Nevertheless, more than once, tempted by the opportunity, he has launched it against his designated victim.[31141] He is now himself starting off in quest of living prey; he casts the net of his rhetoric[31142] around it; he fetches it bound to the open jaws; he thrusts aside with an uncompromising air the arms of friends, wives and mothers, the outstretched hands of suppliants begging for lives;[31143] he suddenly throttles the struggling victims[31144] and, for fear that they might escape, he strangles them in time.

Near the end, this is no longer enough; the brute must have grander quarries, and, accordingly, a pack of hounds, beaters-up, and, willingly or not, it is Robespierre who equips, directs and urges them on, at Orange, at Paris,[31145] ordering them to empty the prison's, and be expeditious in doing their work .-- In this profession of slaughtering, destructive instincts, long repressed by civilization, become aroused.

His feline physiognomy, at first "that of a domestic cat, restless but mild, changes into the savage appearance of the wildcat, and close to the ferocious exterior of the tiger.

In the Constituent Assembly he speaks with a whine, in the Convention he froths at the mouth."[31146] The monotonous drone of a stiff sub-professor changes into the personal accent of furious passion; he hisses and grinds his teeth;[31147] Sometimes, on a change of scene, he affects to shed tears.[31148] But his wildest outbursts are less alarming than his affected sensibility.

The festering grudges, corrosive envies and bitter scheming which have accumulated in his breast are astonishing.