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diff --git a/old/68582-0.txt b/old/68582-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 10bc8db..0000000 --- a/old/68582-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16275 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Danton, by Hilaire Belloc - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Danton - A study - -Author: Hilaire Belloc - -Release Date: July 21, 2022 [eBook #68582] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Mark C. Orton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANTON *** - - - - - - - DANTON - - A STUDY - - BY - HILAIRE BELLOC, B.A. - LATE BRACKENBURY SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, - OXFORD - - New York - CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS - 1899 - - - - - TO - - ANTHONY HENLEY - - - - -PREFACE - - -An historian of just pre-eminence in his university and college, in a -little work which should be more widely known, has summed up the two -principal characters of the Revolution in the following phrases: “the -cold and ferocious Robespierre, the blatant Danton.”[1] The judgment is -precipitate and is tinged with a certain bias. - -An authority of still greater position prefaces his notebook on the -Revolution by telling us that he is going to describe the beast.[2] The -learned sectarian does not conceal from his readers the fact that a -profound analysis had led to a very pronounced conviction. So certain is -he of his ground, that he treats with equal consideration the evidence -of printed documents, of autograph letters, and of a chance stranger -speaking in a country inn of a thing that had happened forty years before. - -The greatest of French novelists and a principal poet has given us in -“Quatre-vingt-treize” a picture moving and living. Yet even in that -work much is admitted, for the sake of contrast and colour, which no -contemporary saw. The dialogue between Danton and Marat, with its -picturesque untruths, is an example.[3] - -If facts so conflicting be stated as true by men of such various calibre, -it would seem a very difficult task to write history at all. Yet there is -a method which neither excludes personal conviction, nor necessitates -the art of deceit, nor presupposes a primitive ignorance. - -It is to ascertain what is positively known and can be proved, and with -the facts so gathered—only with these—to paint a picture as vivid as -may be; on a series of truths—with research it grows to respectable -proportions—to base a conviction, general, wide, and capable of constant -application, as to the character of a period or of a man. - -Such was the method of Fustel de Coulanges, and on his model there -has arisen from the minute, the sometimes pedantic accuracy of French -scholars, a school which is the strongest in Europe. - -The method I have been describing has also this advantage, that the least -learned may enter upon such a path without confusion and may progress, -and that a book of no pretensions can yet, by following these rules, at -least avoid untruth. With inferior tools, and on an over-rough plan, I -shall yet attempt in this life of Danton to follow the example. - -The motto which is printed at the head of this book, and which is -borrowed from the most just of biographers, must give a note to the -whole of my description. What was the movement which founded our modern -society? what were its motives, its causes of action, its material -surroundings? And what was the man who, above all others, represented -that spirit at its most critical moment? - -To find a right answer to such questions it is necessary to do two things. - -First, we must make the sequence of cause and effect reasonable. In -giving an explanation or in supposing a motive, we must present that -which rational men, unbiassed, will admit. To put in the same character -irreconcilable extremes is to leave no picture. To state a number of -facts so that no thread connects them, so that they surprise by contrast -but leave only confusion in the mind, is a kind of falsehood. It is the -method most adopted by partisans; they frame a theory upon the lines -of which such and such facts will lie, but they omit, or only mention -as anomalies, facts which are equally true, but which would vitiate -their conclusions. We must (to use a mathematical metaphor) _integrate_ -the differentials of history; make a complete and harmonious whole of a -hundred aspects; strike a curve which shall unite in a regular fashion -what has appeared as a number of scattered points. Till we can say, “This -man—seeing all his character and innumerable known acts—_could not_ -have acted as such and such a report would have us believe;” or again, -till we can say, “This epoch, with its convictions, its environment, -its literature, _could not_ have felt the emotions which such and such -an historian lends it,”—till we can say this, we do not understand a -personality or a period. - -In the second place, we must recognise in all repeated and common -expressions of conviction, and in all the motives of a time of action, -some really existing ideal. There was a conviction common to many -thousands of Parliamentarians in the earlier stages of the English Civil -War. There was a genuine creed in the breasts of the well-paid Ironsides -of its later period. There was a real loyalty and an explicable theory of -kingship in the camp of Charles the First. - -So in the period of which we deal there was a clear doctrine of political -right, held by probably the strongest intellects, and defended by -certainly the most sustained and enthusiastic courage that ever adorned -a European nation. We must recognise the soul of a time. For were there -not a real necessity for sympathy with a period which we study, were -it possible for us to see entirely from without, with no attempt to -apprehend from within, then of many stupendous passages in history we -should have to assert that all those who led were scoundrels, that all -their lives were (every moment of them) a continuous piece of consummate -acting; that our enemies, in fine, were something greater and more wicked -than men. We should have to premise that all the vigour belonged to the -bad, and all the ineptitude to the good, and separate humanity into two -groups, one of righteous imbeciles, and the other of genius sold to hell. -No one would wish, or would be sincerely able to place _himself_ in -either category. - -We must postulate, then, of the Revolution that which Taine ridiculed, -that for which Michelet lived, and that which Carlyle never grasped—the -Revolutionary idea. And we must read into the lives of all the actors -in that drama, and especially of the subject of this book, some general -motive which is connected with the creed of the time. We must make his -actions show as a consonant whole—as a man’s—and then, if possible, -determine his place in what was not an anarchic explosion, but a regular, -though a vigorous and exceedingly rapid development. - -A hundred difficulties are at once apparent in undertaking a work of this -nature. It is not possible to give a detailed history of the Revolution, -and yet many facts of secondary importance must be alluded to. It is -necessary to tell the story of a man whose action and interest, nay, -whose whole life, so far as we know it, lies in less than five years. - -Danton’s earlier life is but a fragmentary record, collected by several -historians with extreme care, and only collected that it may supplement -our knowledge of his mature career. The most laborious efforts of his -biographers have found but a meagre handful of the facts for which they -searched; nor does any personal inquiry at his birthplace, from what is -left of his family or in his papers, augment the materials: the research -has been thoroughly and finally made before this date, and its results, -such as they are, I have put together in the second chapter of this book. - -He does not even, as do Robespierre, Mirabeau, and others, occupy the -stage of the Revolution from the first. - -Till the nation is attacked, his rôle is of secondary importance. We have -glimpses more numerous indeed, and more important, of his action after -than before 1789. But it is only in the saving of France, when the men of -action were needed, that he leaps to the front. Then, suddenly, the whole -nation and its story becomes filled with his name. For thirteen months, -from that 10th of August 1792, which he made, to the early autumn of the -following year, Danton, his spirit, his energy, his practical grasp of -things as they were, formed the strength of France. While the theorists, -from whom he so profoundly differed, were wasting themselves in a kind -of political introspection, he raised the armies. When the orators could -only find great phrases to lead the rage against Dumouriez’ treason, he -formed the Committee to be a dictator for a falling nation. All that was -useful in the Terror was his work; and if we trace to their very roots -the actions that swept the field and left it ready for rapid organisation -and defence, then at the roots we nearly always find his masterful and -sure guidance. - -There are in the Revolution two features, one of which is almost peculiar -to itself, the other of which is in common with all other great crises in -history. - -The first of these is that it used new men and young men, and -comparatively unknown men, to do its best work. If ever a nation -called out men as they were, apart from family, from tradition, from -wealth, and from known environment, it was France in the Revolution. -The national need appears at that time like a captain in front of his -men in a conscript army. He knows them each by their powers, character, -and conduct. But they are in uniform; he cares nothing for their family -or their youth; he makes them do that for which each is best fitted. -This feature makes the period unique, and it is due to this feature -that so many of the Revolutionary men have no history for us before the -Revolution. It is this feature which makes their biographies a vividly -concentrated account of action in months rather than in years. They come -out of obscurity, they pass through the intense zone of a search-light; -they are suddenly eclipsed upon its further side. - -The second of these features is common to all moments of crisis. Months -in the Revolution count as years, and this furnishes our excuse for -giving as a biography so short a space in a man’s life. But it is just -so to do. In every history a group of years at the most, sometimes a -year alone, is the time to be studied day by day. In comparison with the -intense purpose of a moment whole centuries are sometimes colourless. - -Thus in the political history of the English thirteenth century, the -little space from the Provisions of Oxford to the battle of Evesham -is everything; in the study of England’s breach with the Continental -tradition, the period between the Ridolphi plot and the Armada; in the -formation of the English oligarchy, the crisis of April to December 1688. - -This second feature, the necessity for concentration, would excuse a -special insistence on the two years of Danton’s prominence, even if his -youth were better known. The two conditions combined make imperative such -a treatment as I have attempted to follow. - -As to authorities, three men claim my especial gratitude, for the work in -this book is merely a rearrangement of the materials they have collected. -They are Dr. Bougeart, who is dead (and his clear Republicanism brought -upon him exile and persecution); M. Aulard, the greatest of our living -writers on the Revolutionary period; and Dr. Robinet, to whose personal -kindness, interest, and fruitful suggestion I largely owe this book. The -keeper of the Carnavalet has been throughout his long and laborious life -the patient biographer of Danton, and little can now be added to the -research which has been the constant occupation of a just and eminent -career. - -We must hope, in spite of his great age, to have from his hands some -further work; for he is one of those many men who have given to the -modern historical school of France, amid all our modern verbiage and -compromise, the strength of a voice that speaks the simple truth. - - - - -DANTON - -A STUDY - - - - -[Illustration: _This Portrait is presumably a David, both from its -style and from the fact that it is the companion picture to that of -Madame Danton which is certainly by that master. Its date is either the -Autumn of 1792 or possibly early 1793. It is mentioned by Madame Chapin, -Danton’s sister-in-law, in a letter which she writes during the Empire -to the two boys, Danton’s sons: she says “I am sending you the portrait -of your Father ... it has been retouched ... the coat especially has -been made dark-blue, as that is the colour he ordinarily wore. Madame -Dupin,” (Danton’s second wife) “has just seen it and calls it a striking -likeness.” Both this letter and the picture are in the possession of Dʳ -Robinet, to whom they were given by Danton’s grand-daughter & by whose -permission this portrait is reproduced._] - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - PREFACE vii - - I. THE REVOLUTION 1 - - II. THE YOUTH OF DANTON 40 - - III. DANTON AT THE CORDELIERS 57 - - IV. THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY 114 - - V. THE REPUBLIC 171 - - VI. THE TERROR 211 - - VII. THE DEATH OF DANTON 249 - - VIII. ROBESPIERRE 282 - - APPENDICES— - - I. NOTE ON THE CORDELIERS 321 - - II. NOTE ON CERTAIN SITES MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK 327 - - III. NOTE ON THE SUPPOSED VENALITY OF DANTON 331 - - IV. NOTE ON DANTON’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MASSACRES OF - SEPTEMBER 340 - - V. SHORT MEMOIR BY A. R. C. DE ST. ALBIN 347 - - VI. EXTRACTS SHOWING REIMBURSEMENT OF DANTON’S OFFICE 365 - - VII. EXTRACTS CONCERNING DANTON’S HOUSEHOLD 373 - - VIII. CATALOGUE OF DANTON’S LIBRARY 380 - - IX. EXTRACTS FROM THE MEMOIR WRITTEN IN 1846 BY THE SONS OF - DANTON 384 - - X. NOTES OF TOPINO-LEBRUN, JUROR OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL 395 - - XI. REPORT OF THE FIRST COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY 403 - - INDEX 430 - - - - -THE LIFE OF DANTON - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE REVOLUTION - - -Before writing a life of Danton in English it is necessary to do three -things. First, to take a definite point of view with regard to the whole -revolutionary movement; secondly, to explain, so far as is possible, the -form which it took in France; thirdly, to show where Danton stood in the -scheme of events, the nature of his personality, the effects of his brief -action. This triple task is necessary to a book which, but for it, would -be only a string of events, always confused, often without meaning. - -What was the Revolution? It was essentially a reversion to the normal—a -sudden and violent return to those conditions which are the necessary -bases of health in any political community, which are clearly apparent in -every primitive society, and from which Europe had been estranged by an -increasing complexity and a spirit of routine. - -It has never been denied that the process of gradual remoulding is a -part of living, and all admit that the State (which lives like any other -thing) must suffer such a process as a condition of health. There is in -every branch of social effort a necessity for constant reform and check: -it is apparent to the administrator of every kind: it is the business of -a politician continually to direct and apply such correction:—the whole -body of the law of England is a collection of the past results of this -guiding force. - -But what are the laws that govern it? What is the nature of the condition -that makes reform imperative? What distinguishes the good from the bad in -the matter of voluntary change, and separates the conservative from the -destructive effort? - -It is in the examination of this problem that we may discover how great a -debt the last century owed to nature—a debt which demanded an immediate -liquidation, and was often only paid at the expense of violence. - -It would seem that the necessity of reform arises from this, that our -ideas, which are eternal, find themselves expressed in phrases and -resulting in actions which belong to material environment—an environment, -therefore, that perpetually changes in form. It is not to