Already the example begins_: let
it restrain and arrest a _just_ rage. Indignation carried to its height
commences proscriptions which fall only on the _guilty_, but in which
error and particular passions may shortly involve the _honest man_."
He saw that the able artificers in the trade and mystery of murder did
not choose that their skill should be unemployed after their first work,
and that they were full as ready to cut off their rivals as their
enemies. This gave him _one_ alarm that was serious. This letter of
Roland, in every part of it, lets out the secret of all the parties in
this Revolution. _Plena rimarum est; hoc atque illac perfluit_. We see
that none of them condemn the occasional practice of murder,--provided
it is properly applied,--provided it is kept within the bounds which
each of those parties think proper to prescribe. In this case Roland
feared, that, if what was occasionally useful should become habitual,
the practice might go further than was convenient. It might involve the
best friends of the last Revolution, as it had done the heroes of the
first Revolution: he feared that it would not be confined to the La
Fayettes and Clermont-Tonnerres, the Duponts and Barnaves, but that it
might extend to the Brissots and Vergniauds, to the Condorcets, the
Petions, and to himself. Under this apprehension there is no doubt that
his humane feelings were altogether unaffected.
His observations on the massacre of the preceding day are such as cannot
be passed over.
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