In the beginning of the Revolution, his very crimes made him an acceptable associate of Marat, who, with the money advanced by the Orleans faction, bought him a printing-office, and he printed the so dreadfully well-known journal, called ‘L’Amie du Peuple’.  From the principles of this atrocious paper, and from those of his sanguinary patron, he formed his own political creed.  He distinguished himself frequently at the clubs of the Cordeliers, and of the Jacobins, by his extravagant motions, and by provoking laws of proscription against a wealth he did not possess, and against a rank he would have dishonoured, but did not see without envy.  On the 30th of June, 1791, he said, in the former of these clubs: 

“We hear everywhere complaints of poverty; were not our eyes so often disgusted with the sight of unnatural riches, our hearts would not so often be shocked at the unnatural sufferings of humanity.  The blessings of our Revolution will never be felt by the world, until we in France are on a level, with regard to rank as well as to fortune.  I, for my part, know too well the dignity of human nature ever to bow to a superior; but, brothers and friends, it is not enough that we are all politically equal, we must also be all equally rich or equally poor—­we must either all strive to become men of property, or reduce men of property to become sans-culottes.  Believe me, the aristocracy of property is more dangerous than the aristocracy of prerogative or fanaticism, because it is more common.  Here is a list sent to ‘L’ Amie du People’, but of which prudence yet prohibits the publication.  It contains the names of all the men of property of Paris, and of the Department of the Seine, the amount of their fortunes, and a proposal how to reduce and divide it among our patriots.  Of its great utility in the moment when we have been striking our grand blows, nobody dares doubt; I, therefore, move that a brotherly letter be sent to every society of our brothers and friends in the provinces, inviting each of them to compose one of similar contents and of similar tendency, in their own districts, with what remarks they think proper to affix, and to forward them to us, to be deposited, in the mother club, after taking copies of them for the archives of their own society.”

His motion was decreed.

Two days afterwards, he again ascended the tribune.  “You approved,” said he, “of the measures I lately proposed against the aristocracy of property; I will now tell you of another aristocracy which we must also crush—­I mean that of religion, and of the clergy.  Their supports are folly, cowardice, and ignorance.  All priests are to be proscribed as criminals, and despised as impostors or idiots; and all altars must be reduced to dust as unnecessary.  To prepare the public mind for such events, we must enlighten it; which can only be done by disseminating extracts from ‘L’ Amie du People’, and other philosophical publications.  I have here some ballads of my own composition, which have been sung in my quarter; where all superstitious persons have already trembled, and all fanatics are raving.  If you think proper, I will, for a mere trifle, print twenty thousand copies of them, to be distributed and disseminated gratis all over France.”