if
for a prize distribution or a funeral oration, exhales a sanctimonious,
collegiate odor which he complacently breathes, and which intoxicates
him. At this moment, he must certainly be in earnest; there is no
hesitation or reserve in his self-admiration; he is not only in his own
eyes a great writer and great orator, but a great statesman and
great citizen his artificial, philosophic conscience awards him
only praise.--But look underneath, or rather wait a moment. Signs of
impatience and antipathy appear behind his back: Lecointre has braved
him openly; numerous insults, and, worse than these, sarcasms, reach his
ears. On such an occasion, and in such a place! Against the pontiff of
Truth, the apostle of Virtue! The miscreants, how dare they! Silent and
pale, he suppresses his rage, and,[31167] losing his balance, closing
his eyes, he plunges headlong on the path of murder: cost what it
will, the miscreants must perish and without loss of time. To expedite
matters, he must get their heads off quietly, and as "up to this time
things have been managed confidentially in the Committee of Public
Safety," he, alone with Couthon, two days after, without informing his
colleagues,[31168] draws up, brings to the Convention, and has passed
the terrible act of Prairial which places everybody's life at his
disposal.--In his crafty, blundering haste, he has demanded too much;
each one, on reflection, becomes alarmed for himself; he is compelled
to back out, to protest that he is misunderstood, admit that
representatives are excepted, and, accordingly, to sheathe the knife he
has already applied to his adversaries throats. But he still holds it
in his grasp. He watches them, and, pretending to retreat, affects
a renunciation, crouched in his corner,[31169] waiting until they
discredit themselves, so as to spring upon them a second time. He has
not to wait long, for the exterminating machine he set up on the 22nd
of Prairial, is in their hands, and it has to work as he planned it,
namely, by making rapid turns and almost haphazard: the odium of a blind
sweeping massacre rests with them; he not only makes no opposition to
this, but, while pretending to abstain from it, he urges it on. Secluded
in the private office of his secret police, he orders arrests;[31170]
he sends out his principal bloodhound, Herman; he first signs and
then dispatches the resolution by which it is supposed that there are
conspirators among those in confinement