be admitted -that the innermost standards of the soul can change; if they could, the -word “reform” would lose all moral meaning, and a thing not being good -would cease to be desired. But the meaning of words, the effect on the -senses of certain acts, the causes of pleasure and pain in a society, the -definition of nationality—all these things of their nature change without -ceasing, and must as ceaselessly be brought into accordance with the -unchanging mind. - -What test can be applied by which we may know whether a reform is working -towards this rectification or not? None, except the general conviction -of a whole generation that this or that survival obstructs the way of -right living, the mere instinct of justice expressed in concrete terms -on a particular point. It is by this that the just man of any period -feels himself bound. This is not a formula: it seems a direction of the -loosest and of the most useless kind; and yet to observe it is to keep -the State sane, to neglect it is to bring about revolution. This much is -sure, that where there exists in a State a body of men who are determined -to be guided by this vague sense of justice, and who are in sufficient -power to let it frame their reforms, then these men save a State and -keep it whole. When, on the contrary, those who make or administer the -laws are determined to abide by a phrase or a form, then the necessities -accumulate, the burden and the strain become intolerable, and the -gravitation towards the normal standard of living, which should act as a -slight but permanent force, acts suddenly at a high potential and with -destructive violence. - -As an example of the time when the former and the better conditions -prevailed, I would cite the period between the eleventh and the -fourteenth centuries, when a change of the most fundamental kind -passed over the society of Europe, indeed a change from barbarism to -civilisation, and yet the whole went well. Reform, being continual, was -easy. New institutions, the Parliaments, the Universities, the personal -tax, rose as they were demanded, and the great transition was crowned -with the security and content that surrounded St. Louis. Simplicity, that -main condition of happiness, was the governing virtue of the time. The -king ruled, the knight fought, the peasant dug in his own ground, and the -priest believed. - -It is the lack of simplicity that makes of the three centuries following -the fifteenth (with vices due perhaps to the wickedness of the fifteenth) -an opposite example. Every kind of phrase, emblem, or cloak is kept; -every kind of living thing is sacrificed. Conditions cease to be -flexible, and the body of Europe, which after all still breathes, is shut -in with the bonds of the lawyers, and all but stifled. - -In the sixteenth century one would say that the political quarrels of -the princes were a mere insult to nature, but the people, though they are -declining, show that they still exist; the passions of their religions -enliven the dead game of the Tudors and the Valois. In the seventeenth -the pedants give their orders, the upper classes fight the princes, the -people are all but silent. Where were they in the Fronde, or in that less -heroic struggle the Parliamentary Wars? As the eighteenth century falls -further and further into decay all is gone; those who move in comfort -above the souls which they have beneath them for a pavement, the rich and -the privileged, have even ceased to enjoy their political and theological -amusements; they are concerned only with maintaining their ease, and to -do this they conjure with the name of the people’s memories. - -They build ramparts of sacred tombs, and defend themselves with the bones -of the Middle Ages, with the relics of the saint and the knight. - -It is this which necessitates and moulds the Revolution. The privileged -men, the lawyers especially, held to the phrase. They excused themselves -in a time most artificial by quoting the formulæ of a time when life was -most natural and when the soul was nearest the surface. They used the -name of the Middle Ages precisely because they thought the Middle Ages -were dead, when suddenly the spirit of the Middle Ages, the spirit of -enthusiasm and of faith, the Crusade, came out of the tomb and routed -them. - -I say, then, that the great disease of the time preceding the Revolution -came from the fact that it had kept the letter and forgotten the spirit. -It continued to do the same things as Europe at its best—it had entirely -neglected to nourish similar motives. Let me give an extreme example. -There are conditions under which to burn a man to death seems admissible -and just. When offences often occur which society finds heinous beyond -words, then no punishment seems sufficient for the satisfaction of the -emotion which the crime arouses. Thus during the Middle Ages (especially -in the latter part of their decay), and sometimes in the United States -to-day, a man is burned at the stake. But there are other conditions -under which a society shrinks with the greatest horror from such a -punishment. Security is so well established, conviction in this or that -so much less firm, the danger from the criminal so much less menacing, -that the idea of such an extreme agony revolts all men. Then to burn is -wrong, because it is unnecessary and undesired. But let us suppose the -lawyers to be bent on a formula, tenacious from habit and become angrily -tenacious from opposition, saying that what has been shall be; and what -happens? The Parliament of Strasbourg condemns a man to be burnt while -the States General are actually in session in 1789! - -Again, take the example of the land. There was a time when the relations -of lord and serf satisfied the heart. The village was a co-operative -community: it needed a protector and a head. Even when such a need was -not felt, the presence of a political personage, at the cost of a regular -and slight tax, the natural affection which long habit had towards a -family and a name—these made the relation not tolerable, but good. But -when change had conquered even the permanent manorial unit, and the -serf owned severally, tilling his private field; when the political -position of the lord had disappeared, and when the personal tie had -been completely forgotten—then the tax was folly. It was no longer the -symbol of tenure drawn in a convenient fashion, taken right out of the -cornfield from a primitive group of families; it had become an arbitrary -levy, drawn at the most inconvenient time, upsetting the market and the -harvest, and falling on a small farmer who worked painfully at his own -plot of ground. - -It is difficult to explain to English readers how far this deadening -conservatism had been pushed on the Continent. The constitution of -England and the habits of her lawyers and politicians were still, for all -their vices, the most flexible in Europe. Even Pitt could tinker at the -representative system, and an abominable penal code could be softened -without upsetting the whole scheme of English criminal law. To this day -we notice in England the most fundamental changes introduced, so to -speak, into an unresisting medium: witness those miniature revolutions, -the Income Tax and Employers’ Liability, which are so silent, and which -yet produce results so immeasurable. - -It has always been a difficulty in writing of the Revolution for English -readers, that in England the tendency to reform, though strong, was not -irresistible. It was a desire, but it was not a necessity, and that on -account of the quality which has just been mentioned, the lack of form -and definition in the English constitution and legal habit. - -But if we go a little deeper we shall see a further cause. Nothing will -so deaden the common sense of justice in a legislator or a lawyer, -nothing will separate him so much from the general feeling of his time, -as distinction of class from class. When a man cannot frequently meet -and sympathise with every kind of man about him, then the State lacks -homogeneity; the general sentiment is unexpressed, because it has no -common organ of expression, and you obtain in laws and legal decisions -not the living movement of the citizens, but the dead traditions of a few. - -Now by a peculiar bent of history, the stratification of society which is -so natural a result of an old civilisation, was less marked in England -than elsewhere in Europe. The society of the Continent is not more -homogeneous to-day, as contrasted with that of modern England, than was -the society of England a hundred years ago, as contrasted with that of -the Continent then; and any English traveller who is wise enough to note -in our time the universal type of citizen in France, will experience -something of the envy that Frenchmen felt when they noted the solid -England of the eighteenth century. There great lawyers were occasionally -drawn from the people; there a whole mass of small proprietors in land -or capital—half the people perhaps—kept the balance of the State, and -there a fluctuating political system could, for all its corruption, find -a place for the young bourgeois Wolfe to defeat the great gentleman -Montcalm. - -But while in England reform was possible (though perhaps it has been -fatally inadequate), in the rest of Europe it was past all hope. -Everywhere there must be organs of government, and these on the Continent -could no longer be changed, whether for better or worse: they had become -stiff with age, and had to be supplanted. Now to supplant the fundamental -organs of government, to make absolutely new laws and to provide an -absolutely new machinery—all this is to produce a violent revolution. - -You could not reform such a body as the Châtelet, nor replace by a series -of statutes or of decisions such a mass as the local coûtumes. Not even -a radical change in the system of taxation would have made the noblesse -tolerable; no amount of personal energy nor any excellence of advisers -could save a king enveloped with the mass of etiquette at Versailles. -These numerous symptoms of the lethargy that had overtaken European -society, even the disease itself, might have been swept away by a sharp -series of vigorous reforms. Indeed, some of these reforms were talked of, -and a few actually begun in the garrulous courts of Berlin and of St. -Petersburg. Such reforms would have merited, and would have obtained, the -name of Revolution, but they might have passed without that character -of accompanying excess which has delayed upon every side the liberties -of Europe. We should be talking of the old regime and of the Revolution -as we do now, but the words would have called up a struggle between old -Parliaments and young legists, between worn-out customs and new codes, -between the kings of etiquette and the kings of originality, between -sleep and the new science; the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries -would have been united by some curious bridge—not separated by an abyss. - -As it is, the word Revolution recalls scenes almost as violent as those -which marked the transition of Rome from the Republic to the Empire. -We remember the name not of Condorcet but of Marat: in place of the -divided Europe and complicated struggle which (on the analogy of the -Reformation) should have attended a movement upon which sympathy was so -evenly divided, in place of a series of long, desultory campaigns, you -have a violent shock of battle between the French and every government -in Europe; you have the world outlawing a people; you have, as a direct -consequence of such a pressure, the creation of a focus from whose -extreme heat proceeds the conquering energy of Napoleon. Blows terrible -and unexpected are struck in the first four years of the war, and there -appears in 1796 a portent—the sword that was not broken until it had cut -down and killed the old society of the West. - -To all these accidents which flow from the form the Revolution took, one -more must be added, and that the most important. The shock was of such -violence that all the old bonds broke. I mean the permanent things which -hold society together, not the dead relics, which would in any case have -disappeared. - -Many great changes have passed over Europe and have left the fundamentals -untouched; the Revolution, which might so easily have remoulded the -shape of society, did more and possibly worse: it rebuilt from the -foundations. How many unquestioned dogmas were suddenly brought out into -broad daylight! All our modern indecision, our confused philosophies, -our innumerable doubts, spring from that stirring of the depths. Is -property a right? May men own land? Is marriage sacred? Have we duties -to the State, to the family? All these questions begin to be raised. A -German Pole has denied the sequence of cause and effect. Occasionally a -man suddenly rises and asks, “Is there a God?” There is nothing left in -reserve for the amusement of posterity. - -Well, this unexampled violence, which, like the wind on the Red Sea, has -bared for a moment things that had lain hidden for centuries—this war of -twenty years and its results were due to the fact that the Revolution, -which might have started in a different form from almost any European -centre, started as fact from France. - -That France was the agent of the reform is the leading condition of the -whole story, for it was her centralisation that made the change so rapid -and so effectual, her temperament that framed the abstract formulæ which -could spread like a religion, her political position in Europe that led -to the crusade against her; and this war in its turn (acting on a Paris -that led and governed the nation) produced all the further consequences -of the Revolution from the Terror to Waterloo. - -Let us examine the conditions of the Revolution as a purely French thing, -see what it was that made it break out when it did, what guided its -course, what gave Paris its position, what led to the wars and the Terror. - -In the first place, the causes of the Revolutionary movement in France. -They were two: First, the immediate material necessity for reform which -coincided with the Revolutionary period; secondly, the philosophy which -had permeated society for a generation, and which, when once a change was -undertaken, guided and controlled the development of that change. - -As for the material circumstances that led to so urgent a necessity for -reform, they may be stated as follows:—The governmental machinery, which -had been growing more and more inefficient, had finally broken down; and -this failure had been accelerated by a series of natural accidents, the -most prominent among them being two successive years of scarcity. - -Now why was France alone in such a deplorable condition? Why was she all -but bankrupt, her navy in rapid decay, her armies ill-clothed, ill-fed, -in arrears of pay? Why could Arthur Young, observant, honest, and inept, -make his tour through France (in which the mass of accurate detail is -balanced by so astounding a misconception of French society[4]), and in -that book describe the land going out of cultivation, the peasant living -on grass, the houses falling down, the roads impassable? The answer is -discovered in the very causes that led to the past greatness of the -country. Because France alone in Europe was a vast centralised body—a -quality which had made the reign of Louis XIV.; because centralisation -could not continue to work under the old regime—a condition which led to -the abrupt wreck of 1788 and 1789. - -The government of France, in the century preceding the Revolution, might -be compared to a great machine made with admirable skill out of the -disjointed parts of smaller engines; a machine whose designer had kept -but a single end in view—the control of all the works by one lever in -the hand of one man. But (to continue the metaphor) the materials to -which his effort had been confined forbade simplicity; the parts would -be repaired with difficulty, or sometimes not at all; the cleaning and -oiling of the bearings was neglected, of necessity, on account of their -position; and after two generations of work the machine had ceased its -functions. It was clogged upon every side and rusty—still dependent upon -one lever, but incapable of movement. - -France had become a despotism, but a despotism which lacked organisation; -all centred in the king, with the result that none could act but