"At  Rome,  an  orator  cried  daily: '  Carthage  must  be  destroyed!
well,  let  a  Jacobin  mount  this  tribune  every  day,  and  say
these  single  words,  '  The  Intrigants  must  be  destroyed ! '  "Who
could  withstand  us?  We  oppose  crime,  and  the  ephemeral
power  of  riches;  but  we  have  truth,  justice,  poverty,  and
virtue  in  our  cause.  With  such  arms,  the  Jacobins  will  soor.
have  to  say:  '  We  had  only  to  pass  on,  they  were  already
extinct.'"  Marat,  who  was  much  more  daring  than  Robes-
pierre, whose  hatred  and  projects  still  concealed  themselves
under  certain  forms,  was  the  patron  of  all  denouncers  and
lovers  of  anarchy.  Several  Mountaineers  reproached  him
with  compromising  their  cause  by  his  extreme  counsels,
and  by  unseasonable  excesses;  but  the  entire  Jacobin  people
supported  him  even  against  Robespierre,  who  rarely  obtained
the  advantage  in  his  disputes  with  him.  The  pillage  recom-
mended in  February,  in  JO  Ami  du  Peuple,  with  respect  to
some  dealers,  '  by  way  of  example,'  took  place,  and  Marat  was
denounced  to  the  convention,  who  decreed  his  accusation  after
a  stormy  sitting.  But  this  decree  had  no  result,  because  the
ordinary  tribunals  had  no  authority.  This  double  effort  of
force  on  one  side,  and  weakness  on  the  other,  took  place  in
the  month  of  February.  More  decisive  events  soon  brought
the  Girondists  to  ruin.
