He
then addresses the crowd, over and over again, exhorting,
apostrophizing, preaching, elevating his soul to the Supreme Being,
and with what oratorical combinations! What an academic swell of
bombastic cadences, strung together to enforce his tirades! How
cunning the even balance of adjective and substantive![166] From these
faded rhetorical flowers, arranged as if for a prize distribution or a
funeral oration, exhales a sanctimonious, collegiate odor which he
complacently breathes, and which intoxicates him. At this moment, he
must certainly be in earnest; there is no hesitation or reserve in his
self-admiration; he is not only in his own eyes a great writer and
great orator, but a great statesman and great citizen his artificial,
philosophic conscience awards him only praise. - But look underneath,
or rather wait a moment. Signs of impatience and antipathy appear
behind his back: Lecointre has braved him openly; numerous insults,
and, worse than these, sarcasms, reach his ears. On such an occasion,
and in such a place! Against the pontiff of Truth, the apostle of
Virtue! The miscreants, how dare they! Silent and pale, he suppresses
his rage, and,[167] losing his balance, closing his eyes, he plunges
headlong on the path of murder: cost what it will, the miscreants must
perish and without loss of time.
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