As soon as the revolution had assumed a decided movement, great surprise was occasioned by the sudden transformations excited in the inferior walks of the political world.  Marat was one of the most striking examples of these hasty changes of principles.  The Neufchatel physician had shown himself a violent adversary to those opinions that occasioned the convocation of the assembly of Notables, and the national commotion in ’89.  At that time democratical institutions had not a more bitter or more violent censor.  Marat liked it to be believed that in quitting France for England, he fled especially from the spectacle of social renovation which was odious to him.  Yet a month after the taking of the Bastille, he returned to Paris, established a journal, and from its very beginning left far behind him, even those who, in the hope of making themselves remarkable, thought they must push exaggeration to its very farthest limits.  The former connection of Marat with M. de Calonne was perfectly well known; they remembered these words of Pitt’s:  “The French must go through liberty, and then be brought back to their old government by licence;” the avowed adversaries of revolution testified by their conduct, by their votes, and even by their imprudent words, that according to them, the worst was the only means of returning to what they call the good; and yet these instructive comparisons struck only eight or ten members of our great assemblies, so small a share has suspicion in the national character, so painful is distrust to French sincerity.  The historians of our troubles themselves have but skimmed the question that I have just raised—­assuredly a very important and very curious one.  In such matters, the part of a prophet is tolerably hazardous; yet I do not hesitate to predict, that a minute study of the conduct and of the discourses of Marat, would lead the mind more and more to those chapters in a treatise on the chase, wherein we see depicted bad species of falcons and hawks, at first only pursuing the game by a sign from the master, and for his advantage; but by degrees taking pleasure in these bloody struggles, and entering on the sport at last with passion and for their own profit.

Marat took good care not to forget that during a revolution, men, naturally suspicious, act in their more immediate affairs so as to render those persons suspected whose duty it is to watch over them.  The Mayor of Paris, the General Commandant of the National Guard, were the first objects, therefore, at which the pamphleteer aimed.  As an academician, Bailly had an extra claim to his hate.