And, suiting the action to the words, he protruded his tongue at Marat, and made a grimace.
Some of the audience could not avoid laughing.
Marat was mad with rage.
“I again say,” said he, “in my project for our Constitution, that the city is burdened with two hundred thousand poor people. I argue the right of the poor to share.”
“Good!” said Camille. “We are ready; let us plun-plun-plunder!”
“Yes, plunder!” cried Marat, rapidly becoming more and more excited. “When one has nothing, he has a right to take the superfluities of the rich—rather than starve, he has the right to take and devour their palpitating flesh! Let man commit what outrage he likes on his fellow-men—it is no worse than a wolf killing a sheep!”
“Marat has asked for me to be called to order: I ask that he may be called to reason.”
“Why should I have pity on men?” yelled Marat. “Firstly, pity is only a folly, acquired in society. In nature, neither man nor inferior animals know pity. Does Bailly, who tracks me, or Lafayette, who hunts me down, or the National Guards, who seek to slay me, know pity?”
“Who prevents your eating them?” said Camille.
“No, no!” said Marat, sneering at Camille in his turn. “No, I will not eat them; I will leave Lafayette to the women, and will cry unto them, ‘Make him an Abelard!’ I will leave Bailly to the people, and will cry unto them, ‘Hang him, as you have hanged Foulon, as you have hanged Flesselles!’ I will ask for the heads of the National Guards—I will ask for the heads of the aristocrats—I will ask, not for six hundred heads as I did yesterday, but for nineteen thousand four hundred!”