"
Fourcroy, his disciple and horn-blower, is of still thinner stuff.
All are scamps: "I could cite a hundred instances of dishonesty by the
Academicians of Paris, a hundred breaches of trust;" twelve thousand
francs were entrusted to them for the purpose of ascertaining how to
direct balloons, and "they divided it among themselves, squandering it
at the Rap?e, the opera and in brothels."[29] - In the political
world, where debates are battles, it is still worse. Marat's
publication "The Friend of the people" has merely rascals for
adversaries. Praise of Lafayette's courage and disinterestedness, how
absurd If he went to America it was because he was jilted, "cast off
by a Messalina;" he maintained a park of artillery there as "powder-
monkeys look after ammunition-wagons; " these are his only exploits;
besides, he is a thief. Bailly is also a thief, and Mabuet a "clown."
Necker has conceived the "horrible project of starving and poisoning
the people; he has drawn on himself for all eternity the execration of
Frenchmen and the detestation of mankind." - What is the Constituent
Assembly but a set of "low, rampant, mean, stupid fellows?" -
"Infamous legislators, vile scoundrels, monsters athirst for gold and
blood, you traffic with the monarch, with our fortunes, with our
rights, with our liberties, with our lives! " - " The second
legislative corps is no less rotten than the first one.
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