he, and -yet, when he strove to act, the organs of action were useless. All had -been made dependent upon one fountain-head, yet every channel was stopped -up. - -It is of the utmost importance in studying the Revolution to appreciate -this fact: that nearly every part of the national life was sound, with -the exception of the one supreme function of government. I do not mean -that France and the world needed no new ideas, nor that a material change -in the form of the executive would have sufficed for society. But I mean -that, more than is usually the case in a time of crisis, a _political_ -act was the supreme need of the moment. - -Capital was not well distributed, but at least it was not centralised as -it is in our modern industrial societies. All men owned; the peasant was -miserable beyond words, but his misery was not the result of an “Economic -Law;” it was due to that much more tangible thing, misgovernment. The -citizen was apathetic, but potentially he was vigorous and alert. If -he knew nothing of the jury or of public discussion, it was the system -oppressing the man, not the man creating, or even permitting, the system. -In a word, the vices or the misfortunes of France were not to be traced -to the character of the social system or of the national temper. They -were to be found in an artificial centre, the Government. - -Now of all governments a pure despotism can most quickly establish -reforms. In Russia the serfs were freed, the Jews expelled, by a stroke -of the pen; in India you may see great financial experiments, great -military groups, come into being almost simultaneously with the decision -that creates them. Why could not the central government have saved -France? Because on every side its action was deadened by dead things, -which it pretended were alive; because throughout the provinces and towns -there lay thick the corpses of what had once been local institutions, and -because so far from the Crown removing these, it had left to them the -privileges which at one time were the salaries of their activity, but -which had now become a kind of bribe to continue inactive. - -How had this come about? How had a government been developed whose note -was centralisation and despotism, and which yet carefully preserved the -fossils of local administration? - -To answer that question it is necessary to consider the original matter -of which French society was composed and the influences that modified -without destroying this matter in the course of the Middle Ages. The -French, like every other national group in Western Europe, may be said to -have differentiated from the mere ruins of the Empire in that dark period -which follows the death of Charlemagne; until that epoch some shadow of -unity remained, and certainly the forces working against unity had not -yet begun to be national. The order of Rome, which had remained as an -accepted ideal for five hundred years, takes under Charlemagne a certain -substance and reality, as mystical and as strange, as full of approaching -doom and yet as actual as a momentary resurrection from the dead. It -ceases with the close of his reign, and what Dr. Stubbs has well called -“the darkness of the ninth century” comes down. - -The northern pirates fall on the north and west, and cut off the islands -from the mainland, giving us in England the barrier of the Danish -invasions, beyond which Anglo-Saxon history grows dim; they crush out -the customs, and even the religion, of the coasts of the Continent. The -Hungarian certainly, the heathen Slavs of the Baltic presumably, cut in -streams through the Germanic tribes. The Saracens held the Mediterranean. -Society fell back upon its ultimate units; in all that mechanical -disintegration the molecules of which it is composed remained. The -village community, self-sufficing, self-contained, alone preserved an -organisation and a life. - -For more than a century it hung upon a thread whether the Roman tradition -should survive, or whether our civilisation should fall into the savagery -which has apparently been elsewhere the fate of systems almost as strong. -A new thing arose in Europe, destined more than any other factor to -deflect the current of its Latin tradition. There was found, when the -light began to grow upon this darkness, in nearly every village a little -king. Whichever men had in the old times been possessed of power, local -officials, large owners of land, leaders in the great armies, emerge -from the cataclysm welded into one new class—the nobles; and with the -appearance of this caste, with the personal emotions and the strong local -feeling that their system developed, Europe becomes a feudal society. But -that society contained another element, which was destined to control -and at last to destroy the feudality. For strangely enough, this period, -which had thrown Europe into such anarchy, had produced an idea the very -opposite of such a character. The nationalities begin to arise. The -kings—weak shadows—nobles, often of small power, but no longer the mere -leaders of armies, become symbols of a local unit, separated from the -Empire. They stood for the nation round which the patriotism that you -will discover in the old epics was to gather. - -France, more perhaps than any of the new divisions, illustrates all this. -A small weak king, one Capet, was elected from among the nobles at the -end of the tenth century, and the family which ultimately toppled over -from the immensity of its burden, descended from him in direct line from -father to son through more than eight hundred years. - -In the early years of that crusading century which is the vigorous -opening of the life that was to produce our Europe, a discovery was made -which was destined to help this new kingship to take a very different -shape. In the loot of Amalfi, in a petty war, the Roman Code of Law was -rediscovered. - -It had the effect which might be imagined in a barbarous society which -the Normans and Hildebrand had at last aroused. It suddenly gave a text -and an accurate guide to those splendid but vague memories of Imperial -order and civilisation. - -Everywhere the Universities arise; from Bologna come out the corporation -of the lawyers, the students of the code, the men whose decisions were -final, who led mediæval society as the scientists lead ours to-day; -and everywhere they tended to the two bases of the Roman idea—absolute -sovereignty in the case of the State, absolute ownership in the case of -the Individual. - -The logical end of such a movement should have been the Empire—citizens -all equal before the law, the feudal system destroyed, the Church -dominated by the State, the will of the prince supreme. But Europe -contained a hundred elements beside the lawyers, though these were the -most permanent and active force of her civilisation. The Manorial unit -was strong; there are places where it survives to-day.[5] The aristocracy -was strong. In Poland and England it ended by conquering the Crown and -the Roman law. The Church, affected as it was by the new ideas, still had -a host of anomalous habits and institutions, grown up since the fall of -the Empire. - -In the anarchy of the dark ages the framework of intense local -differences had been constructed; the village, the guild, the chapter, -each had their special customs born of isolation. Finally, the spirit of -secondary nationalities was powerful in many places; notably among the -Germans it conquered every other tendency. - -Now France was especially favourable to the growth of the influences of -this law; she was very Roman by tradition, and by tradition Imperial. -Charlemagne had left his clothes to Germany, but his spirit to Gaul. -The sub-nationalities, Provence, Normandy, the Gascons, had, in spite -of their local patriotism, epics in which they harped on “Doulce -France Terre Majeure.” But though the national forces on the whole -inclined towards the lawyers and the Crown, the path by which absolute -centralisation could be reached was tortuous and had to be well chosen. -The nobles are slowly bereft of political power, but their privilege -remains; the peasant gradually acquires the land, but many feudal dues -lie on a tenure which has lost all its feudal meaning. The Church becomes -the king’s, but it remains in administration of its vast possessions: to -the last the Crown works through (or attempts to work through) the local -organisation that was once supreme and is fast dying. - -You may compare the progress of the Capetians towards absolute power to -the action of a gentleman who obtains an estate at the cost of perpetual -bribery, and finds himself crippled when he has at last succeeded. - -Finally, the lawyers themselves become sterilised in the general decay -which their policy has created. Even the Crown is half-allied to the -privileged bodies in practice, and altogether allied in sentiment; the -government which had for centuries created and sustained the people now -found itself remote from them and the source of its power cut off. - -I will give but a couple of examples to illustrate the centralisation -and the hopeless confusion that accompanied it. The first is from De -Tocqueville. A village near Paris wished to raise a small local rate to -mend the steeple of the church. They could not do so without appealing to -Versailles. The leave was granted after two years, but the steeple had -broken down. The second is from the records of the election of ’89. In -a bailiwick of Champagne it was discovered that no one accurately knew -the boundaries of the district, that the next bailiwick was similarly -ignorant, and finally an arbitrary line was drawn. This is one out of -dozens of cases. The population of Paris was not known; the number of -electors in every division was uncertain. - -Such was the France in which reform was necessary. The land, by a -continual and misdirected interference with exchange, was going out of -cultivation—or rather (for even in the worst cases of depression this -symptom is rare) it was yielding less and less as time went on. - -The classes into which society was divided had become separated by an -etiquette as rigorous as a religion, and though the thing has gone, the -phrases that described it are vigorous to this day, and lead continually -to the gravest misconception. A France where one Frenchman has grown so -like another still lets its literature run upon some of the old lines. - -Five great divisions should especially be noticed in connection with -the Revolution—the peasants, the artisans, the middle class, the -professionals, the noblesse; and side by side with these, a separate -thing, the Church, sharply divided into the higher and lower clergy. -Let me, at the risk of some digression, enter into the details of these -various groups. - -The peasants were the majority of the nation, as they are to-day. At -a rough guess, out of some five million heads of families, three and -a half at least were of this class. What were they? They were more -ignorant, more fearful, and more unhappy than ever the inhabitants of -French soil had been before. I believe it is no exaggeration to say that -the worst of the barbarian invasions had not produced among them such -special and intense misery as had the running down of the governmental -machine in the eighteenth century. Their songs had ceased. Search -the folk-lore of France, and you will find a kind of gap after the -centralisation was complete, and after the lords had left them—after the -seventeenth century. It is as though that oldest sign of communal life, -the traditions and the stories of the little circle of the village, had -died just before the death of the village itself. As to religion, with -which all this natural and fertile love of legend is so closely knit, -it lingered, but it lingered hardly. The priest still survived, but his -action was cut off by penury; in places the extreme physical needs of the -peasantry, whose lot he shared, entered into his life to an intolerable -degree, and a half-paganism resulted. Twenty, thirty pounds a year is not -enough for the celibate who holds the sacramental power in the village. -I will show you in the rural communes of France church after church part -of whose buildings are very old, part very new: and what is the reason? -That in all these places the church fell into ruins till the new State -came to rebuild it. You may discover many cases of restoration in the -eighteenth century where a great cathedral or a famous church or abbey -is renewed: it is the work of the upper clergy, and the dole out of -their vast fortunes. In the villages such cases are rare and eccentric. -The Revolution, for all its antagonism, gave to the Faith a new life. -There are to-day more monasteries and convents, more of the clergy, both -regular and secular, by far more missionaries, than there were in 1789, -but there are fewer bishops. - -The peasant owned land, his roof and a few acres beside; he had been -buying for generations, and the drift of the law when it turned feudal -tenant-right into ownership was in his favour. But this ownership of -the land, the foundation of his future citizenship, was for the moment -his curse. It made him an independent man, while he still had to pay -the dues of his feudal dependence. And independence works both ways. He -stood, ignorant and extremely poor, face to face with the all-powerful -State. His natural support and guide had left the village for the court; -the lord was nothing more than a name for endless annoyance and local -exaction. The symptom that comes just before death showed itself in the -ploughman and the labourer in the vineyard. He lost heart; he was too -tired and too beaten to work; the great burden of the State, its taxes, -its follies, had accumulated on his shoulders, and had bent them so low -that he could no longer stir the earth with vigour into harvests. - -Such men did not make the Revolution; they were the inert mass upon which -it worked. They did not sing the war-songs; they did not understand the -meaning of the invasions. No peasant marked the assemblies with the sense -or cunning of the fields, the sound of patois was lacking in the great -chorus, and as you read the Revolution you feel continually the lack of -something closely in touch with Nature, because the most French of all -Frenchmen had forgotten how to speak. - -The Revolution has made them; and to this day the heirs of the Republic -wonder at the peasant in his resurrection. From him come the humour, the -gaiety, the manhood; it is his presence in the suffrage that criticises -and tones down the crudities of political formulæ. He has re-created a -host of songs, he has turned all France into a kind of walled garden; -underneath the politicians, and in spite of them, he is working out -the necessary thing which shall put flesh on to the dry bones of the -Revolution,—I mean the reconciliation of the Republic and the Church. - -As to the artisans, they play in the story of the movement a subsidiary -but an interesting part. The artisans (in the sense in which I use the -term) were found only in the great towns. At least the artisans outside -these centres must be reckoned as part of the peasantry, for their spirit -was that of the village. These craftsmen of the towns did not form a -large percentage of the nation. Perhaps half-a-million families—perhaps -a trifle more. But their concentration, the fact that they could come in -hundreds and hear the orators, the fact that they alone, by the accidents -of their position, could form _mobs_, these were the causes of their -peculiar effect upon the Revolutionary movement. - -Like the peasant, the ouvrier gives hardly any type to politics. If we -except Hébert, on the strength of his being a vagabond ticket-collector, -there is hardly any one of prominence who comes from the labourers in -the towns. But the combined effort of the class was great and was as -follows:—It furnished for the party of revolt an angry and ready army of -the streets; it was capable of follies and of violence almost unlimited; -it was capable also of concentration and common action. It filled the -tribunes of the clubs, and more than once terrorised the Parliament. It -was patriotic, but wofully suspicious; and in all it did the main fault -was a lack, or rather a dislike, of delay, of self-criticism, and of -self-control: the ruling passion anger, and the motive of this anger the -partial information, the extreme