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.