same small
well-spring; which will swell and widen into waters of bitterness; all
manner of subsidiary streams and brooks of bitterness flowing in, from
this side and that; till it become a wide river of bitterness, of
rage and separation,--which can subside only into the Catacombs.
This Departmental Guard, decreed by overwhelming majorities, and then
repealed for peace's sake, and not to insult Paris, is again decreed
more than once; nay it is partially executed, and the very men that are
to be of it are seen visibly parading the Paris streets,--shouting once,
being overtaken with liquor: "A bas Marat, Down with Marat!" (Hist.
Parl. xx. 184.) Nevertheless, decreed never so often, it is repealed
just as often; and continues, for some seven months, an angry noisy
Hypothesis only: a fair Possibility struggling to become a Reality, but
which shall never be one; which, after endless struggling, shall, in
February next, sink into sad rest,--dragging much along with it. So
singular are the ways of men and honourable Members.

But on this fourth day of the Convention's existence, as we said, which
is the 25th of September 1792, there comes Committee Report on that
Decree of the Departmental Guard, and speech of repealing it; there
come denunciations of anarchy, of a Dictatorship,--which let the
incorruptible Robespierre consider: there come denunciations of a
certain Journal de la Republique, once called Ami du Peuple; and so
thereupon there comes, visibly stepping up, visibly standing aloft on
the Tribune, ready to speak, the Bodily Spectrum of People's-Friend
Marat! Shriek, ye Seven Hundred and Forty-nine; it is verily Marat,
he and not another. Marat is no phantasm of the brain, or mere lying
impress of Printer's Types; but a thing material, of joint and sinew,
and a certain small stature: ye behold him there, in his blackness in
his dingy squalor, a living fraction of Chaos and Old Night; visibly
incarnate, desirous to speak. "It appears," says Marat to the shrieking
Assembly, "that a great many persons here are enemies of mine." "All!
All!" shriek hundreds of voices: enough to drown any People's-Friend.
But Marat will not drown: he speaks and croaks explanation; croaks with
such reasonableness, air of sincerity, that repentant pity smothers
anger, and the shrieks subside or even become applauses. For this
Convention is unfortunately the crankest of machines: it shall be
pointing eastward, with stiff violence, this moment;