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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

" - In the
Convention, Roland, "the officious Gilles and the forger Pasquin, is
the infamous head of the monopolizers." " Isnard is a juggler, Buzot a
Tartuffe, Vergniaud a police spy."[30] - When a madman sees everywhere
around him, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, toads,
scorpions, spiders, swarms of crawling, loathsome vermin, he thinks
only of crushing them, and the disease enters on its last stage: after
the ambitious delirium, the mania for persecution and the settled
nightmare, comes the homicidal mania.
With Marat, this broke out at the very beginning of the Revolution.
The disease was innate; he was inoculated with it beforehand. He had
contracted it in good earnest, on principle; never was there a plainer
case of deliberate insanity. - On the one hand, having derived the
rights of man from physical necessities, he concluded, "that society
owes to those among its members who have no property, and whose labor
scarcely suffices for their support, an assured subsistence, the
wherewithal to feed, lodge and clothe oneself suitably, provision for
attendance in sickness and when old age comes on, and for bringing up
children. Those who wallow in wealth must (then) supply the wants of
those who lack the necessaries of life.


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