Its language already bordered on delirium, and borrowed from the population even their proverbs, their love of trifles, their obscenity, their brutality, and even their oaths, with which the articles were interlarded, as though to impress more forcibly its hatred on the ear of its foes.

Danton, Hebert, and Marat were the first to adopt this tone, these gestures, and these exclamations of the populace, as though to flatter them by imitating their vices.

Robespierre never condescended to this, and never sought to obtain ascendency over the people by pandering to their brutality, but by appealing to their reason; and the fanatical tone of his speeches possessed at least that decency that attends great ideas--he ruled by respect, and scorned to captivate them by familiarity.

The more he gained the confidence of the lower classes, the more did he affect the philosophical tone and austere demeanour of the statesman.

It was plainly perceptible in his most radical propositions, that however he might wish to renew social order he would not corrupt its elements, and that his eyes to emancipate the people was not to degrade them.
III.
It was at this period that the Assembly ordered the removal of Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon: philosophy thus avenged itself on the anathemas that had been thundered forth, even against the ashes of the great innovator.