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In such matters, the part of a prophet is tolerably hazardous; yet I do not hesitate to predict, that a minute study of the conduct and of the discourses of Marat, would lead the mind more and more to those chapters in a treatise on the chase, wherein we see depicted bad species of falcons and hawks, at first only pursuing the game by a sign from the master, and for his advantage; but by degrees taking pleasure in these bloody struggles, and entering on the sport at last with passion and for their own profit.

The king and the dauphin were imprisoned in the second story, and the queen, her young daughter, and the Princess Elizabeth in the story above. The power swiftly passed from Girondists to Jacobins, and a Revolutionary Tribunal was created in charge of the terrible triumvirate Robespierre, Marat, and Danton.

They had some sharp conversation which I did not hear, and Marat finally went away uttering the most insulting threats, and leaving every one in a state of mortal terror. The next day the newsboys were shouting "the discovery of a great plot by Marat, the Friend of the People! Great meeting of Aristocrats at Talmas, etc."

A clever man, not ill-educated a vehement and effective speaker at a club. Vanity and an amorous temperament had made him a conspirator, since he fancied he interested the ladies more in that capacity than any other. His companion, Edgar Ferrier, would have been a journalist, only hitherto his opinions had found no readers; the opinions were those of Marat.

The avowed wickedness of Thuriot or Marat inspires one with horror; but this cold philosophic hypocrite excites contempt as well as detestation. He seems to have wavered between a desire to preserve the reputation of humanity, which he has affected, and that of gratifying the real depravity of his mind.

At the mere sight of Marat, filthy and slovenly, with his livid, frog-like face, with his round, gleaming and fixed eyeballs, and his bold, maniacal stare and steady monotonous rage, common-sense rebels; no-one selects a homicidal maniac as a guide.

Marat remained imperturbable. In a momentary pause, he said: "I have a great number of personal enemies in this assembly. For once let them learn to listen." And this man delivered in the midst of the convention, astounded at his audacity and sangfroid, his views of the proscriptions and of the dictatorship.

In passionate sympathy with the early purposes of the Revolution, Marat seemed to her a monster, the incarnation of the spirit which would defeat the cause of Liberty. It was believed that his list of the proscribed was not confined to Paris, but that the names of thousands of victims all over France were already designated.

She received every morning the reports of the emissaries, followed the intrigues of the conspirators, and was acquainted with the secret assemblies which Marat called together, and the alliances of the clubs. She knew about the calling together of the forty-eight sections of the Paris "fraternity" in one general convention.

Paris went mad with fear and rage. The September massacres, the attacks upon the Tuileries, the proclaimed republicanism of the Convention, the rise of the men of the Mountain, Marat, Danton, and Robespierre, the execution first of the King and then of the Queen, the dominion of the guillotine and the Reign of Terror, were the direct results of a coalition whose only excuse would have been its complete success.