shed tears.[31148] But his wildest outbursts are less alarming than his
affected sensibility. The festering grudges, corrosive envies and bitter
scheming which have accumulated in his breast are astonishing. The gall
bladder is full, and the extravasated gall overflows on the dead. He
never tires of re-executing his guillotined adversaries, the Girondists,
Chaumette, Hébert and especially Danton,[31149] probably because Danton
was the active agent in the Revolution of which he was simply the
incapable pedagogue; he vents his posthumous hatred on this still warm
corpse in artful insinuations and obvious misrepresentations. Thus,
inwardly corroded by the venom it distills, his physical machine gets
out of order, like that of Marat, but with other symptoms. When speaking
in the tribune "his hands crisp with a sort of nervous contraction;"
sudden tremors agitate "his shoulders and neck, shaking him convulsively
to and fro."[31150] "His bilious complexion becomes livid," his eyelids
quiver under his spectacles, and how he looks! "Ah," said a Montagnard,
"you would have voted as we did on the 9th of Thermidor, had you seen
his green eyeballs!" "Physically as well as morally," he becomes a
second Marat, suffering all the more because his delirium is not steady,
and because his policy, being a moral one, forces him to exterminate on
a grander scale.
But he is a discreet Marat, of a timid temperament, anxious,[31151]
keeping his thoughts to himself, made for a school-master or a
pleader, but not for taking the lead or for governing, always acting
hesitatingly, and ambitious to be rather the pope, than the dictator
of the Revolution.[31152] Above all, he wants to remain a political
Grandison[31153]; until the very end, he keeps his mask, not only in
public but also to himself and in his inmost conscience. The mask,
indeed, has adhered to his skin; he can no longer distinguish one from
the other; never did an impostor more carefully conceal intentions and
acts under sophisms, and persuade himself that the mask was his face,
and that in telling a lie, he told the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account