Just, Monet of Strasbourg, Rousseline of St. Albin, and
Julien of the Dr?me -- in short, the poorly sown and badly cultivated
minds, and on which the theory had only to fall to smother the good
grain and thrive like a nettle. Add to these charlatans and others who
live by their wits, the visionary and morbid of all sorts, from
Fanchet and Klootz to Ch?lier or Marat, the whole of that needy,
chattering, irresponsible crowd, ever swarming about large cities
ventilating its shallow conceits and abortive pretensions. Farther in
the background appear those whose scanty education qualifies them to
half understand an abstract principle and imperfectly deduce its
consequences, but whose roughly-polished instinct atones for the
feebleness of a coarse argumentation. Through cupidity, envy and
rancor, they divine a rich pasture-ground behind the theory, and
Jacobin dogmas become dearer to them, because the imagination sees
untold treasures beyond the mists in which they are shrouded. They can
listen to a club harangue without falling asleep, applaud its tirades
in the rights place, offer a resolution in a public garden, shout in
the tribunes, pen affidavits for arrests, compose orders-of-the-day
for the national guard, and lend their lungs, arms, and sabers to
whoever bids for them.
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