ometimes made martyrs and heroes.
Rigid principles often do for feeble minds what stays do for feeble
bodies. But Barere had no principles at all. His character was equally
destitute of natural and of acquired strength. Neither in the commerce
of life, nor in books, did we ever become acquainted with any mind so
unstable, so utterly destitute of tone, so incapable of independent
thought and earnest preference, so ready to take impressions and so
ready to lose them. He resembled those creepers which must lean on
something, and which, as soon as their prop is removed, fall down in
utter helplessness. He could no more stand up, erect and self-supported,
in any cause, than the ivy can rear itself like the oak, or the wild
vine shoot to heaven like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely possible
that, under good guidance and in favorable circumstances, such a man
might have slipped through life without discredit. But the unseaworthy
craft, which even in still water would have been in danger of going down
from its own rottenness, was launched on a raging ocean, amidst a storm
in which a whole armada of gallant ships was cast away. The weakest and
most servile of human beings found himself on a sudden an actor in a
Revolution which convulsed the whole civilized world. At first he fell
under the influence of humane and moderate men, and talked the language
of humanity and moderation. But he soon found himself surrounded by
fierce and resolute spirits, scared by no danger and restrained by no
scruple. He had to choose whether he would be their victim or their
accomplice. His choice was soon made. He tasted blood, and felt no
loathing; he tasted it again, and liked it well. Cruelty became with
him, first a habit, then a passion, at last a madness. So complete and
rapid was the degeneracy of his nature that, within a very few months
after the time when he had passed for a good-natured man, he had brought
himself to look on the despair and misery of his fellow creatures with a
glee resembling that of the fiends whom Dante saw watching the pool of
seething pitch in Malebolge. He had many associates in guilt; but he
distinguished himself from them all by the Bacchanalian exultation which
he seemed to feel in the work of death. He was drunk with innocent and
noble blood, laughed and shouted as he butchered, and howled strange
songs and reeled in strange dances amidst the carnage. Then came a
sudden and violent turn of fortune. The miserable