false idea, of the political movement, -which it was willing to read into every speech delivered. - -I will attempt to say why this character, the worst and the most -dangerous of the period, was developed in the labour of the towns. In -the first place, the industrial system is of itself fatal to the French -character. It is not in the traditions of the nation; it is opposed to -the tendencies which the most superficial observer can discover in -them. The Frenchman saves and invests in small parcels, loves to work -with his own tools, is impatient of a superior unless it be in some -domestic relation, is attached to the home life, and above all is no good -specialist: “Il veut rester homme.” You will find too many artists, too -few machines in a crowd of them. - -It may be that a cheap distribution of power, or that some other economic -change, will reinstate the small capitalist; till then, for all his -industry, the French workman will be at a disadvantage. In the great -towns, in the manufactory, under a central control which has no political -basis of right, cut off from the fields for which the peasant in him -always yearns, he is like good wine turned sour. - -In the second place, the system of the old regime had produced an -aristocracy of labour such as many reformers demand in England to-day. -Mediæval restrictions, which had once applied to all workers, and had -been designed to limit competition between men all of whom were employed, -survived in 1789 as guilds and companies strictly protected by law, with -fixed hours of labour, fixed wages—every kind of barrier to exclude the -less fortunate artisans. A system that under St. Louis had made life more -secure for all, had, under his descendants, separated the workmen into -two classes of the over- and the under-paid, and these last increased. - -In the third place, the recent treaty of commerce with England had worked -most disadvantageously for French manufacture, and in all the great -towns, especially in Paris, thousands of men were out of work. - -In the fourth place, the general scarcity of agricultural produce struck -the ouvrier, even if he were employed at good wages, in the heaviest -fashion. - -Between the cornfield and the city came the taxes, the feudal dues, the -provincial frontier duties, and finally the octroi paid at the city -gates. So inept a method of continually harassing exchange could not but -react upon production, and even when the harvest was plentiful bread was -dear in the great cities. Even when these internal taxes did not diminish -the output, they raised the price in the towns. - -Finally, the Church, which, as we have seen, had none too firm a hold on -the villagers, had lost all power over the townsmen. To what was this -due? Presumably to the apathy which had overtaken the rich higher clergy, -a class which naturally congregated in the towns, especially in Paris, -and whose example influenced all the surrounding priests. Add to this the -destruction of the old unit of the _parish_ in the city. The industrial -system had broken up the neighbourliness of the capital. Men rarely -lived in their own houses, often changed their lodgings to follow their -work. There is no worse enemy to the parochial and domestic character -of our religion than the economic change from which we suffer. Now with -the Church was associated all the morality of their traditions; without -it they were lost. They had not read the philosophers; Rousseau had not -permeated so deep. For the matter of that, they would have cared little -for him or for Seneca; and, deprived of any code, they were at the mercy -of every passion and of all unreason. Only this much remained: that they -honestly hated injustice; that egotism had very little to do with their -anger; that they were capable of admirable enthusiasms. They had not the -little qualities of the rich, and they also escaped their vices. One -great virtue attached to them: they did nothing at the expense of the -country’s honour; no reactionary or foreigner bought them; they were -patriotic through all their errors. - -To these characters, which they brought into the Revolution, a further -accident must be added. They became disfranchised. As we shall see -later, the constitution of 1790, based upon the very sound principle -of representing those only who supported the State, gave no provision -(as it should have done) for making that support fall upon the shoulders -of all. It enfranchised the great bulk of Frenchmen—over four million -entered the ranks of the “Active Citizens”—but it disfranchised the very -class which sat in the galleries of the Parliament or ran to the Place de -Grève. The workman, living in lodgings or flats sublet, often changing -his residence, rarely paid any direct tax; he alone, therefore, lost the -vote to which practically every peasant was entitled. This accident (it -was not planned) worked in two ways. It added to the discontent of the -Parisian workman, but it also forbade his movements to take political -shape. To the very last the initiative was in the hands of others. - -These others were the three remaining divisions—the middle class, the -professionals, and the nobles. - -It would be an error to make too hard and fast the barriers between these -classes. In the cart that took the Dantonists to the guillotine all three -were to be found. Nevertheless it aids a history of the Revolutionary -period to distinguish each from each. - -The bourgeoisie meant almost anything from a small shopkeeper to a -successful lawyer. It was not so much the man’s occupation as his -breeding and domestic surroundings that made him of this rank. Let me -explain what I mean. Suppose the family of a linendraper (such as was -Priestley’s family or Johnson’s in England) possessed of several thousand -pounds. Let them put a son to the bar, and let the son succeed at the -profession; well, the man and his son, so different in their pursuits, -would yet remain in the class I desire to define, unless by some accident -they got “in with” one of the literary coteries with which the noblesse -mingled. And this separation would be something much more definite than -in the parallel case in England. This class of the bourgeoisie stood -like a great phalanx in the Revolution. Not one in ten of the class I am -attempting to describe had entered the salons; there was not (as there -is in an aristocratic state) any great desire to know the noblesse. An -accident of surroundings, of eminence, or of friendship might lift a man -from this class, but he would leave it with regret. - -Of this class were Robespierre, Marat (in spite of his aristocratic -milieu), Bonaparte,[6] Danton himself, Santerre, Legendre, Carnot, -Couthon, Barrère—dozens of all the best-known names in the second period -of the Revolution. - -Brewers, builders, large shopkeepers, a host of provincial lawyers—these -all over France, to the number of at least a million voters, formed a -true middle class such as we lack in England. Note also that they might -rise to a very considerable position without leaving this rank. A man -might be physician to the first houses, a king’s counsel, a judge, -anything almost except the colonel of a regiment, and yet be a bourgeois, -and his son after him. In the memoirs of the last century you will find -continually a kind of disgust expressed by the upper class against a set -just below them; it is the class feeling against the bourgeoisie, their -choice of words, their restrictions of fortune, their unfashionable -virtues. These men were often learned; among the lawyers they were the -pick of France; they had a high culture, good manners, in the case of -individuals wit, and sometimes genius, but they were not gentlefolk, and -had no desire to be thought so. - -Of those, however, who were technically bourgeois, possessing no coat -of arms nor receiving feudal dues, some had practically passed by an -accident of association into the upper class of all. They met constantly -in some salon, library, or scientific body members of the privileged -order; their dress, manners, and conceptions were those of the liberal -noblesse. To such men, very small in number and very influential, I -would give the name of Professionals. The class is complete if you -add to it the many noble names who stood prominent in the sciences or -the arts. It was recruited from legal families of long standing, from -financiers. It was polite, wealthy, often singularly narrow. Of such a -type were the Marquis de Condorcet, Bailly, Sieyès; even Roland might be -counted, though he hardly stood so high. These were the theorisers of the -Revolution, with no practical grievance, ignorant of the mob, despising -and misunderstanding the bourgeoisie (save in their political speeches); -they were the orators of the new regime, and died with the Girondins. - -As to the noblesse (who partly overlapped these last, and yet as a class -were so distinct), they formed a body with which this book will hardly -deal, and upon which I will touch but lightly. In very great numbers, the -bulk of them by no means rich (though some, of course, were the greatest -millionaires of their day), they were defined by a legal status rather -than an especial manner. - -He was noble whom the king had ennobled or who could prove an ancestry -from the feudal lords of the manors.[7] The family name was never -heard, only the territorial name preceded by the “de.” They had also -this in common, that the whole great swarm of families, thousands and -thousands, had a cousinship with that higher stratum which made the -court. This cousinship was acknowledged; it put them in the army; it -gave them the right to be spitted in a duel, and, above all, it exempted -them from taxes. It made them, wherever they went, a particular class, -to be revered by fools, and able to irritate their enemies merely by -existing—a privilege of some value. They held together in the heat of the -reform, and it was only from the higher part of the noblesse that the -deserters came—Mirabeau, Lafayette, and De Séchelles. The great bulk of -them were poor, and consequently determined in the matter of privilege -and feudal right that gave them their pittance. The class was richer than -the bourgeoisie, but numerous families in it had not the capital of a -bourgeois household, and many a poor lady boasts to-day of family estates -lost in the Revolution, whose ancestry had no estates at all, but only a -few tithes and a chance in the spoil to be had at court. - -Now to all these, without exception, reform seemed necessary; it was only -when the Revolution was in full swing that the opposition of particular -bodies appeared. The peasant was in misery; the artisan was angry; the -middle class, possessed of that feeling which Sieyès expressed in a -phrase: “Qu’est-ce que le Tiers État?—Rien;” and they were determined to -work upon the sequel: “Que doit-il être?—Tout.” To this general chorus -of demand the professionals added a strong conviction (in the abstract) -of the good of self-government and of the necessity for removing State -interference. The noblesse, as a class, expected nothing in particular -to happen, but they were not unwilling for a Parliament to meet; they -also suffered from the extreme complexity, or rather anarchy, into which -things had fallen. Talent saw itself wrecked by court intrigue; piety was -offended by the sight of a starving priest side by side with a careless, -wealthy, often irreligious member of the higher clergy. Moreover, there -ran through the nobility this curious feeling—an error which you will -always find in the more generous of a privileged class—namely, that in -some mysterious way their special rights might be abolished and they not -suffer for it—as though there were some vast sum in reserve, into which -the State had but to put its hand and relieve the poor without taxing -the rich. On the moral as on the material side this error obtained, and -Lafayette, a man created by privilege, thought that when privilege was -abolished his native virtues would lift him into the first rank. - -To all this attitude of expectancy, and to this instant demand for -reform, was added the insurmountable thing that made the Parliament -necessary. The great symptom of decay had shown itself—the revenue could -no longer be raised. Luckily for France, there existed in the last -century no such international finance as exists at present, and the fatal -temptation of external debt was not offered. With a population not quite -two-thirds what it is to-day, the country failed to raise one-twentieth -of what it now pays with ease. The debt was increasing with a terrifying -rapidity, and since all the methods of centralised routine had failed, -it was necessary to turn to the last resource, and the nation was asked -to vote a tax. With promises of redress, with an understanding that -the Assembly was to reform upon all sides, with a special demand for a -statement of grievances, but especially for the necessities of revenue, -the States General were summoned for the first time in a hundred and -seventy-five years. - -Such was the condition that preceded the Revolution. We have seen the -attitude of the various social classes and the material necessity that -prepared the reform. Now what were the ideas that were about to guide it? -What theory was moving the men who met at Versailles? What form would the -national character give to the changes which were in preparation? - -It will be necessary here to propose a paradox. The French character, -which has been blamed so frequently since the Revolution (and so justly) -for an excess of idealism, possesses at the same time a passion for the -positive, the objective, and the certain. In the same man you will -continually find some idea which pushes him to extremes, and in the -ordinary affairs of life a most exact sense of reality, even sometimes -an exasperating accuracy of detail. They are not alone in discovering an -antithesis in the national character; in England, Germany, or Northern -Italy it would be equally possible to show two apparently opposite -characteristics united in the same civic type. But perhaps the nearest -parallel we have at home to the contrasts of the French is to be seen in -the Scotch people; like the French, a nation of independents, thrifty, -investing continually in small sums, zealous of pence; like the French, -on the other hand, they delight in the abstract problem; they will attach -themselves to some idea, and hold it to the point of martyrdom. - -What was the result of these two tendencies? In some characters they -balanced each other. Condorcet comes to the mind as an example. But, -as with other nations, the two aspects of France appeared (in much -the greater number of her citizens) exalted to a violent degree that -corresponded with the extreme danger and the extreme hopes of a moment of -crisis. - -I do not mean that you would have found in France two factions, the one -of visionaries, the other of practical men; I mean that throughout the -Revolution the goal and the method of attaining it reflected this double -nature. Consider the decrees and their effects. At the sight of what the -Assemblies from 1789 to 1795 are trying to do you would say, “A set of -men attempting to build a city of dreams;” there is hardly anything so -unnatural but that they will attempt it; they are ready to reconstruct -from the foundation. The most violent period, that of 1794, is nothing -but an effort to make all men conform to civic virtue and believe the -necessary things; the most sane, that of 1791, is yet an attempt to -realise in the State an equality and a justice that can only exist in the -soul. - -But if you turn to their methods and to the measure of their success, -then you have a very different idea. They succeeded beyond all hope. -They struck in a few months the blows that remoulded all France. The -centralisation which the practical side of the character had created -was used to transform France as rapidly as though the nation had been -a household; and not only do they find means to do this, but, when the -necessity arises, they suddenly raise armies of three hundred thousand, -of a million; they find the commissariat somewhere in a starving people, -and they succeed. - -While, then, the nation was fitted for action to such a degree, what -was the theory which its idealism was about to embrace? There had -permeated throughout the noblesse and the