He a terrorist! He merely seeks to
simplify the established proceedings, so as to secure a speedier
release of the innocent, the punishment of the guilty, and the final
purgation that is to render liberty and morals the order of the
day.[160] - Before uttering all this he almost believes it, and, when
he has uttered it he believes it fully.[161] When nature and history
combine, to produce a character, they succeed better than man's
imagination. Neither Moli?re in his "Tartuffe," nor Shakespeare in
his " Richard III.," dared bring on the stage a hypocrite believing
himself sincere, and a Cain that regarded himself as an Abel.[162]
There he stands on a colossal stage, in the presence of a hundred
thousand spectators, on the 8th of June, 1794, the most glorious day
of his life, at that f?te in honor of the Supreme Being, which is the
glorious triumph of his doctrine and the official consecration of his
papacy. Two characters are found in Robespierre, as in the Revolution
which he represents: one, apparent, paraded, external, and the other
hidden, dissembled, inward, the latter being overlaid by the former.
- The first one all for show, fashioned out of purely cerebral
cogitations, is as artificial as the solemn farce going on around him.
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