
give you of their superfluous supplies.
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