bourgeoisie something more -than a philosophy. It was not only a set of eighteenth-century phrases, -of Reason, and Nature, and Right, but all these things turned into a -religion. The apostolic quality of Rousseau had touched the mind of -France. - -It is the fashion to belittle this man. Something in him angers our -successful and eager century, and yet but for him our century would not -have taken the shape it has. It is needless to recall the movement which -had preceded and which surrounded him. He did but complete the theory of -the social contract; he hardly did more than repeat the conclusions of -the rationalists; in the matter of economics he was entirely ignorant; -he fell continually into the error of superficiality where history or -where the details of institutions were concerned. A resident in England, -he imagined that her people were represented; writing his famous work -at Nuneham Courtenay, he could not see that the squire was everything -in the little village. He had all the faults of weakness; he invited -a persecution which he had not the wit to attack nor the stamina to -sustain. What, then, made him such a prophet? In the first place, the -power of words. All his critics in this country (with the exception -of Mr. Morley perhaps) have failed to appreciate how great this power -was. See what the Jacobean translation of the Bible has done in England; -note what the pure rhetoric of Burke, proceeding solely from passion and -untouched by any movement of reason, effected in England within a year of -the fall of the Bastille: it was this that Rousseau did in France. But -not this alone. If he possessed the power of words, he also had to an -extraordinary degree that other quality which does not reside in style -but in the texture of the mind. He could write in the pure abstract, -and produce a piece of clear exposition deduced in an unbreakable chain -from some fundamental dogma. He never commits the error of supposing -his first principles to rely upon reason; he postulates a Faith. He -allows that Faith to illumine his every sentence. He is certain that -the things common to all men are the things of immeasurable importance; -he is certain that the accidents of living are secondary. He is certain -that our being part of all nature is the condition of happiness and of -good; he is certain that the complexity of living which separates us from -Nature is an evil, and to a France tortured with age he proposes this -simple water of youth: that it should return to the first conditions of a -small hamlet; where the families met together dictate the law; where each -sees himself to be a part of the whole, and where the harmony that all -men sought comes easily to an ideal democracy hidden in happy valleys. It -is idle to argue that complexity was there; that France could not have at -once the patriotism of twenty million, and the institutions of a hundred, -hearths. Every one saw that difficulty, and in the midst of ’94 the most -fervent apostles of Rousseau compromised on the chief point, for the -principle of election, which he hated, remained of necessity the chief -method in their scheme of democracy. - -It is not the obstacles, but the motive force that you must examine if -you would comprehend the fervour of the Republic. And the motive force -was that passion for the conditions under which the race has passed how -many æons of its tutelage, the harking back to the prehistoric things, -the village and the tribe, all of whose spirit ran through the books that -preached simplicity with such admirable eloquence. - -There remains one feature to be discussed before we turn to a brief -outline of Danton’s place in the movement—a feature which will be of -capital importance throughout this book. That feature is the hegemony -of Paris. It was the rule of Paris that made the whole course of the -Revolution. In that focus of discussion and of passion the great advances -and the great blunders of the Revolution took place. Paris alone made -the 14th of July, almost alone the 10th of August, alone and against -France the 2nd of June. Many an historian has seen in her position an -error that should have been and could have been avoided. It is an opinion -which from the time of Mirabeau to our own day has lain in the mind of -French statesmen, that Paris must be jealously watched, played, forbidden -control. - -Why does Paris hold this position? Here is a city-state, eager, -concentrated, the centre in many things of our European civilisation; -that it should continually exert a moral influence over the State is -easily to be understood, but Paris did more—it conquered and dominated -the State, and France continually permitted that leadership. - -There is, I believe, a point of view from which this historical fact -becomes no longer an accident but a reasonable thing; and if we take that -point of view it will be possible to understand why from the beginning -she preserved the initiative, and became and remained till Thermidor the -mistress of France. - -The people of that country are, for much the greater part, the peasants -whom I have described. They have for centuries been owners of the soil, -and for at least two thousand years (perhaps far longer) they have found -all their social, all their physical, and most of their intellectual -interests in the intense but narrow life of a village community. In any -great expanse of view you see the white houses, all huddled together -without gardens, and between each group bare vast brown fields empty of -farmsteads. These peasants have in them an admirable cousinship with the -soil; their phrases and their proverbs are drawn directly from the fields -and rivers; they are as healthy as Nature herself. Such is the general -mass of France; but these innumerable villages, these vigorous swarms of -men who work in the sunlight, need a bond. Some concrete object must be -present to give true unity to many vague national impressions. Something -must be the _persona_ of these millions, and through the mouth of that -something they must hear action formulated, patriotism expressed, the -law defined. From it must come the executive, and of it are expected the -direct orders and the government by which, in times of crisis, a nation -is saved. - -This brain, which is necessary to a complex organism, might have been -found in a high priest or a despot; but we in England unconsciously look -for it in an oligarchy. Seeing the squires wanting, we think there is -nothing, and we draw doleful conclusions when we note the absence in the -French villages of the forces that invigorate our own. We complain of the -centralisation that atrophies, forgetting the oligarchy that cows and -debases the inferior class; and while we despise the political apathy -of French country life, we ignore the negation of society in our great -cities. - -The truth is that no definite system can escape attendant evils, and that -if one nation does not adopt the methods that have succeeded in another -it is because those methods are connected with instinct, and instinct can -neither be taught nor adopted. - -It was instinct that forbade the growth in France of oligarchic -institutions. Everything was ready for it; the feudal system would seem -its proper parent; the lords of the manors were so many seeds of what -should have been a territorial aristocracy. They were destined to fail, -and to say _why_ is impossible, because it is impossible to explain -Nature; we can only feel. Something in the genius of the nation makes -for equality with the depth and silence of a strong tide at night. -It is not the Roman law—all the nations had that. It is not even the -Church—there is a something in the Church which neglects if it does not -despise civic ideals. It is not the distribution of capital—that can be -distinctly proved to be an historical result and not a cause. No, it is -not an exterior force, but something from within which has produced this -passion, the soul (as it were) forming the body. “La France a fait la -France.” - -If aristocracy were impossible, what remained? The walled towns. They are -like pins on which the lace of France is stretched; the roads unite them -and make a web which supports the rural communes. Never far apart, always -living a life intensely their own, the walled towns stood guardian over -surrounding villages. Here was the cathedral or the abbey, the judges, -the college. It would give the name to a district, it would form with -its dependent communes a kind of little state. News from the outside was -concentrated here, and if a religious or political enthusiasm ran from -the Rousillion to the Artois, it was not the villages that caught fire in -the mass, but the towns, that passed the message on like beacons. - -Now as the roots of this municipal system were to be found in Rome, these -needed a little Rome to cap it. These towns being all of a kind, they of -necessity fell grouped under the largest of their class. The tendency was -well marked even before Gaul was re-united; the same force that made the -great archbishoprics makes the metropolitan civil influence. Thus Rheims, -Lyons,[8] and Toulouse stand out hierarchically the heads of provinces—a -very different kind of town from Canterbury (let us say) or Lichfield, -where once they talked of an archbishopric for Mercia. - -Well, as the power of the Crown increases (which is another way of -saying, “as the nation realises its memories of unity”), there increase -with it the means of communication, and especially the strong centralised -system which, as we have seen in another part of this chapter, had become -a fatal necessity to France. Remember also that till the very end of the -seventeenth century Paris had been uniquely the king’s town, and had -so been (with one short interval) for more than a thousand years. Here -was every single organ which the executive of a centralised government -may need, and (what is more important) here was the place where each -organ had grown; they were in the fibre of the place. Even if we go back -no farther than the Capetians, we have a full seven hundred years of -development in one spot from the familiar domestic origins, the little -barbarous court in the palace on the island to the great city of nearly a -million souls, whose terms and professions and classes, and whose every -institution had developed round the throne. - -When one remembers that the king had abandoned Paris but a hundred years; -that he had left in the capital by far the greater part of the central -machinery, especially the lawyers; that even from what he had taken many -relics remained, and that professional men of all classes had the family -tradition of the court in the capital—then we can understand what Paris -was, is, and must be to a France where no class is permitted to govern. -Add to this the increasing specialisation of function as the organism -develops—the concentration of the brain—and Paris of the eighteenth -century, abandoned as it is, hurt in its dignity, and a little uncertain -of its action, still fulfils the geography-books, and is the capital of -France. - -She herself hardly knew how certainly power would fall into her hands, -yet from the first mention of the States General it was fated. - -This, then, is the position as the States General meet. A nation in -absolute material need of reform, that must have new institutions, -especially new financial institutions, or die; classes separate from each -other, mutually ignorant of each other, yet all in some degree feeling -the position into which France had fallen: in the case of the bulk of the -people, misgovernment appearing in the form of starvation; in the case -of the upper classes and of the government itself, a conviction that the -existing system was contrary to all reason and opposed to every sound -interest. - -In this society, at least in that part of it that will be called upon to -govern, is a conviction—a religion, if you will—whose basis was the faith -of Rousseau. Conditions will moderate this for a time; the necessary -compromise with what exists, the desire for peace that was uppermost in -the first two years, will make men slow to uproot and destroy what may -touch the interests of friends and of large classes. They will always -attempt a legal though a rapid reform. But, in spite of them, on account -of that passionate conviction which underlay their most moderate actions, -the Revolution will move up towards the region of unattainable things. -The reformer will give way to the Republican idealist when once the -serious opposition of the court is felt; he in his turn will give way to -the man of passion and of action when the country is in danger; and even -the man of passion and of action—the man of realities—will give way to -the mere visionary before reaction can come to sweep the floor clean in -1794. - -Such will be the phases through which the form of the Revolution will -pass. As for the soul of it, France will be steadily transformed, and, in -spite of visionaries, reactions, and every political accident, a new and -a strong society will be created. So the salt water comes in through old -dykes; on its surface you will note the phases of a flood, innumerable -little streams, a torrent, a spreading lake, and ultimately calm, but -only one thing all the while is happening—where there has been land there -will be the sea. - -What place did Danton take in this transformation? Of his opinions in -detail, his habit of body and mind, his convictions, the accidents of his -life, it is the purport of this biography to treat. I will attempt only -a very brief description of his position, to make clear the drift of his -Revolutionary career, and with this close a chapter whose only object has -been to describe the surroundings of a character with which the rest of -this book is concerned. - -Danton belonged to the bourgeoisie in rank, to the less visionary in the -bent of his mind. A young and successful lawyer of thirty, the Revolution -found him unknown to politics and not desiring election. It was the -accident of oratory that gave him his first position. He discovered -himself to be a leader, and there grouped round him a knot of the most -ardent, some of them the most brilliant, younger reformers. The electoral -district to which he happened to belong became through him the most -democratic, and, in some ways, the most violent of Paris. - -That part of him which led to such a position was his sympathy. His -tenderness (and he had a great share of this quality) was hidden under -the energy of his rough voice, great frame, and violent gesture. His -pity he was slow to express. But the great crowd of men who were -unrepresented, the smaller but more influential class of those who felt -and knew but could not speak—these were attracted to him because he had -the instinct of the people. He was a demagogue at moments and for a -purpose, but never by profession nor for any period of time. What he was, -however, all his life and by nature, was a Tribune. - -The secret workings of the soil, the power that makes all the qualities -of a nation from its wine to its heroes, these had produced him as -they produce the tree or the harvest. He is the most French, the most -national, the nearest to the mother of all the Revolutionary group. He -summed up France; and, the son of a small lawyer in Champagne, he was a -peasant, a bourgeois, almost a soldier as well. When we study him it is -like looking at a landscape of Rousseau’s or a figure of Millet’s. We -feel France. - -His voice was a good symbol of his mind, for there was heard in it not -only the deep tone of a multitude, but that quality which comes from the -mingling of many parts—the noise of waters or of leaves. In his political -attitude he attained this collective quality, not by a varying point of -view which is confusion, but by an integration. His opinions erred on -the side of bluntness and of directness. They were expressed in plain -sentences of a dozen words; he abhorred the classical allusion, he was -chary of metaphor. He spoke as a crowd would speak, or an army, or a -tribe, if it had a voice. - -This was Danton, the public orator and the Tribune, who for two years -was heard at the Cordeliers, who spoke always for the purely democratic -reform, who opposed the moderates, and who helped to destroy the -compromise. Never identified with Paris, he yet saw clearly the necessity -of Paris. He admitted her