The disgusting object of a dead leper was therefore exposed to
the eyes of a metropolis calling itself the most refined and enlightened
of all Europe--
"And what t'oblivion better were consign'd,
Is hung on high to poison half mankind."
I know not whether these lines are most applicable to the display of
Marat's body, or the consecration of his fame, but both will be a lasting
stigma on the manners and morals of Paris.
If the departments, however, take no interest in the loss of Marat, the
young woman who assassinated him has created a very lively one. The
slightest anecdotes concerning her are collected with avidity, and
repeated with admiration; and this is a still farther proof of what you
have heard me advance, that neither patriotism nor humanity has an
abundant growth in this country. The French applaud an act in itself
horrid and unjustifiable, while they have scarcely any conception of the
motive, and such a sacrifice seems to them something supernatural.--The
Jacobins assert, that Charlotte Corday was an emissary of the allied
powers, or, rather, of Mr. Pitt; and the Parisians have the complaisance
to believe, that a young woman could devote herself to certain
destruction at the instigation of another, as though the same principles
which would lead a person to undertake a diplomatic commission, would
induce her to meet death.
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