]:--that is, the power which we accord to others, or
which we have over ourselves, cannot exceed the bounds prescribed by
the immutable laws of truth and justice. The united voice of the
whole French nation could not bestow on their representatives a
right to murder or oppress one innocent man.
--Even of these, several have already perished; and in the hands of
Robespierre, and half a dozen others of equal talents and equal atrocity,
but less cunning, center at present all the fruits of so many miseries,
and so many crimes.
In all these conflicts of party, the victory seems hitherto to have
remained with the most artful, rather than the most able; and it is under
the former title that Robespierre, and his colleagues in the Committee of
Public Welfare, are now left inheritors of a power more despotic than
that exercised in Japan.--Robespierre is certainly not deficient in
abilities, but they are not great in proportion to the influence they
have acquired him. They may, perhaps, be more properly called singular
than great, and consist in the art of appropriating to his own advantage
both the events of chance and the labours of others, and of captivating
the people by an exterior of severe virtue, which a cold heart enables
him to assume, and which a profligacy, not the effect of strong passions,
but of system, is easily subjected to. He is not eloquent, nor are his
speeches, as compositions,* equal to those of Collot d'Herbais, Barrere,
or Billaud Varennes; but, by contriving to reserve himself for
extraordinary occasions, such as announcing plots, victories, and systems
of government, he is heard with an interest which finally becomes
transferred from his subject to himself.
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