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See the lovely lady, with what skill she can turn the cards!
Like an expert of the game.
They say that she deals hearts to her own husband;
...to the others she offers the diamonds.
You could make a man fall in love...
...with the lies you tell us.
Have you faith in me?
Who can tell!
We know so little of each other.
You know me, Danton.
Yes, you might call it that.
You have dark eyes and curly hair,
...and your complexion is fair, and when you are talking to me, you say: George dear!
Ah, but there, there, what is hidden there?
Why, we all have coarse senses. How can I know you?
We would have to break the skull-bone of a man open,
...so we could drag every secret thought from inside his brain-cells.
No, Julie.
I love you as I love the grave.
I have heard that saying: there's peace in the grave.
If that is so, lying in your embrace is peace eternal.
O grave so sweet!
Your lips are tolling bells,
...your voice is the music for my burial,
...your breast is my grave hillock,
...and your heart is my coffin.
Camille, you look so downcast!
Did you tear a hole in your red cap?
Or was it raining during today's executions?
Twenty victims died today on the scaffold.
We were in error. They only sent the Hébertists to the guillotine...
...for not being systematic enough in their actions;
...or maybe, because the Decemvirs feared to be defeated,
...if for just one week there would be any men alive...
...who were feared more than they themselves were.
These men would love to turn us into prehistoric people.
Saint-Just would not dislike it if we crawled again on all fours,
...so that the lawyer of Arras could invent for us, like the old watchmaker of Geneva,
...nurseries, school-benches, or a God-image.
It's time the Revolution arrived at the state of reorganization.
It's time the Revolution ended and the Republic began to function.
The Constitution must be shaped...
...like a woven garment that clings close to the people's body form.
We will slap the prudish finger...
...of those who wish to cast the black veil of a nun...
...over France, that most lovely sinner.
We want naked Godheads, Bacchantes,
...Olympic Games, and lips singing sweetly.
Ah, that wicked love that loosens our members!
The godly Epicures and Venus must...
...become the guardian of the Republic, instead of Saint Marat and Saint Chalier from now on.
Danton! You will attack at the Convention!
I will, you will, he will.
If we are still alive then,
...as the old women say.
After each hour sixty minutes will have passed.
What do you mean?
Will not they, my boy? - That is self-evident.
Oh, oh, that is self-evident.
But who shall be the one to make these things a reality?
We and the honest people.
The "and" between there is a very long word.
It keeps us rather far apart from each other.
The distance is long, and the honesty will lose its breath before we come together.
If you know that, then why did you begin the battle?
I never could abide those people.
I never could look at those vain and conceited Catos without giving them a kick.
You're going?
I must go. They grate on me with all their petty politics.
Before I leave the house I make this prediction:
The Statue of Liberty has not yet been moulded.
The furnace glows, and all of us who stoke the fire may burn our fingers.
You brothel hag! You foul-minded filthy old gossip!
You worm-eaten rotten apple! You...
Help! Help!
Stop those two from fighting! Save her from that drunkard!
No! Stop it, Romans!
I'll smash these bones with my bare hands! Vestal ***!
Me, a Vestal ***! I'd like to see that! Me!
Thus from your shoulders I will tear your robe,
...and in the sun I'll fling your naked corpse!
In every wrinkle of your body festers lechery!
See here--I was just sitting out here in the sunshine,
...warming myself.
See here--we don't have any wood.
Your husband's red nose will warm you!
And then, my daughter went down the street for a little, around the corner.
She is a very good girl; she's supporting her parents.
Ha, she confesses!
You Judas, you would have to wear a pair of trousers on,
...if the young gentlemen would not like your daughter!
Ha, Lucretia! A dagger, a dagger! Give me a dagger!
Romans! Ha, Appius Claudius!
Yes, a dagger!
But not for the poor child!
A dagger for the men who buy the flesh of our women and of our daughters!
The only blood in their veins is what they sucked from our own bodies!
Death to all those who can read and write!
Kill the dandies who wear fine shoes!
He has a handkerchief!
An aristocrat! Off to the lantern!
What, he does not wipe his nose with his fingers? Off to the lantern!
An aristocrat! Off to the lantern!
Gentlemen, please!
There are no gentlemen! Off to the lantern!
When they lie there under ground, they'll be eaten by maggots.
- Better hanging in the air than be rotting in the tomb! - Have mercy!
Just a slight twist with a hempen loop around the neck!
Off to the lantern! Up on the lamppost!
Have your way then, it will not make you see clearer for it.
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
Let him go!
