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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

At
N?mes; Borie, in the uniform of a representative, along with Courbis,
the mayor, G?ret, the justice and a number of prostitutes, dance the
farandole around the guillotine. At Auch, one of the worst tyrants in
the South, Dartigoyte, always heated with liquor "vomited every species
of obscenity " in the faces of women that came to demand justice; "he
compels, under penalty of imprisonment, mothers to take their daughters
to the popular club," to listen to his filthy preaching; one evening, at
the theatre, probably after an orgy, he shouts at all the women between
the acts, lets loose upon them his smutty vocabulary, and, by way of
demonstration, or as a practical conclusion, ends by stripping himself
naked.[111] - This time, the genuine brute appears. All the clothing
woven during the past centuries and with which civilization had dressed
him, the last drapery of humanity, falls to the ground. Nothing remains
but the primitive animal, the ferocious, lewd gorilla supposed to be
tamed, but which still subsists indefinitely and which a dictatorship,
joined to drunkenness, revives in an uglier guise than in remotest times.

VIII. Delirium.
Approach of madness.


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