claim, fenced with her arrogance, but never -worshipped her idols; once or twice he even dared to blame her worst -follies. Elected to the administration of the city, he played but a -slight rôle, and until the spring of 1792 there is in him no other -quality. - -The spring of 1792 produced the war with Europe, and from that date -Danton appears in another light. Had he died then, we should have known -him only by chance references, a centre of strong reforming speeches, -an obscure man in opposition. But with the outbreak of a war which he -had done nothing to bring on, and which his party thought unwise, Danton -shows that his character, in summing up his fellows, caught especially -their patriotism. France was the first thought, and if we could hear -not the debaters only, but all the voices of France when the invasion -began, it would be this immediate necessity of saving the country that -would drown all other opinions. Thence, and for a full year after, Danton -becomes the leading man of France. The ability which has led to his legal -success (now that his office is abolished and its reimbursement invested -in land) seems turned upon the political situation, and such ability -combined with such a representative quality pushes him to the front. Two -qualities appeared in him which he himself perhaps had not guessed—the -power of rapid organisation, and the power of so judging character as to -bring diplomacy to bear upon every accident as it arrived. - -It was not strictly he who made the 10th of August, but he was the -leader. He saw that with the king in power the Prussians would reach -Paris, and more than any man he organised the insurrection. That was the -one act of violence in his life. - -The rest of the nineteen months that fate allowed were spent in the -attempt to reconcile and harmonise all the forces he could gather for -the salvation of the nation, Perhaps it was his chief fault that in this -matter he held to no pure idea. - -A Republican and an ardent reformer, he yet seems to have thought France -of so much the first importance that he compromised and trafficked with -all possible allies. He attempted to stave off the war with England; he -attempted to keep Dumouriez; he tried to prevent vengeance from following -the Girondins; when the extremists captured the great Committee, he -acquiesced, and still wrestled with the forces of disunion. He would have -hidden, if possible, those wounds which weakened France in the eyes of -the world, and he waged a futile war with the pure idealists—the men of -one dogma, who in so many separate camps were destroying each other for -their civic faith, and preparing all the evils of a persecution. - -On another side of political action he appeared more resolute than any -man. It was he who saw the necessity of a strong government, he who -created the revolutionary tribunal, and he who is chiefly responsible for -the first Committee of Public Safety. He made the dictatorship, caring -nothing for the principle, caring only to throw back the foreigner. “He -stamped with his foot, and armies came out of the earth.” The violent -metaphor is just. There is a succession, a stream of great armies (they -say four millions of men!) pouring out from France for twenty years. If -you will glance at the head of that stream, and wonder when you read of -Napoleon what first called up the regiments, you may see on the Champ de -Mars in ’92, and later demanding the great levy of ’93, the presence of -Danton, the orator with the voice of command, the attitude of a charge, -the right arm thrown forward in the gesture of the sword. - -Possessed of astounding vigour, but lacking ambition, a lover of -immediate but not of permanent fame, his superb energy after a year -of effort spent itself in a demand for repose. In September 1793 he -thought his work done and his position secure. He went back into his -country home, walked in the fields he loved (and of which he talked -before his death), revelled in Arcis, filling himself with the convivial -pleasure that he had always desired. He came back in November secure and -happy—ready, almost from without and as a spectator, to continue the -task of welding the nation together. It was too late. He had created a -machine too strong for his control. He had seen the Terror swallow up the -Girondins, and had cried because he could not save them. - -With the winter he began his protests, his persistent demands for reason -and for common-sense; in the religious and in the political persecution -he called for a truce; always his effort turned to the old idea—a united -Republican France, strong against Europe, with exceptional powers against -treason in a time of danger, but with a margin on the side of mercy. - -He failed. The extreme theorists whom he despised had captured his -dictatorship, and in April 1794 they killed him. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE YOUTH OF DANTON - - -I shall attempt in the following chapter to tell all that is known of -the first thirty years of Danton’s life. Our knowledge of this period in -his career is extremely slight. It is based upon a minute research, but -a research undertaken only in the latter half of this century; and it is -to be feared that the scanty materials will never be seriously augmented. -Every year makes the task more difficult, and a century has rendered -impassable the gulf which Michelet, Bougeart, and even Dr. Robinet, have -been able to bridge with living voices. - -He was born at Arcis-sur-Aube,[9] a lesser town of the Champagne -Pouilleuse, that great flat which stretches out from the mountain of -Rheims beyond the twin peaks, till it loses itself in the uplands of -the river-partings. Here, though it is cold in winter, there are still -vineyards making their last bastion on the covered slopes of the hills -that form the northern boundary of the plain. - -The day of his birth was the 26th of October 1759;[10] the date gives -us his relation to the drama in which he was to be a chief actor. Five -months older than Desmoulins, born some months before De Séchelles, -eight years older than St. Just, he was the junior of Robespierre by one -and a half, of Mirabeau by ten years; Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette -were respectively five and four years his seniors. He was sixteen years -old when their predecessor died in ignominy and in dirt. Born six weeks -after the fall of Quebec, he received the lasting impressions of early -youth during the rapid decline of the French monarchy—the end of a slow -decay which threatened to be that of the nation itself. But just then -Rousseau was writing the _Contrat Social_, to be published in two years; -Voltaire was still in the full vigour of his attack, with nineteen years -of life before him; it was the year of Candide; Diderot was founding the -Encyclopædia. - -The time of his birth coincided with the rising of a certain sun which -has not yet set upon Europe, but the boy’s eyes turned to more immediate -things, and saw in a little provincial place the break-up of a wretched, -experimental reign. - -This point must be insisted upon, that a country town was the best -possible place for noting the collapse of misgovernment. The country -manors were more wretched, the provincial capitals more loud and able in -their expressions of opinion; but few places could show the fatal process -of disintegration more clearly than these little provincial centres, the -sub-prefectures of to-day. The confusion of power, the excess and the -ill-working of privilege, the complexity and weakness of government, -were there apparent upon every occasion. The wealth of the nation was -diminished most especially by the interference with exchange. This -(though ultimately a source of their penury) was less directly evident to -the villagers, while the large town with its varied production could (in -another form) disguise the evil; but to the small borough the experience -was direct and terrible. - -Again, the practical equality of educated men was there more apparent and -more sinned against than in the wider societies of the large towns. In -a place like Arcis-sur-Aube, isolated specimens of classes technically -distinct were continually in contact. The less the number of their caste -and order (and the less their importance), the more do the noblesse, -to this day, put on their pride; and yet the more necessary is it, in -the life of a small town, that they should associate with those whose -conversation and abilities are precisely their own. In Paris or in Lyons, -where large cliques were occupied in general interests, such differences -were often neglected; in the forgotten towns of the provinces never. - -On the other hand, the blind and dumb anger of the peasantry would hardly -reach Arcis. All over France the town misunderstood the countryside, and -in the early Revolution actually fought against it. This will appear -strange to an English reader, who sees scarcely any contrast between -a country market and an overgrown village. In England the distinction -hardly exists, but in France the borough is very separate from the -peasant society outside, and, though often smaller than some large -neighbouring village, it keeps to this day the Roman traditions of a city. - -We see, then, that Danton’s birthplace in great part accounts for the -peculiar bent of his future politics: practical, of legal effect, -inspired by no hatred, though strongly influenced by a personal -experience of misgovernment. But his parentage will show us still more -clearly how the conditions of his origin affected his career. - -He was of the lawyers. His father was _procureur_ in the bailiwick of -Arcis. It is difficult to explain the functions of his office at this -date and to an English reader, for it belongs to that “Administration” -which is so essentially Latin, and which we are but just beginning to -experience in England. Let it suffice to describe him as the _official_ -whose duty it was to supply that which in England the _institution_ of -the grand jury still in theory provides, as it did once in reality. It -was his business to “present” the cases and the accused to the local -criminal court—local, because in France the circuit of assize is -unknown. Added to this were many duties and privileges of registration, -of stamping and so forth; and the position required an accurate, and even -a minute knowledge of the royal law and provincial usage, the complicated -customary system of the old regime. - -It is perhaps of still more importance to appreciate the social position -of Jacques Danton. Belonging to the lower branches of the legal -profession, and placed in a lesser borough of Champagne, the father of -Danton held something of the same rank as would a small country solicitor -in one of our market-towns, with whatever additions of dignity might -follow from a permanent office in the municipality of the place. - -As to fortune, we do not accurately know the amount of the family income -during Danton’s boyhood, but we know that the office which was afterwards -purchased for him was worth some three to four thousand pounds; that the -money was found largely upon the credit of his father’s legacy,[11] and -that the house in which the family lived was their own—a useful rule -existing throughout provincial France. It is a substantial building, -among the best of the little town, standing in the market-place, with the -principal rooms giving upon the public square. What with the probable -capital and the known emoluments of his position, we may regard Jacques -Danton as a man disposing of an income of about four to five hundred -pounds a year. - -His mother was of a somewhat lower rank. She was the daughter of a -builder from the Champagne, and her brother was a master-carpenter of the -town. Of her two sisters, one had married a postmaster and the other a -shopkeeper, both in Troyes; her brother was the priest of Barberey, near -Arcis. - -The father died when the boy was two and a half years old, leaving four -children. We must presume, though we are not certain, that Danton had one -brother: and we know he had two sisters, one of whom married in Troyes; -the other died a nun at the same place in the middle of this century.[12] - -On both sides of his family, through the connections and marriages of -his relations, their employment, their dwellings, their descendants, we -see the origin of Danton absolutely separate from the lower and from the -higher ranks of the old regime. Only by an effort of imagination could he -later understand the workman or the peasant; only by daily conversation -could he appreciate the strange nobles of 1790, with their absence of -national pride. - -In fine, Danton came out of that middle class which has made the modern -world, and which still insecurely sustains it. “Respectability and its -gig” is an epigram that would exactly suit the dull and provincial -surroundings of his first home; but the converse of such provincialism -is sanity, order, and strength, and out of fuel so solid and so cold the -bourgeoisie has time and again built a consuming fire. - -From his father’s death, before he was three years old, till his ninth -year, the child was with his mother in the house at Arcis, for she had -from the little fortune just enough revenue to keep the family together -and to educate the children. The little boy was taught his Latin elements -in the town, and then sent to the “Lower Seminary” at Troyes.[13] - -It was the intention of his uncle at Barberey to make him a priest, and -in that case he would have passed through the regular stages, taking the -higher forms in the Upper Seminary, and finally being admitted to orders -a year or two after finishing his “Philosophie.” However, this programme -was never completed, and the Church lost in him the material for a -vigorous, charitable, and obscure country vicar. - -The decision was probably the result of one of those family meetings, -such as were habitually held in France to decide the career of an orphan -child, and which the Revolution raised to the dignity of an institution -with legal form. Some biographers have read the politics of a man of -thirty into the action of a little child, and have made this step a -precocious protest against clericalism. These biographers have no -children. - -The uncle consented to the change, and, with Madame Danton’s two married -sisters, agreed upon the bar as his future profession. He was sent to -Troyes and placed with the Oratorians, a religious order which has -had the honour of training so many of the great reformers. In their -College he went through that training which no amount of social change -or new theories in pedagogy has been able to uproot from the secondary -education of France. Little Greek, much Latin, two years all employed in -the literature of the late Roman republic and early empire—a groundwork -in the elements which gives the educated French an almost mediæval -familiarity with Roman thought; such was the course which the bourgeois -did and does go through in the French schools. A system founded upon -the humanities of the sixteenth, but developed in the classicism of the -seventeenth century, it has lost the Hellenism, the subtlety, and the -breadth of the former, while it has preserved the rigidity, the strength, -and the clearness which the latter owes to the influence of the Jesuits. -It fails to develop that initiative coupled with originality to which we -in England attach so much importance; it achieves, upon the other hand, a -strength in the convictions, and above all a soundness in the judgment, -which our public schools often fail to produce. - -From just such a curriculum came the exaggerated classicism of -Robespierre, the more brilliant but equally Latin style of Desmoulins, -though it must be admitted that the first is a reminiscence of Cornelius -Nepos, while the second is at times well modelled upon Tacitus himself. -The error of such imitation, however, never marred the speech of Danton -in his later life; he owed this singular freedom from the spirit of his -age to travel, to his vivid interest in surrounding things and men, and -to his intimacy with English and Italian.[14] - -Yet in a famous speech upon public education he makes a just reference to -the influence of this schooling upon the mind of his contemporaries, and -notes truly its tendency to turn men republican.