The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.Carr, John, Sir
History
The stranger in France : $b or, a tour from Devonshire to Paris illustrated by engravings in aqua tint of sketches taken on the spot.
Carr, John, Sir
France -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Description and travel
History, enraged at the review of the insatiable crimes of Robespierre,
has already bestowed upon him a fanciful physiognomy, which she has
composed of features which rather correspond with the ferocity of his
soul, than with his real countenance. From the appearance of this bust,
which is an authentic remblance of him, his face must have been rather
handsome. His features were small, and his countenance must have
strongly expressed animation, penetration and subtlety. This bust is a
real curiosity. It is very likely that not another is now to be found,
Mons. le G---- is permitted to preserve it, without reproach on account
of his art. I can safely say, he does not retain it from any emotions of
veneration for the original. It is worthy of being placed between the
heads of Caligula and Nero. Very near the residence of Mons. le G---- is
the house in which Robespierre lodged. It is at the end of the Rue
Florentine, in the Rue St. Honore, at a wax chandler's. This man is too
much celebrated, not to render every thing which relates to him curious.
The front windows of his former lodgings look towards the Place de la
Concorde, on the right of which his prime minister, the permanent
guillotine, was quartered. Robespierre, who, like the revolting angel,
before the world's formation, appears to have preferred the sceptre of
Hell and chaos, to the allegiance of order and social happiness, will
descend to posterity with no common attributes of distinction and
preeminence. His mind was fully suited to its labours, which, in their
wide sphere of mischief, required more genius to direct them than was
bestowed upon the worst of the tyrants of Rome, and a spirit of evil
which, with its "broad circumference" of guilt, was calculated to darken
the disk of their less expanded enormity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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