What happened, citizens?
You ask what happened? The few drops of blood shed in August and September...
...don't make the people's cheeks any rosier.
The guillotine is much too sluggish. Hey! Death to all who have no hole in their coat!
Death to them!
In the name of the law!
What is the law?
The will of the people.
We are the people, and we will that there shall be no law!
Hear the Aristides!
Hear the Messiah, who was sent to elect and to judge us.
Virtuous and suffering folk!
You do your duty, you sacrifice your foes.
Folk!
You are great!
You reveal yourself through lightning and thunderbolts.
However, folk,
...your blows must not be allowed to violate your own body.
You *** yourself in your fury.
You can only fall by your own power, your enemies know that.
Your lawmakers watch you.
Their eyes are undeceivable.
Your hands are inescapable.
Come with me...
...to Jacobins!
Your Brothers will receive you with open arms!
- Then we will hold a blood judgement over our enemies! - Hail! Robespierre! Onward to the Jacobins!
Long live Robespierre! Onward to the Jacobins!
Robespierre, you are outrageously honest.
I would be ashamed to be walking these thirty years upon this earth,
...always displaying the same physiognomy of morals,
...just for the pitiful and paltry pleasure of finding my fellow men worse than myself.
Does no voice in you tell you sometimes quite softly, secretly: You lie!
My conscience is clean. - You lie!
Are you the police-patrol of Heaven?
If you cannot look life in the face objectively as your God Almighty,
...then you should hold your handkerchief before your eyes.
Do you deny Virtue?
And Vice!
There are only Epicureans;
...coarse ones and fine ones.
Christ was the finest.
That is the only difference I manage to discover between human beings.
You see, incorruptible one, it is cruel that one pulls the rug from under your feet.
Go your way!
He wants to hold the horse of the Revolution by the reins,
...as the coachman holds his docile nags.
They will have strength enough left over...
...to drag him off to his own execution.
Pull the rug out from under my feet!
He must go.
Hey, who goes there in the darkness?
Do you know my voice?
Oh you, Saint-Just! Not long ago Danton left.
I saw him earlier in the Palais Royal.
He made his usual revolutionary face and spoke in lofty epigrams.
He fraternized with the sans-culottes.
In the street the pretty girls were running after him,
...and the people gathered round and whispered in each other's ears what he had told them.
Will you wait any longer?
What is your plan?
He must be buried in his shining armor solemnly,
...and we must slaughter his horses and his slaves on his grave mound: Lacroix?
A rascal of the first order.
Herault de Sechelles?
A handsome head!
We will do away with him! Philippeau, Camille?
He, too?
I thought so!
Read this!
Is one to believe that the clean tailcoat of the Messiah is the death-shroud of France,
...and that his thin finger twitching about on the Tribunal are guillotine blades?
This blood Messiah Robespierre is on his Mount Calvary between the two thieves Couthon and Collot,
...where he sacrifices and is not sacrifices.
So you too, Camille?
Take them hither! Quick!
Only the dead do not come back.
Is your accusation prepared?
I have but to give the order;
...the forgers furnish the bait and the foreigners set the trap.
The system will not fail us. You have my word for that.
Make haste. Tomorrow!
No extended death struggle!
I have become sensitive during the last few days.
My Camille!
They are all departing.
All the world is dreary and void.
I am alone.
I say to you, if you don't give them all...
...in the form of wooden meaningless copies, presented in a play-house, in concerts and art-exhibitions,
...they will neither have eyes nor ears for it all.
If someone strums an opera which reproduce the rising and sinking of real human life,
...just as a tin whistle with water reproduce the nightingale:
...that's art!
Put the people out of the theater on the street, then you have paltry reality!
They forget their God Almighty for the sake of His bad, man-made copyist!
Of creation, which growing,
...roaring, and blazing refashions itself in them a thousand times,
...they hear and see nothing at all.
And the artists!
The artists do the same thing with nature...
...as David, who in September...
...cold-bloodedly drew the murdered people and said:
"I am snatching the last palpitations of life of these malefactors."
What do you say, Lucile?
Nothing, I always love to see you talking.
But do you hear me?
Why, surely!
Am I right?
Do you know what I have said?
No, I really don't.
What is it?
The Committee of Public Safety has made the decision to arrest me.
- O God! - I can't believe it!
They offered me a place of refuge.
They want my head!
Let them have it!
I've had enough of all that irksome business.
Let them have my head then.
What do I care?
I'll know how to die courageously.
That is easier than to stay alive.
Danton, there is still time!
