calculation of the heads which he demanded amounted to two hundred and
sixty thousand; and though he sometimes raised it as high as three
hundred thousand, it never fell beneath the smaller number. It may be
hoped, and for the honour of human nature we are inclined to believe,
there was a touch of insanity in this unnatural strain of ferocity; and
the wild and squalid features of the wretch appear to have intimated a
degree of alienation of mind. Marat was, like Robespierre, a coward.
Repeatedly denounced in the assembly, he skulked instead of defending
himself, and lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar among his
cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his
death-screech was again heard. Such was the strange and fatal
triumvirate, in which the same degree of cannibal cruelty existed under
different aspects. Danton murdered to glut his rage; Robespierre to
avenge his injured vanity, or to remove a rival whom he envied; Marat,
from the same instinctive love of blood, which induces a wolf to
continue his ravage of the flocks long after his hunger is appeased.

Passing by the horrors of the reign of terror, we shall close the second
volume with a vivid and powerful picture, which we cannot refrain
quoting--


THE DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.

Meantime the convention continued to maintain the bold and commanding
front which they had so suddenly and critically assumed. Upon learning
the escape of the arrested deputies, and hearing of the insurrection at
the Hotel de Ville, they instantly passed a decree outlawing Robespierre
and his associates, inflicting a similar doom upon the mayor of Paris,
the procureur and other members of the commune, and charging twelve of