[Dark Saint Alaick]

"None of us will forget the horrors of those bloody days and bloody
nights lit up by the glare of fires, those sobbing women, those little
children's bodies torn to pieces and left lying in the street. But for
all that not one of us thinks that the police and the mob are the real
origin of the evil. These tiny, stupid, loathsome vermin are only a
senseless fist that is governed by a vile, calculating mind, moved by
a diabolical will.

"Yes, gentlemen," the orator continued, "we thieves have nevertheless
merited your legal contempt. But when you, noble gentlemen, need the
help of clever, brave, obedient men at the barricades, men who will be
ready to meet death with a song and a jest on their lips for the most
glorious word in the world--Freedom--will you cast us off then and
order us away because of an inveterate revulsion? Damn it all, the
first victim in the French Revolution was a prostitute. She jumped up
on to a barricade, with her skirt caught elegantly up into her hand
and called out: 'Which of you soldiers will dare to shoot a woman?'
Yes, by God." The orator exclaimed aloud and brought down his fist on
to the marble table top: "They killed her, but her action was
magnificent, and the beauty of her words immortal.