It can't be. However, I never would have thought...
You are lazy!
I am not lazy, but I am tired;
...my soles burn under me.
Where are you going?
Ah, if I knew that!
Be serious, say where?
Just walking, my boy, just walking.
Ah, Camille!
Don't worry, my child!
Can they also let your head...
My Camille, that is folly.
Say, am I dreaming this?
Don't alarm yourself.
Yesterday I spoke to Robespierre.
He was friendly.
We are a little estranged, that is true.
Just different points of view, that's all!
Seek him out!
We went to school together.
He was always sullen.
I alone was friendly with him, and sometimes made him laugh.
He always had a great affection for me, that's true.
I'll go.
So soon, my friend?
Go!
Come! Only this...
And this!
Go! Go!
We live in a wicked time.
That is how it is.
Who can escape from it?
One must learn to face it... ah...
Parting, parting, parting....
I wonder who thought of it first...
How did I come to think of that?
It is not good,
...that it should come so by itself.
When I saw him leaving,
...I felt that he never could turn back to me,
...and he would have to go away from me, further and further.
How empty the room is;
...the windows standing open,
...as if a corpse had been lying in it.
I cannot stay up in that place.
Danton! Danton! Danton!
Down! Down with the Decemvirs! Hail Danton! Hail Danton!
The guillotine is a bad mill,
...and Samson is a poor baker! Give us bread! Give us bread!
Yes, that is so! Give us not heads but bread! Give us not blood but wine!
Your bread--Danton has eaten it! His head will give you all the bread.
Who says Danton is a traitor?
Robespierre!
Then Robespierre is a traitor!
Who says that?
Danton!
Danton has lovely clothes!
That is true!
Danton has a lovely house!
- Don't you know? - Yes, yes!
Danton has a lovely wife!
He takes his bath in Burgundy!
On his table are dishes of silver!
Have you heard that? Dishes of silver! Dishes of silver!
Danton was poor like you; where did he get his riches? From where?
The Veto bought it all for him.
So he would save the crown for him.
The Duke Orleans gave it to Danton.
So he would steal the crown for him.
The foreigner has made him wealthy!
So that he would betray you!
What does Robespierre own?
Robespierre! Robespierre! Long life to Robespierre!
All of you know him! The honourable Robespierre!
Down with the traitors! Down! Hail Robespierre! Hail! Hail!
Yes, Camille, by tomorrow we shall be worn-out shoes,
...thrown into the lap of the begger-woman Earth.
The cow-leather the angels make slippers of, according to Platon,
...to wear when they wander about on earth.
My Lucile!
Be calm, my boy!
How can I?
They never can lay hands on my angel.
The light of beauty that pours forth from her sweet body can't be extinguished.
Hear, Danton, just between us two,
...it is so wretched that we must die now.
What good does it do?
Before I die I want to steal the last glances from the lovely eyes of life!
I want to die with my eyes open.
Your eyes will stay open.
Samson never closes anyone's eyes.
Lucile, your kisses touch my lips in my imagination.
Every kiss becomes a dream;
...as my eyes are dimming, they hold your kiss enclosed.
Why must I leave you now?
Sleep is merciful. Sleep, sleep, my boy, sleep!
I cannot die. No, I cannot die!
We must resist them!
They'll have to tear every drop of life from the limbs of my body.
They are bargaining nowadays only in human flesh.
That is the curse of our time!
We all have been buried alive here.
Oh, Lucile, it is an endless pity!
Sleep, sleep!
Won't the clock stand still?
With every second the walls are closing in around me,
...till they are as narrow as the grave.
Camille... He is asleep.
A dream is playing between his eyelash.
I don't want to dry the golden dew of sleep from his peaceful eyelids.
I would have liked to die serenely,
...very peaceful, just as a star falls,
...like a tone that dies fading.
The glittering stars shine through the night like gleaming tear-drops.
There must be great misery in the eyes from where those tear-drops trickled forth.
Oh!
What is it, Camille?
Oh! Oh! You, Danton!
You're trembling all over! Talk to me!
I lay there between dreaming and waking.
The dome of heaven with all its lights descended very low,
...so close to me that I touched the stars.
I struggled like a drowning man beneath the frozen surface.
It was a horror, Danton!
No more of these nightmares, they drive me to insanity.
What are you reading?
"The book of Night-thought".
You want to die beforehand?
I'm taking "La Pucelle".
I do not want to steal out of life as from prayer-stool,
...but I would rather leave as from a maiden's bed-chamber.
Camille, Camille!
Lucile, Lucile! Lucile!
