Morning journal and courier., 1885-01-19
TaIne on Three Famous Men.

TFrom the Pail Mall Gazette.
 We have received from Messrs. Hachette &
 Go. another volume of M. Taine's 'Les Orig
 ines de la France Contemporaine. ," It is the
 third volume of f'La Revolution," the first
 being ''L'Anarchie," the second 'S'La Con-
 quete Jacobine," and the third 'Le Gouv-
 ernement Revolutionnaire." One of the
 most remarkable books is that in which M.
 Taine describes ''Les Gouvernants," the first
 chapter of which is devoted to the psycholo- BY of the Jacobin chiefs, who, as might have
 been expected, meet with scant mercy at M.
 Taine's hands. Of these men, who, by the
 deformity or distortion of their spirit and
 their heart, have fulfilled, according to our
 author, the conditions necessary to merit
 pre-eminence and to gain authority, three
 stand censpicuous-Marat, Danton and
 Robespierre. First and foremost among
 them stands Marat Of him M. Taine chari-
 tably says: ''He is almost lunatic. He
 possesses all the principal traits of the luna
 tie-the furious exultation, the continued
 over-excitement, the feverish activity, the
 unfailing flow of words, the automatism of thought and the will, lockjawed under the
 constraint and direction of the fixed idea;
 besides he shows the ordinary physical symp- toms-insomnia, a leaden complexion, a burning blood, personal uncleanllness, and,
 during the last five months, letters and itch ings all over his body" In politics he holds with the insane notions of the rabble, ren- dering them more insane still by his coarse Socialistic reasonings, and by adopting the method misled physiologists who found right on physical want, imagining himself the tighter of all wrongs -EfHe is the great po- iitical physician since the commencement of the Revolution his diagnosis has always been sure, his prognostic infallible, his therapeu- tic efficacious, humane and salutary- lie brings the panacea, let him administer 1t; only, in order to effect cure, he must ad- minister it himself. Put, therefore, the pub lie lancet into his hands that he may practice humanitarian bleeding" Every physician will by these traits recognize that Marat IS the victim of "ambitious delirium," well ] known in the asylums. The disease grows I ill it becomes sfhomicidal monomania. % < From the first months of the ReVolu- tion this disease has shown itself in Marat; l it is innate inoculated; knowingly and by principle he has contracted 1t, " and from the beginning to the end of the Revolution he has been the enlightened, daring lunatic among an insane mob, reaching at one bound the pinnacle to which his rivals climbed la boriously after him.
 Far different is it with Danton. There is no sign of lunacy about him; he is the origi- nal genius whom no other man, save Mira beau can equal 'sBut with his mind he is a fanatical pedant, a factitious creature,
 formed by the reading of many books, q
 cart horse employed in mill, where with blinkers before his eyes he walks ronnd and round without aim in an inclosed circle. His. free judgment is not impeded by abstract, prejudices; he has no social contract Ike Rousseau; from such principles and combi-, nations as are dear to Sieyes he has turned instinctively, may be from contempt; he did not need them; he did not know what to do with them Systems arc crutches for the use
 of the impote,2t, and he is in strong health;
 formulse are spectaeles for the skort-sighted,
 and he.has good eyes.p
 But besides these two the Rev solutfon wants
 vet another interpreter, Robespierre, with
 his irreproachable bearing, his well-pow- dered hair and his correct manners. "No