As
soon as someone becomes acquainted with me he is at once calumniated.
Others are forgiven for their fortune, my zeal is considered a crime.
Deprive me of my conscience and I am the most wretched of men. I do
not even enjoy the rights of a citizen. I am not even allowed to
perform my duty as a representative of the people. . . . To the
enemies of my country, to whom my existence seems an obstacle to their
heinous plots, I am ready to sacrifice it, if their odious empire is
to endure. . . . . Let their road to the scaffold be the pathway
of crime, ours shall be that of virtue; let the hemlock be got ready
for me, I await it on this hallowed spot. I shall at least bequeath
to my country an example of constant affection for it, and to the
enemies of humanity the disgrace of my death."
Naturally, and always just like Marat, he sees around himself only "
the perverted, the plotters, the traitors."[129] - Naturally, as with
Marat, common sense with him is perverted, and, like Marat again, he
thinks at random.
"I am not obliged to reflect," said he to Garat, "I always rely on
first impressions."
"For him," says the same authority, "the best reasons are
suspicions,"[130] and naught makes headway against suspicions, not
even the most positive evidence.
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