Hear me, Camille!
You make me laugh with your long cloak of stone...
...and the iron mask in front of your face!
It's madness lurking behind her eyes!
Can't you stoop down to me?
How lovely she is even in her madness!
Where are your arms?
I want to lure you, my sweet bird...
Why must I be going now? Say why?
Two starlets are shining in Heaven,
(They want to kill us, we must cry out!)
...shining brighter than the moon.
One shines into my sweetheart's window,
...the other at her chamber door.
Help, help, help!
We must cry out, they want to kill us! Help, help, help!
Quiet! Be still!
It is of no use. (You have no right to give us orders!)
Come, my friend, stealthily climb the stairs;
...they all are sleeping.
Lucile, ah, Lucile, it is so bitter, parting forever!
- Why are you so quiet? - I see your image in all my dreams.
- Why don't you talk to me? - I am alone.
- You frighten me! - All alone!
Are we like piglets,
...which are flogged to death for the royal table, - (Camille) Your shadow keeps hovering before me,
...so that their meat will be more tasty? - ...as the light trembles after one has glanced in the sunshine.
(They want to kill us, who will set us free?)
Silence! Stop your shouting! This in not the way!
- Hear, hear! Hear the bulldog with pigeon wings! - Ha! You're drowning in the blood of the twenty-two!
Are we children,
...who are roasted in the glowing Moloch arms of this world,
...and who are tickled with rays of light,
...so that the gods may delight in their carefree laughter?
Is the ether with all its golden eyes,
...like a bowl filled with gold carp which is gracing the table of the blessed gods,
...and the blessed gods laugh eternally,
...and the fishes die eternally,
...and the gods rejoice for ever on the color play of their death struggle?
Lucile!
Your name, citizen!
My name has been proclaimed by the revolution.
My dwelling will soon be Nowhere,
...and my name will adorn the pages of history.
Danton, the Convention accuses you of having plotted...
...with Mirabeau, with Orleans, with the Girondists,
...with the foreigners, and with the faction of Louis XVII.
- Down with the Decemvirs! Hail Danton! - Traitor!
Danton was one of us on the tenth of August. Danton was one of us in September.
And Lafayette was with us in Versailles, and he too was a traitor!
Where were his accusers?
My voice, which you have heard so many times in behalf of the people's cause,
...will find it easy to reject this calumny.
- Bravo! Hail Danton! - Listen, listen!
Danton, boldness bespeaks the criminal,
...calmness the innocent. (Exactly!)
From a revolutionist like me you cannot expect a defense in calm composure.
Men of my acumen are of immeasurable worth in revolutions,
...for over them hovers the genius of freedom! (Empty phrases!) (Hail Danton!)
I am accused of having plotted with Mirabeau, with Orleans,
...and of having grovelled at the feet of despicable despots.
I ask of you to speak with calm....
You, pitiful Saint-Just, will be responsible to posterity for slander and lies!
I am asking you once more for calmness when answering!
Remember Marat;
...he faced his judges with due respect.
(Down with the Decemvirs! ) (Long life to Robespierre!)
I have declared war against Monarchy on the field of Mars!
I have defeated it on the tenth of August;
I killed it on the twenty-first of January;
...and I flung the head of a king as gauntlet of war to kings forever!
(Bravo! Long life to Danton!) (Down with the Decemvirs!) (Traitor!)
As I cast eyes upon this shameful paper, I can feel my whole being tremble!
(Hail! Hail Danton!) (Traitor!)
Let my accusers come forward to face me!
I shall tear the mask from their faces, (Down with the Decemvirs!)
...and shall toss them back into nothingness, (Down with the Traitor!)
...from where they never should have dared to creep forward!
(Down with the Decemvirs!) (Down with the Traitor!)
Don't you hear me ring the bell? (Hail! Hail Danton!)(Down with the Traitor!)
My voice was the thundering storm which by its force has drowned the satellites of despotism...
...under the wave of flittering bayonets! (Hail! Hail Danton! Down with Robespierre!) (Down with the Traitor!)
The Convention is interrupted.
I don't know any more what answer to give.
We've got the scoundrels!
Here, this is what you want. (Camille)You have shouted bravely.
If you would have toiled before for your life in this way, you would not be here now!
I wish it were a fight where a man came to grips with his foe in battle!
(Herault) Demand an investigation!
The wives of Danton and Camille are throwing money to the people.
They are plotting to free the accused,
...to break up the Convention.
- Exactly, that is what we needed! - I'm holding the accusation in my hand.
