Hence, in all wise monarchies,--nay, in all well-constituted states,--the peculiar care with which channels are opened for every art and every science; hence the honour paid to their cultivators by subtle and thoughtful statesmen, who, perhaps, for themselves, see nothing in a picture but coloured canvas,--nothing in a problem but an ingenious puzzle.No state is ever more in danger than when the talent that should be consecrated to peace has no occupation but political intrigue or personal advancement.Talent unhonoured is talent at war with men.And here it is noticeable, that the class of actors having been the most degraded by the public opinion of the old regime, their very dust deprived of Christian burial, no men (with certain exceptions in the company especially favoured by the Court) were more relentless and revengeful among the scourges of the Revolution.In the savage Collot d'Herbois, mauvais comedien, were embodied the wrongs and the vengeance of a class.
Now the energy of Jean Nicot had never been sufficiently directed to the art he professed.Even in his earliest youth, the political disquisitions of his master, David, had distracted him from the more tedious labours of the easel.The defects of his person had embittered his mind; the atheism of his benefactor had deadened his conscience.For one great excellence of religion--above all, the Religion of the Cross--is, that it raises PATIENCEfirst into a virtue, and next into a hope.Take away the doctrine of another life, of requital hereafter, of the smile of a Father upon our sufferings and trials in our ordeal here, and what becomes of patience? But without patience, what is man?--and what a people? Without patience, art never can be high;without patience, liberty never can be perfected.By wild throes, and impetuous, aimless struggles, Intellect seeks to soar from Penury, and a nation to struggle into Freedom.And woe, thus unfortified, guideless, and unenduring,--woe to both!
Nicot was a villain as a boy.In most criminals, however abandoned, there are touches of humanity,--relics of virtue; and the true delineator of mankind often incurs the taunt of bad hearts and dull minds, for showing that even the worst alloy has some particles of gold, and even the best that come stamped from the mint of Nature have some adulteration of the dross.But there are exceptions, though few, to the general rule,--exceptions, when the conscience lies utterly dead, and when good or bad are things indifferent but as means to some selfish end.
So was it with the protege of the atheist.Envy and hate filled up his whole being, and the consciousness of superior talent only made him curse the more all who passed him in the sunlight with a fairer form or happier fortunes.But, monster though he was, when his murderous fingers griped the throat of his benefactor, Time, and that ferment of all evil passions--the Reign of Blood--had made in the deep hell of his heart a deeper still.Unable to exercise his calling (for even had he dared to make his name prominent, revolutions are no season for painters; and no man--no! not the richest and proudest magnate of the land, has so great an interest in peace and order, has so high and essential a stake in the well being of society, as the poet and the artist), his whole intellect, ever restless and unguided, was left to ponder over the images of guilt most congenial to it.He had no future but in this life; and how in this life had the men of power around him, the great wrestlers for dominion, thriven? All that was good, pure, unselfish,--whether among Royalists or Republicans,--swept to the shambles, and the deathsmen left alone in the pomp and purple of their victims! Nobler paupers than Jean Nicot would despair; and Poverty would rise in its ghastly multitudes to cut the throat of Wealth, and then gash itself limb by limb, if Patience, the Angel of the Poor, sat not by its side, pointing with solemn finger to the life to come! And now, as Nicot neared the house of the Dictator, he began to meditate a reversal of his plans of the previous day: not that he faltered in his resolution to denounce Glyndon, and Viola would necessarily share his fate, as a companion and accomplice,--no, THERE he was resolved! for he hated both (to say nothing of his old but never-to-be-forgotten grudge against Zanoni).Viola had scorned him, Glyndon had served, and the thought of gratitude was as intolerable to him as the memory of insult.But why, now, should he fly from France?--he could possess himself of Glyndon's gold; he doubted not that he could so master Fillide by her wrath and jealousy that he could command her acquiescence in all he proposed.The papers he had purloined--Desmoulins'
correspondence with Glyndon--while it insured the fate of the latter, might be eminently serviceable to Robespierre, might induce the tyrant to forget his own old liaisons with Hebert, and enlist him among the allies and tools of the King of Terror.
Hopes of advancement, of wealth, of a career, again rose before him.This correspondence, dated shortly before Camille Desmoulins' death, was written with that careless and daring imprudence which characterised the spoiled child of Danton.It spoke openly of designs against Robespierre; it named confederates whom the tyrant desired only a popular pretext to crush.It was a new instrument of death in the hands of the Death-compeller.What greater gift could he bestow on Maximilien the Incorruptible?
