“My mother gave much in charity, and all she gave passed through my hands. At eight, I could not endure cruelty, and the sight of it enraged me to madness.
“As a child I was weak, and never did I know the joys of childhood. I was so loved, that I was never punished but once, when eleven, and then unjustly. I sprang from the window of the room in which I was confined, and found liberty in the streets, where, even now, only liberty is to be found.”
He concluded this article:—
“Restored to health, I only thought how I could be useful to the cause of freedom. And yet they accuse me of having sold myself,—I, who could amass millions by merely selling my silence,—I, who am in poverty and want!”
Strange enough, like Robespierre, Marat firmly believed he was an instrument in the hands of God. “The Revolution,” he would say, “is the Gospel, and I am its apostle.”
But all the raving in the world could not hide the fact that France had suddenly become poor. To be rich, was to run the risk of being accused of being an aristocrat. And as all gold and silver was in the hands of the rich, and these were flying from France, the land was actually being drained of specie.
Paper money was issued—a currency which the people mistrusted, as the people always mistrust the unusual; and the Girondists were popularly accused of causing the disappearance of the precious metals.
The walls of popular hate were closing round that score of devoted men.
The aspect of the land was horrible. People feared to go about in anything but rags, dreading to be supposed rich, and therefore only fit to die; land remained uncultivated, for its owners had fled; and the half-destroyed, empty houses of the nobility began falling into ruins. Not a carriage was to be seen, nor a jewel, nor any sign of luxury. All was abject, wretched, debased. The bakers’ shops were almost like prisons (to this day, bakers’ shops in Paris are often barred); and the only prodigality was that of wine, the many years store of which flowed in terrible abundance. It was cheaper than bread, and steeled the heart to pity. Commerce had ceased, and not a sail beyond that of a French fishing-smack was to be seen in the French waters.