What! I have not loved her! To live her life, to live for her alone,
to suffer fatigue, hunger, thirst, fever, sleeplessness, and that most
terrible of woes, exile; to brave death at every hour, to risk falling
alive into the hands of those whom my death alone would not suffice to
content; to dare everything, to endure everything for her sake, for
her good, to rescue her from the power of my enemies, who were hers,
to induce her whether she would or not to follow wholesome advice, to
espouse the right cause, to think as I thought myself, with the noblest
and the best, to wish her entirely beautiful and subtle and generous,
to sacrifice for this object alone my possessions, my sons, my
neighbours, my friends; in her interest alone to render myself liberal,
avaricious, faithful, perfidious, magnanimous, criminal, this was not
to love my city! Who loved her, then, if I did not?