[73] Were one of a mocking
humor one might shrug one's shoulders; but, in the present state of
the Convention, there is no room for anything but fear. Launched in
imperious tones, his phrases fall upon their ears in monotonous
strokes, on bowed heads, and, after five or six blows from this leaden
hammer, the stoutest are stretched out stupefied on the ground;
discussion is out of the question; when Saint-Just, in the name of the
Convention, affirms anything, it must be believed; his dissertation is
a peremptory injunction and not an effort of reason; it commands
obedience; it is not open to examination; it is not a report which he
draws from his coat pocket, but a bludgeon.
The other reporter, Bar?re, is of quite another stamp, a "patent-
right" haranguer, an amusing Gascon, alert, "free and easy," fond of a
joke, even on the Committee of Public Safety,[74] unconcerned in the
midst of assassinations, and, to the very last, speaking of the reign
of Terror as "the simplest and most innocent thing in the world."[75]
No man was ever less trammeled by a conscience; in truth, he has
several, that of two days ago, that of the previous day, that of the
present day, that of the morrow, of the following day, and still
others, as many as you like, all equally pliant and supple, at the
service of the strongest against the weakest, ready to swing round at
once on the wind changing, but all joined together and working to one
common end through physical instinct, the only one that lasts in the
immoral, adroit and volatile being who circulates nimbly about, with
no other aim than self-preservation, and to amuse himself.
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