‘I will not have it,’ said Marat impetuously; ‘these are not moments for grotesque imagery. Open thus: “Who are the men that have constituted themselves the judges of immortality? Who are these, clad in shame and cloaked in ignominy, who assume to dispense the glory of a nation? Are these mean tricksters—these fawners on a corrupted court—these slaves of the basest tyranny that ever defaced a nation’s image, to be guardians at the gate of civic honours?”
‘Ah! there it is. It was Marat himself spoke there,’ said one.
‘That was the clink of the true metal,’ said Chaptal.
And now, in the wildest vein of rhapsody, Marat continued to pour forth a strange confused flood of savage invective. For the most part the language was coarse and ill-chosen and the reasoning faulty in the expression, but here and there would pierce through a phrase or an image so graphic or so true as actually to startle and amaze. It was these improvisations, caught up and reproduced by his followers, which constituted the leading articles of his journal. Too much immersed in the active career of his demagogue life to spare time for writing, he gave himself the habit of this high-flown and exaggerated style, which wore, so to say, a mock air of composition.
Pointing to the immense quantity of this sort of matter which his journal contained, Marat would boast to the people of his unceasing labours in their cause, his days of hard toil, his nights of unbroken exertion. He artfully contrasted a life thus spent with the luxurious existence of the pampered ‘rich.’ Such were the first steps of one who journeyed afterward far in crime—such the initial teachings of one who subsequently helped mainly to corrupt a whole people.
A strange impulse of curiosity to see something of these men of whom he had heard so much, influenced Gerald, while he was also in part swayed by the marvellous force of that torrent which never ceased to flow from Marat’s lips. It was a sort of fascination, not the less strong that it imparted a sense of pain.
‘I will see this night’s adventure to the end,’ said he to himself, and he went along with them.
CHAPTER VII. A SUPPER WITH THE ‘FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE’
There is a strange similarity between the moral and the physical evils of life, which extends even to the modes by which they are propagated. We talk of the infection of a fever, but we often forget that prejudices are infinitely more infectious. The poor man, ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clad, destitute, heart-sick, and weary, falls victim to the first epidemic that crosses his path. So with the youth of unfixed faith and unsettled pursuits: he adopts any creed of thought or opinion warm enough to stimulate his imagination and fix his ambition. How few are they in life who have chosen for themselves their political convictions; what a vast majority is it that has adopted the impressions that float around them!