(To be killed in so mechanical a manner!)
Make haste, that they and we are no longer bothered with this.
What is delaying them? How should we know that?
Look, the court is coming back!
The Convention continues.
The Republic is in danger!
We are appealing to the people!
My voice has still sufficient force...
...to deliver the funeral for the Decemvirs.
(Rubbish!) (Quiet!) (Why don't you bash their heads in?)
We demand an investigation;
...we will reveal important facts before the Council.
I shall withdraw into the citadel of reason presently.
There after I shall attack with the cannon of truth roaring,
...and I shall crush my opponents.
I see a great disaster overcoming humanity.
That is--
...the dictatorship.
It has torn off its veil,
...holding its head erect,
...and it is striding over our corpses.
(Down with the Decemvirs!) (Down, down with the traitor!)
Hail Danton!
Quiet, in the name of the Republic.
Honor to the law!
The Convention resolves:
In view of the fact that there have been traces of mutiny in the prisons...
(How can they pronounce the death sentence when it's so obvious that these men are all innocent?)
In view of the fact that the wives of Danton and Camille throw money to the people...
...with the purpose of freeing the accused...
We have been born in the dungeon. We have grown up behind prison walls.
We don't notice any more that we are living in darkness,
...in fetters and shackles, and with a gag in the mouth.
Honor to the law!
Yes, that is your law,
...which makes the great mass of the people into slaving cattle!
And such a law which is backed by ruthless military power...
...is your justice!
In the name of the Republic!
Slander and corpses! Starvation gifts from the fatherland!
And furthermore, since the accused have endeavored to provoke incidents causing riots at the trial,
...and repeatedly have hurled offenses at the Tribunal,
...this Tribunal is empowered...
...to continue the investigation without interruption, and to exclude any of the accused from the debates...
...who fails to show respect for order, offending both the court and the people.
I ask everyone present here:
...have we offended you, the people, or the National Convention, or the Tribunal?
(Down! Down! Down!) (No! Never! Never!)
See there the wanton murderers;
...see there the ravens of the Safety Committee!
I am accusing Robespierre, Saint-Just and all their hangmen of committing high treason!
(Down! Down! Down!) (Hail! Hail Danton!)
How long shall the footprint of freedom be our graves?
You're hungry, and they give you heads!
You're thirsting and they make you lap up the blood from the steps of the guillotine!
Long live freedom!
The veil of darkness now is torn. The path of freedom is reborn.
The scarlet banner firm in hand, we're marching on.
We sing and march ahead for freedom and for bread.
Join all in freedom's dance and song, united, firm and strong.
There! I see them come! Look! They're coming!
Danton!
Traitor!
Down! Down!
Down! Down!
There is no hatred that surpasses the one that haunts us black and fierce.
It's the folly of the masses which but the sword of truth can pierce...
Back! Back! The children cry, for they are hungry.
We will have to let them watch so that they will stop crying. Make way!
Listen, Danton, you will have to sleep with worms from now on.
Ha ha, with worms!
Herault, your pretty hair will make an elegant wig for us tomorrow!
You cursed witches, soon you all will cry: you mountains, fall upon us!
The mountain fell on your own head, or rather, you fell down from the mountain!
You have shouted yourself hoarse!
Gentlemen, let me be the first to be served.
Good-bye, Danton!
Don't talk so much!
I thought as much; he must reach once more into his ***,
...so that the people down there can see that he possesses clean linen.
Good-bye, Danton!
Good-bye, my friend!
Ah, Danton, I cannot even think of a joke for you!
Then it's time.
Do you want to be more cruel than death?
Can you prevent our heads from kissing down at the bottom of the basket?
Down! Down! Down! Down!
Nothing but a molehill and a bit of grass,
...will become your dwelling ere the day will pass. - A handsome man, this Herault!
When he stood in the Constitution celebration by the arch of triumph, we thought,
...he would look good when he stepped up on the guillotine.
Yes, one must see people in all situations of life.
It's quite a good thing that dying is so publicly done.
"When I go home at night,"
"The moon is shining bright."
Hey, hey there,
...are you ready?
Wait, wait!
"Shining in my ancient father's window."
Say, what takes you so long?
There! Pass me the coat!
"When I go home at night,"
"The moon is shining bright."
I long to sit upon your lap,
...you silent angel of death.
There is a reaper in the land,
...with power from God's own hand.
Uncounted thousands does he call,
...who daily by his sickle fall.
Long live the King!
English subtitle by K. Hashida based on the translation by Ruth and Thomas Martin.