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240 tion. Around Robespierre he saw none of the halo, either of worshipping reverence or awe-struck horror, with which either admiration or hatred endowed him. Barras simply saw an enemy who would kill if he weren't killed; he went for the enemy with straight, direct, and clear-eyed simplicity, while others paused, vacillated, and debated; and so was successful where others had failed. Of the two men, Robespierre was in private virtuous, spotless, and the other, in private vices, almost unsurpassable. It is, indeed, the revolt of a corrupt, vicious, laughter-loving man of the world against saintly austerities, that is in action in the fight between Barras and Robespierre; but whatever the faults and crimes of Barras, posterity shares the joy of his contemporaries at his victory over the Sea-green Incorruptible, for it was, after all, the victory of humanity over the pitiless cruelty of a fanatic.

Barras returned to Paris after the successful siege of Toulon, where first he and Napoleon were brought into contact, there were already rumours that he had begun that career of peculation in which he was to surpass all his contemporaries. Robespierre had no toleration for any such form of political crime; and, doubtless,