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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

"
Marat: "Well, I did say so; that's my
opinion and I say it again." -
Up to the last he advocates surgical operations. (No. for July 12,
1793, the eve of his death.) Observe what he says on the anti-
revolutionaries. "To prevent them from entering into any new military
body I had proposed at that time, as an indispensable prudent measure,
cutting off their ears, or rather their thumbs." He likewise had his
imitators. (Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 186, Session of the Convention,
April 4, 1796.) Deputies from the popular club of Cette "regret that
they had not followed his advice and cut off three hundred thousand heads."
[43] Danton never wrote or printed a speech. "I am no writer," he
says. (Garat, Memoires," 31.)
[44] Garat, "Memoires," III.: "Danton had given no serious study to
those philosophers who, for a century past, had detected the
principles of social art in human nature. He had not sought in his
own organization for the vast and simple combinations which a great
empire demands. He had that instinct for the grand which constitutes
genius and that silent circumspection which constitutes judgment."
[45] Garat, ibid.


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