Marat’s face, as David painted him, is that of a North-American Indian with a white skin. The contemporary portraits of Robespierre, on the other hand, represent a mild-mannered man of severe and pensive expression. According to Lamartine, “his forehead was good, but small, and projecting over the temples, as if enlarged by the mass and embarrassed movements of his thoughts. His eyes, much veiled by their lids, and very sharp at the extremities, were deeply buried in the cavities of their orbits; they were of a soft blue color. His nose, straight and small, was very wide at the nostrils, which were high and too expanded. His mouth was large, his lips thin and disagreeably contracted at each corner, his chin small and pointed. His complexion was yellow and livid. The habitual expression of his face was the superficial serenity of a grave mind, and a smile wavering betwixt sarcasm and sweetness. There was _softness_, but of a sinister character. The dominant characteristic of his countenance was the prodigious and continued tension of brow, eyes, mouth, and all the facial muscles.” The masks of Mirabeau, Marat, and Robespierre are known to have been taken, in each case, after death, “by order of the National Assembly.” Those of Marat and Robespierre in my collection are identical with the wax effigies in the “Chamber of Horrors” in Madame Tussaud’s gallery in London, her catalogue asserting that they are “authentic;” and very fine casts of Mirabeau and Marat are in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, the latter hanging under David’s portrait of Marat, painted from nature immediately after the assassination. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: JEAN PAUL MARAT] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: MAXIMILIAN ROBESPIERRE] ------------------------------------------------------------------------