In vain does he work himself up against the condemned and heap insults on them to augment his fury;[31101] I he is dimly conscious of committing a great crime, and his soul, like that of Macbeth, "is full of scorpions." Through a terrible tightening up, he hardens himself against the inborn, hereditary impulses of humanity; these resist while he becomes exasperated, and, to stifle them, there is no other way but to "gorge himself on horrors,"[31102] by adding murder to murder.

For murder, especially as he practices it, that is to say, with a naked sword on defense-less people, introduces into his animal and moral machine two extraordinary and disproportionate emotions which unsettle it, on the one hand, a sensation of omnipotence exercised uncontrolled, unimpeded, without danger, on human life, on throbbing flesh[31103] and, on the other hand, an interest in bloody and diversified death, accompanied with an ever new series of contortions and exclamations;[31104] formerly, in the Roman circus, one could not tear one's self away from it; the spectacle once seen, the spectator always returned to see it again.

Just at this time each prison court is a circus, and what makes it worse is that the spectators are likewise actors .-- Thus, for them, two fiery liquids mingle together in one draught.

To moral intoxication is added physical intoxication, wine in profusion, bumpers at every pause, revelry over corpses; and we see rising out of this unnatural creature the demon of Dante, at once brutal and refined, not merely a destroyer, but, again, an executioner, instigator and calculator of suffering, and radiant and joyous over the evil it accomplishes.
They are merry; they dance around each new corpse, and sing the carmagnole;[31105] they arouse the people of the quarter "to amuse them," and that they may have their share of "the fine fete."[31106] Benches are arranged for "gentlemen" and others for "ladies": the latter, with greater curiosity, are additionally anxious to contemplate at their ease "the aristocrats" already slain; consequently, lights are required, and one is placed on the breast of each corpse .-- Meanwhile, the slaughter continues, and is carried to perfection.

A butcher at the Abbaye[31107] complains that "the aristocrats die too quick, and that those only who strike first have the pleasure of it"; henceforth they are to be struck with the backs of the swords only, and made to run between two rows of their butchers, like soldiers formerly running a gauntlet.