[15] - -Unfortunately he did not remain at such a school long enough to receive -its last and most beneficial impressions. The head form at a French -school is called “Philosophie,” and the last year is spent largely in -reading the sociology and the metaphysics of the old world. Danton left -at the age of sixteen, when he had just completed “Rhétorique,” but what -he lost in polishing he gained in being left to his own development for -one more year of his life than were his fellows. - -Active, often rebellious, full of laughter, he showed his intelligence in -the final examinations, his vigour in an escapade that endeared him to at -least one of his school-fellows,[16] who has given us, with Rousselin, -the only notes we possess as to this period of his life. He ran off in -his last year to Rheims, seventy odd miles away, that he might see the -crowning of Louis XVI. Going and returning on foot, he satisfied the -desire which he had expressed to his school-fellows of “seeing how they -made a king.” So as a boy he went to look at the making of a king, and -afterwards, when he grew older, Danton himself unmade him. - -In 1780—his twenty-first year[17]—he entered the office of a solicitor -at Paris named Vinot. Apprenticed as a clerk in order to read law, and -above all to watch the procedure of the courts, he spent the next four -years in preparing for the bar. If we are to depend on a chance phrase -dropped just before his death, he was at that time entirely dependent -on his master and his pen.[18] We know, at any rate, that he received -no salary, but lodged and boarded with his employer; nor is it probable -that he received any money from home, for his mother had married again, -and a short time after this second husband (a certain Recordain) was so -deeply involved that Danton was begged to hand over the most part of his -inheritance to save the family. He did so, and remained with some five -or six hundred pounds only as his share of the family fortune. It was -invested in land near Arcis, and he kept it for his ultimate purpose of -buying a barrister’s practice in one of the higher courts. - -He was called to the bar (a process in the same form as taking a degree) -in 1785,[19] choosing, with provincial patriotism, Rheims as the place in -which formally to join the profession; but he intended to practise in the -capital, and returned thither at once. - -It is not easy to render to an English public the meaning of the various -courts before 1789. Even in France (so completely has the new order -supplanted the old anarchy) their forms have been forgotten, and research -purely antiquarian cannot give us more than disjointed particulars -as to their procedure.[20] There was a division corresponding to the -English between Common Law and Equity. This was to be discovered in every -country of the West, and had arisen of necessity from the imposition of -the king’s power and the Canon Law over those local customs, mixed with -reminiscences of Rome, which had once been the whole life of the early -Middle Ages. - -To the body of lawyers who in Paris (or in any of the great centres) -formed the courts for all ordinary pleas, the name of “Parliament” was -given. But that it comprised more persons, that it never went upon -circuit, and that it included many barristers as well as judges, the -Parliament of Paris corresponded more or less to what the English Bench -would be were our judges to form a kind of permanent council for advising -the Crown and registering its decrees, as well as for trying the cases -brought before them. To plead at their bar was no difficult matter. It -required but the taking of one’s degree in law, and the fees of entrance -were slight. Danton determined to adopt this branch of the profession, -and to use it as a stepping-stone towards the higher court, which he soon -reached. - -This higher court, “Court of Appeal,” as we should call it, or “Cour de -Cassation,” as it is named in the modern French system, bore a title -significant of the intense conservatism of old France. It was called -the “Court of the King’s Councils”—very much what we should have to-day -in England had we preserved in fact the theory that the king in his -council is the final authority. But though it bore a name drawn from the -Curia Regis of the thirteenth century, it had of course lost all its old -simplicity. It was a Bench like any other, but there pleaded at its bar -an order of lawyers strictly limited in number and highly privileged.[21] -It dealt, as did its parallel in the English system, mainly with disputed -inheritances, especially in matters of land, and, as we shall see, it -showed the true mark of a court of Chancery, in that it took more than a -hundred and thirty years to make up its mind. To plead before this court, -with its monopoly of valuable causes, was to have at once an assured -income and prestige; therefore its vacancies were prizes to be bought -and sold. Danton determined to plead so long at the common law courts as -might assure him, with economy, a substantial addition to the few hundred -pounds that formed his whole capital, and then to seek a loan that might -eke out these savings and place him at the Chancery bar. - -Young, eloquent, eminently capable of seeing a real issue, he was well -fitted for the lower practice, and he succeeded. Within two years he -had a sum to offer as part payment, which was at once a proof of his -business habits and of his talents. His family, therefore, especially -those members of it who had urged him to go to the bar, were willing to -advance the necessary sums in addition to his own savings and his little -patrimony. The purchase-money was delivered, and a bond to the amount of -£3000 (a sum which he could not then have furnished) was signed by his -aunts and uncles at Troyes. It was in March 1787[22] that this step was -taken, and this date was in some sense his entry into public life, for it -brought him into direct contact with the wealthy—that is, with the ruling -class. - -We have on this date a vivid anecdote surviving. A Latin oration had -to be delivered off-hand to the assembled college on the reception of -a candidate to the order. The subject set for Danton when he entered -the hall was “The Moral and Political Situation of the Country in their -relations with the Administration of Justice.” A fine theme for 1787! -Such a quaint scene the old regime delighted in, and its older members -delighted also in catching here and there a phrase of quotation which -they could understand. The genius and the memory of their candidate seem -on this occasion to have furnished something new, to have given them -less platitude than was expected. He mentioned reform; he spoke of the -struggle in which the Parliament was engaged against the ministers—a -struggle of which he wisely said, “They are fighting for the sacred -centres of civic liberty, but present no positive reform by which that -liberty may be brought into existence.” “Sacred centres” was, of course, -_aris et focis_. The speech was necessarily in a large measure a series -of _clichés_, a stringing together of the well-worn Latin mottoes. It -even contained _salus populi suprema lex_, but its argument was Danton’s -own. There is to be marked also this phrase, for it is the note of all -his future work: “Let the government feel the gravity of the situation -sufficiently to remedy it in the simple and in the natural way downwards -from its own authority.” - -The young men understood and applauded; the old men were assured that, if -they had not quite followed an unconventional harangue, it was due to the -originality of the speaker. Presumably their souls were softened by _aris -et focis_, and _salus populi suprema lex_. - -For the next two years his forensic reputation is continually rising. No -longer the Common Law pleader, with pathetic and oratorical appeals for -a shepherd against his lord, he had shown how large a part intellect had -to do with his power of commanding attention. On the intricacies of his -Chancery practice and the clearness and ability of his analysis we have -an excellent witness in one of the most learned of the modern Parisian -bar,[23] and three of his opinions, on the Amelinau, Dubonis, and De -Montbarey cases, have come down to us, and have received the favourable -criticism of an opponent. - -The last case (that of De Montbarey) shows us Danton defending the claims -of an old house and at work in the rustiest of all the legal grooves. It -had been on the stocks since 1657, and Danton, in attempting to give the -quietus to this intolerable longevity, uses a phrase which shows us the -feeling that spared one grave at least when the mob sacked St. Denis: -“Jeanne d’Albret[24] is a name dear to all Frenchmen, for it recalls the -memory of that other Jeanne d’Albret who was the mother of Henri IV.” - -There came to be his clients, among others De Barentin, the minister of -justice, and De Brienne,[25] comptroller-general; it is on his intimacy -with the former that his first recorded opinions on public affairs turn. -They will be dealt with in the next chapter. - -It is, of course, difficult to give an exact proof of a man’s private -income at any moment, but we are certain that Danton’s cannot have fallen -far short at this date of a thousand pounds a year. His immediate success -at the bar, the monopoly and privilege of the body to which he now -belonged (the work certain to come to the most inept was worth a lump sum -of 60,000 francs, to which talent would add indefinitely), his eloquence -and proved ability, the name of his clients, their importance and their -wealth—everything leads to this as a certain conclusion. Immense fortunes -were not then made in the profession; his position was not an obscure one. - -He married, on attaining this status, the daughter of a man who kept one -of the students’ restaurants, Charpentier by name. It was a café (Café -des Écoles) very much frequented by the University and the younger men at -the bar, and still one of the few remaining cafés of the last century. -Danton himself was a regular customer, and there is an interesting -picture, drawn by a friend, of the avocats in their special costumes at -this place. It occupied the site of what is now the south-western corner -of the Place de l’École,[26] nor has any change been made in it save the -raising of the road level. Looking on the river, and just over the river -from the Palais, it was the natural rendezvous for the young barristers -in the mid-day adjournment and after the court rose. - -Charpentier, the “limonadier” of Mdme. Roland, was a man worth from five -to six thousand pounds, part only invested in his business;[27] he had, -moreover, a little post under the Taxes, requiring a slight amount of -work and bringing in only a hundred pounds a year. When he married his -daughter to Danton, she was given 20,000 francs.[28] - -As will be seen later, it is of the first moment in proving Danton’s -position to know accurately the capital amount of which he disposed when -the Revolution broke out; for in the case of generous men in a democracy, -the accusation of venality is the most common and the hardest to rebut. - -Passionately fond of his wife, and successful in his profession, on the -threshold of a great career, I would apply to him a phrase which one of -his worst enemies has given us to describe a far lesser man, “Actif et -sain, robuste et glorieux, il aima sa femme et la parure.” - -We leave him, then, at the summit of a laborious and perhaps of an -arduous youth. He is twenty-eight years old, in the best of his vigour -and of his intelligence—the age at which Jefferson ten years before -had drafted his immortal paragraph; the age at which Napoleon, with his -moving island of men, was ten years later to break five armies of the -Austrians from Lodi to Campo Formio. - -What picture shall we make of him to carry with us in the scenes in which -he is to be the principal actor? - -He was tall and stout, with the forward bearing of the orator, full of -gesture and of animation. He carried a round French head upon the thick -neck of energy. His face was generous, ugly, and determined. With wide -eyes and calm brows, he yet had the quick glance which betrays the habit -of appealing to an audience. His upper lip was injured, and so was his -nose,[29] and he had further been disfigured by the small-pox, with which -disease that forerunner of his, Mirabeau, had also been disfigured. His -lip had been torn by a bull when he was a child, and his nose crushed in -a second adventure, they say, with the same animal. In this the Romans -would perhaps have seen a portent; but he, the idol of our Positivists, -found only a chance to repeat Mirabeau’s expression that his “boar’s head -frightened men.” - -In his dress he had something of the negligence which goes with extreme -vivacity and with a constant interest in things outside oneself; but it -was invariably that of his rank. Indeed, to the minor conventions Danton -always bowed, because he was a man, and because he was eminently sane. -More than did the run of men at that time, he understood that you cut -down no tree by lopping at the leaves, nor break up a society by throwing -away a wig.[30] The decent self-respect which goes with conscious power -was never absent from his costume, though it often left his language in -moments of crisis, or even of irritation. - -I will not insist too much upon his great character of energy, because it -has been so over-emphasised as to give a false impression of him. He was -admirably sustained in his action, and his political arguments were as -direct as his physical efforts were continuous, but the banal picture of -fury which is given you by so many writers is false. For fury is empty, -whereas Danton was full, and his energy was at first the force at work -upon a great mass of mind, and later its momentum. - -Save when he had the direct purpose of convincing a crowd, his speech had -no violence, and even no metaphor; in the courts he was a close reasoner, -and one who put his points with ability and with eloquence rather than -with thunder. But in whatever he undertook, vigour appeared as the taste -of salt in a dish. He could not quite hide this vigour: his convictions, -his determination, his vision all concentrate upon whatsoever thing he -has in hand. - -He possessed a singularly wide view of the Europe in which France stood. -In this he was like Mirabeau, and peculiarly unlike the men with whom -revolutionary government threw him into contact. He read and spoke -English, he was acquainted with Italian. He knew that the kings were -dilettanti, that the theory of the aristocracies was liberal. He had -no little sympathy with the philosophy which a leisurely oligarchy had -framed in England; it is one of the tragedies of the Revolution that he -desired to the last an alliance, or at least peace, with this country. -Where Robespierre was a maniac in foreign policy, Danton was more than a -sane—he was a just, and even a diplomatic man. - -He was fond of wide reading, and his reading was of the philosophers; it -ranged from Rabelais to the physiocrats in his own tongue, from Adam -Smith to the “Essay on Civil Government” in that of strangers; and of -the Encyclopædia he possessed all the numbers steadily accumulated. When -we consider the time, his fortune, and the obvious personal interest in -so small and individual a collection, few shelves will be found more -interesting than those which Danton delighted to fill.