everyone;"[3125] he says, "the patriotic tax-contribution of one-quarter
of all income will produce, at the very least, 4,860 millions, and
perhaps twice that sum." With this sum M. Necker may raise five
hundred thousand men, which he calculates on for the subjugation of
France.--Since the taking of the Bastille, "the municipality's waste
alone amount to two hundred millions. The sums pocketed by Bailly are
estimated at more than two millions; what 'Mottie' (Lafayette) has taken
for the past two years is incalculable."[3126]--On the 15th of November,
1791, the gathering of emigres comprises "at least 120,000 former
gentlemen and drilled partisans and soldiers, not counting the forces of
the German princes about to join them."[3127]--Consequently, as with
his brethren in Bicetre, (a lunatic asylum), he raves incessantly on the
horrible and the foul: the procession of terrible or disgusting phantoms
has begun.[3128] According to him, the scholars who do not choose to
admire him are fools, charlatans and plagiarists. Laplace and Monge are
even "automatons," so many calculating machines; Lavoisier, "reputed
father of every discovery causing a sensation in the world, has not an
idea of his own;" he steals from others without comprehending them, and
"changes his system as he changes his shoes." Fourcroy, his disciple and
horn-blower, is of still thinner stuff. All are scamps: "I could cite a
hundred instances of dishonesty by the Academicians of Paris, a hundred
breaches of trust;" twelve thousand francs were entrusted to them for
the purpose of ascertaining how to direct balloons, and "they divided
it among themselves, squandering it at the Rapee, the opera and in
brothels."[3129]--In the political world, where debates are battles,
it is still worse. Marat's publication "The Friend of the people"
has merely rascals for adversaries. Praise of Lafayette's courage and
disinterestedness, how absurd If he went to America it was because he
was jilted, "cast off by a Messalina;" he maintained a park of artillery
there as "powder-monkeys look after ammunition-wagons; "these are his
only exploits; besides, he is a thief. Bailly is also a thief, and
Mabuet a "clown." Necker has conceived the "horrible project of starving
and poisoning the people; he has drawn on himself for all eternity the
execration of Frenchmen and the detestation of mankind."--What is
the Constituent Assembly but a set of "low, rampant, mean, stupid
fellows?"--"In