he Revolution demands another interpreter, like itself captivatingly
fitted out, and Robespierre fits the bill,[3181] with his irreproachable
attire, well-powdered hair, carefully brushed coat,[3182] strict habits,
dogmatic tone, and formal, studied manner of speaking. No mind, in its
mediocrity and incompetence, so well harmonizes with the spirit of the
epoch. The reverse of the statesman, he soars in empty space, amongst
abstractions, always mounted on a principle and incapable of dismounting
so as to see things practically.

"That bastard there," exclaims Danton, "is not even able to boil an
egg!"

"The vague generalities of his preaching," writes another
contemporary,[3183] "rarely culminated in any specific measure or legal
provision. He combated everything and proposed nothing; the secret of
his policy happily accorded with his intellectual impotence and with
the nullity of his legislative conceptions." Once he has rattled his
revolutionary pedantry off, he no longer knows what to say.--As to
financial matters and military art, he knows nothing and risks nothing,
except to underrate or calumniate Carnot and Cambon who did know and
who took risks.[3184]--In relation to a foreign policy his speech on
the state of Europe is the amplification of a schoolboy; on exposing
the plans of the English minister he reaches the pinnacle of chimerical
nonsense;[3185] eliminate the rhetorical passages, and it is not the
head of a government who speaks, but the porter of the Jacobin club.
On contemporary France, as it actually exists, he has not one sound or
specific idea: instead of men, he sees only twenty-six millions simple
robots, who, when duly led and organized, will work together in peace
and harmony. Basically they are good,[3186] and will, after a little
necessary purification, become good again. Accordingly, their collective
will is "the voice of reason and public interest," hence, on meeting
together, they are wise. "The people's assembly of delegates should
deliberate, if possible, in the presence of the whole body of the
people;" the Legislative body, at least, should hold its sittings "in
a vast, majestic edifice open to twenty thousand spectators." Note that
for the past four years, in the Constituent Assembly, in the Legislative
Assembly, in the Convention, at the Hotel de-Ville, in the Jacobin Club,
wherever Robespierre speaks, the galleries have never ceased to shout,
yell and express their opinion. Such a posi