But on this fourth day of the Convention’s existence, as we said, which is the 25th of September 1792, there comes Committee Report on that Decree of the Departmental Guard, and speech of repealing it; there come denunciations of anarchy, of a Dictatorship,—­which let the incorruptible Robespierre consider:  there come denunciations of a certain Journal de la Republique, once called Ami du Peuple; and so thereupon there comes, visibly stepping up, visibly standing aloft on the Tribune, ready to speak, the Bodily Spectrum of People’s-Friend Marat!  Shriek, ye Seven Hundred and Forty-nine; it is verily Marat, he and not another.  Marat is no phantasm of the brain, or mere lying impress of Printer’s Types; but a thing material, of joint and sinew, and a certain small stature:  ye behold him there, in his blackness in his dingy squalor, a living fraction of Chaos and Old Night; visibly incarnate, desirous to speak.  “It appears,” says Marat to the shrieking Assembly, “that a great many persons here are enemies of mine.”  “All!  All!” shriek hundreds of voices:  enough to drown any People’s-Friend.  But Marat will not drown:  he speaks and croaks explanation; croaks with such reasonableness, air of sincerity, that repentant pity smothers anger, and the shrieks subside or even become applauses.  For this Convention is unfortunately the crankest of machines:  it shall be pointing eastward, with stiff violence, this moment; and then do but touch some spring dexterously, the whole machine, clattering and jerking seven-hundred-fold, will whirl with huge crash, and, next moment, is pointing westward!  Thus Marat, absolved and applauded, victorious in this turn of fence, is, as the Debate goes on, prickt at again by some dexterous Girondin; and then and shrieks rise anew, and Decree of Accusation is on the point of passing; till the dingy People’s-Friend bobs aloft once more; croaks once more persuasive stillness, and the Decree of Accusation sinks, Whereupon he draws forth—­a Pistol; and setting it to his Head, the seat of such thought and prophecy, says:  “If they had passed their Accusation Decree, he, the People’s-Friend, would have blown his brains out.”  A People’s Friend has that faculty in him.  For the rest, as to this of the two hundred and sixty thousand Aristocrat Heads, Marat candidly says, “C’est la mon avis, such is my opinion.”  Also it is not indisputable:  “No power on Earth can prevent me from seeing into traitors, and unmasking them,”—­by my superior originality of mind? (Moniteur Newspaper, Nos. 271, 280, 294, Annee premiere; Moore’s Journal, ii. 21, 157, &c. which, however, may perhaps, as in similar cases, be only a copy of the Newspaper.) An honourable member like this Friend of the People few terrestrial Parliaments have had.