[31] - -In his politics he desired above all actual, practical, and apparent -reforms; changes for the better expressed in material results. He -differed from many of his countrymen at that time, and from most of his -political countrymen now, in thus adopting the tangible. It was a part of -something in his character which was nearly allied to the stock of the -race, something which made him save and invest in land as does the French -peasant,[32] and love, as the French peasant loves, good government, -order, security, and well-being. - -There is to be discovered in all the fragments which remain to us of his -conversations before the bursting of the storm, and still more clearly in -his demand for a _centre_ when the invasion and the rebellion threatened -the Republic, a certain conviction that the revolutionary thing rather -than the revolutionary idea should be produced: not an inspiring creed, -but a goal to be reached, sustained him. Like all active minds, his -mission was rather to realise than to plan, and his energies were -determined upon seeing the result of theories which he unconsciously -admitted, but which he was too impatient to analyse. - -His voice was loud even when his expressions were subdued. He talked no -man down, but he made many opponents sound weak and piping after his -utterance. It was of the kind that fills great halls, and whose deep -note suggests hard phrases. There was with all this a carelessness as to -what his words might be made to mean when partially repeated by others, -and such carelessness has caused historians still more careless to lend -a false aspect of Bohemianism to his character. A Bohemian he was not; -he was a successful and an orderly man; but energy he had, and if there -are writers who cannot conceive of energy without chaos, it is probably -because in the studious leisure of vast endowments they have never felt -the former in themselves, nor have been compelled to control the latter -in their surroundings. - -As to his private life, affection dominated him. Upon the faith of some -who did not know him he acquired the character of a debauchee. For -the support of this view there is not a tittle of direct evidence. He -certainly loved those pleasures of the senses which Robespierre refused, -and which Roland was unable to enjoy; but that his good dinners were -orgies or of any illegitimate loves (once he had married the woman to -whom he was so devotedly attached) there is no shadow of proof. His -friends also he loved, and above all, from the bottom of his soul, he -loved France. His faults—and they were many—his vices (and a severe -critic would have discovered these also) flowed from two sources: first, -he was too little of an idealist, too much absorbed in the immediate -thing; secondly, he suffered from all the evil effects that abundant -energy may produce—the habit of oaths, the rhetoric of sudden diatribes, -violent and overstrained action, with its subsequent demand for repose. - -Weighted with these conditions he enters the arena, supported by -not quite thirty fruitful years, by a happy marriage, by an intense -conviction, and by the talents of a man who has not yet tasted defeat. -I repeat the sentence applied to another: “Active and sane, robust and -ready for glory, the things he loved were his wife and the circumstance -of power.” - - - - -CHAPTER III - -DANTON AT THE CORDELIERS - - -A man who is destined to represent at any moment the chief energies of a -nation, especially a man who will not only represent but lead, must, by -his nature, follow the national methods on his road to power. - -His career must be nearly parallel (so to speak) with the direction of -the national energies, and must merge with their main current at an -imperceptible angle. It is the chief error of those who deliberately plan -success that they will not leave themselves amenable to such influences, -and it is the most frequent cause of their failure. Thus such men as -arrive at great heights of power are most often observed to succeed by -a kind of fatality, which is nothing more than the course of natures -vigorous and original, but, at the same time, yielding unconsciously to -an environment with which they sympathise, or to which they were born. - -It is not difficult to determine the accidents of action, temperament, -and locality which predispose to success in one’s own society. It is less -easy to appreciate what corresponds to them under foreign conditions. - -It was seen in the first chapter that Paris sums up in herself those -conditions in the case of the French nation; and it was seen also (a -point of peculiar importance) that Paris at the close of the eighteenth -century was ill at ease—out of herself, demanding her place and yet -anxious as to the means by which it might be attained. - -It might be imagined that this was a kind of usurpation. Such a belief -is entertained by most foreigners, and certainly it has not been lacking -among the more idealist of the French Republicans. Nevertheless, such a -view is erroneous, and the Girondists, for all their virtues, went (as we -shall discover) against the nature of things when they would have made of -Paris but one of the cities, or rather but “an aliquot voting part” of -the nation. The demand of Paris was essentially reasonable, and had to -be satisfied. Why? Because without her leadership not this thing or that -thing would have been done, but nothing would have been done. The crowds -who waited round the coaching inns in the country towns for news of the -city in the great early days of ’89, by their very attitude asked and -expected Paris to move. - -Paris, then, is Danton’s gate. It is up the flood of the Parisian tide -that he floats. That tide rises much higher than even he had thought -possible, and it throws him at last on the high inaccessible place of the -10th of August. Once there, from a pinnacle he sees all France. Just as -Cromwell was the Puritan soldier till he reached power, and then became, -or desired to become, the representative of England, so Danton is the -Parisian Frondeur till from a place of responsibility and direction -he aims partly at the realisation of French ideas, but mainly at the -integrity and salvation of France itself. - -Here he is, then, in the two years of active discussion that precede the -elections, by an accident of ambition, Parisian; one of a group of young -provincial lawyers, but the most successful of them all. Some months -after his marriage, in the course of 1788[33] (we are not certain of the -exact date), he moved into the house in which he lived to his death, six -angry years. It was the corner house of the Cour du Commerce and the Rue -des Cordeliers.[34] The house was better than that which he had inhabited -in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles, when he bought his practice; on the -other hand, it was in a somewhat less expensive neighbourhood. We may -justly infer, however, from the greater size of his new apartments, and -from the fact that he kept his office still in the old house in the Rue -de la Tixanderie, just behind the Hotel de Ville, that he had prospered -in his profession, and the inference is sustained by our knowledge of the -importance of his cases and his clients. As to the exact situation which -he chose, it was doubtless determined by its proximity to the apartments -of his friends. Here lived Desmoulins, his chief friend, a year younger -than himself, coming (after his marriage in 1790) to live in the same -house; for then, as now, in Paris it was not the habit to take a whole -house but a flat, and Danton was on the first, Desmoulins on the second -floor. Just across the river, over the Pont Neuf, was the café on the -Quai de l’École which his father-in-law had kept, and above all, he was -here in the midst of the youth of the schools. It was the slope of the -famous hill of the University. Close by he would find the Café Procope, -of which Desmoulins had written with such enthusiasm, which had once -been illuminated with the little smile of Voltaire, which had heard -the assertion of Diderot, and which in 1788 was noisy every night with -discussion and speech and applause. All that atmosphere of debate which -comes unconsciously to young men learning rose on the sides of the Mont -Parnasse and centred in the room; and here in the winter of the year, -in a society so entirely of his own rank that the high bourgeoisie and -the noblesse knew nothing of its power, his great voice and generous -face filled the circle with their energy. But there was yet no dream -of revolution, still less of violence. France was waiting for great -things, but they were to come of themselves, or on the wave of universal -enthusiasm. The fire, however, was lit, and the group which afterwards -passed from the Montagne to the scaffold of Germinal was already formed. - -To all this, however, which was but the relaxation of an abundant spirit, -must be added days of continual and serious work on the other side of -the river. If his nights were in the Latin Quarter, his days were in the -office of the Rue de la Tixanderie. A minister of the crown[35] does not -intrust his family affairs to such a wastrel as the chance memoirs of -opponents would make of Danton at this period, nor a lawyer who is never -in his chambers, but gadding about politicising, get the conduct of one -of the most important Chancery cases of his day. - -There is one matter in these pre-revolutionary months which is of no very -great importance, but which is well worth noticing, though the confusion -apparent in our one account of it has lessened its value. There can be no -doubt that Barentin, apart from his business relations, was personally -intimate with Danton; and when that careful and moderate man had -succeeded Lamoignon in September 1788, there was some kind of informal -offer made to Danton of what we should call an official secretaryship -to the minister[36]—or rather we have no name for it, for the ministry -in France was not associated with legislation, but only with executive -power, and therefore positions in its gifts had not the political -importance they have with us. - -As to the precise date of the offer, how far it was pressed, or how -seriously it was made, we can have no exact knowledge. But it seems to -me unwise to reject so characteristic an anecdote, and one which fits in -so well with Danton’s known position, merely on the somewhat strained -theory that documentary evidence alone should be admitted in history, and -documentary evidence sifted by the rules of a rigid cross-examination.[37] - -At any rate, Danton refused it. And not only did he refuse it, but there -is no trace of an attempt to use his friend’s influence or to make a -political success at a time when nearly every man’s head was turned by -the chances of a great social change. He felt no need of politics, and it -was not till much later, after quite twelve months of action and speech, -that his oratory found foothold, and he felt the imperious appetites -of a new power. Success in his profession was without question the one -ambition which occupied him in the close of 1788, it was an ambition -closely bound up with that business sense which was a strong element in -the sane and practical mind of the Champenois lawyer. - -It was upon him and his group of friends, in a Paris that every day -grew keener in its discussion and attention, that the long-expected -decree of the 27th of December fell. There were to be elections. Paris, -all pamphleteered to death, but inclining as a whole to the moderate -criticism of the more practical men, was at last called upon to act. - -Many conditions must be made clear before we can understand the effect of -these elections upon the history of the next three years. In the first -place, France was suffering from a great material evil: she was going -bankrupt, her agriculture was hopelessly depressed, her industries -ruined, and thousands and thousands of men out of work were wandering -about the streets of the cities. In the second place, the class which was -going to vote for the Commons was the tax-paying class. And in the third -place, the voting was by two degrees. I name these three conditions as -qualifying a broad and often erroneous impression. I do not mean that the -ideals were not abroad; all the world knows how bright the eyes of the -young men were getting, and we are all familiar with Desmoulins, eager, -passionate, stuttering but voluble, and passing from group to group as -they discussed or dreamed. But it is too common to read the spirit of -’93 into those elections of ’89, and the error is a grievous one. As -well might you interpret the spirit of an eloquent man who is about to -defend a just and practical cause by hearing what he said later in the -day, should his opponents have taken to fists and fought him heavily for -several hours. - -The immediate need was fiscal; the class called upon to meet it were the -middle class; the men they were about to elect were of professional rank. - -The electoral units and all corporations were asked to state their -grievances before the gathering of the Parliament, and it is in -these “cahiers” that the spirit of the time is best discovered. The -abstractions, the phrases, the great general conceptions are found (as -we might have expected, though it comes as a new thing) mainly in the -complaints of the clergy and nobility; the peasant, the bourgeois, and -the artisan have a more material grievance. - -Thus the nobility of Caen in their cahier talk of the “National -Contract,” and the clergy of Forez (after some remarks on the care and -cleansing of ponds) end up with an admirable little essay on individual -liberty, its limits and proper extension.[38] The nobility of Nantes -and of Meulan talk roundly of the “rights of man,”[39] and generally -this order calls for a Constitution—of which word they had in a very -short time supped and dined. With lesser men the demands are rather for -sublunary things, but the complaints that made Beugnot laugh give a good -picture. “To have one’s dogs killed if necessary but not hamstrung, to be -allowed to keep a cat, to be allowed to light a fire without paying dues, -to sell one’s wine when one liked;” and from the bourgeoisie, regular -trial, abolition of lettres de cachet, the old European policy that the -growth of rich corporations should be checked and much of their property -confiscated, the equalisation of taxation—such are the points upon which -(a mere redress) the great bulk of Frenchmen were determined. One might -sum up and say, “They demanded the freedom and common justice obtainable -in the modern State.” But the privileged orders, for all their phrases, -resisted when the time for reform was come, and their friction lit the -flame of the ideal, disastrously for themselves and happily for the world. - -As for the cahier sent from the electoral district of Paris in which -Danton lived, it was destroyed by the Commune when they burnt the Hotel -de Ville in 1871. We know, however,[40] that it demanded “the destruction -of the Bastille,” a symbolic act ever present to the minds of Parisians, -and, for the matter of that, by several cahiers of the provincial -noblesse and clergy. There is no direct documentary evidence that Danton -helped to draw up this cahier, but I cannot believe that a man of such -influence in so small a space and among (comparatively) so few voters[41] -had nothing to do with the framing of this document, especially when we -consider the cry he gave as a boy, swimming in the river just beneath -the walls of the prison.[42] There is, however, nothing to prove it, and -he certainly took no memorable part in an action where all was tranquil -and even tedious. - -The mention, however, of the districts of Paris, and especially of that -which could claim Danton, makes very necessary a view of that focus of -revolutionary energy. It was called the district of the Cordeliers. It -was small, one of the smallest of the sixty into which Paris was divided, -yet it contained the very strongest of the brains and eloquence of its -time, very few nobles, and, for the matter of that, very few of the -artisans and hardly any of the proletariat. Later, when Danton threatened -the reactionaries with the populace, it was not to the district of the -Cordeliers, but to the Faubourg St. Marceau that he appealed; for the -workmen were rare in its ancient, narrow streets, with their tall houses -and little dark courts framing each some relic of the Middle Ages. Here -were found many of the clergy, but above all a swarm of the young lawyers -and students, the class that think high and hard and breed thoughts in -others, a kind of little united clan of what was strongest in the youth -of the University and the professions; and the whole homogeneous group -centred round Danton. - -If you stood in the Cour du Commerce in Danton’s time, and looked north -to where his house made the corner of the narrow entry, you would have -seen a main street only a trifle broader than the court, and running at -right angles. Standing in the mouth of the narrow passage, you would have -seen on the other side of the main street, and a hundred yards up it, a -little fifteenth-century turret, capped with a pointed slate roof and -jutting outward on round supports.[43] This was the extreme angle of an -old convent called the Cordeliers.[44] Here the Franciscans had settled -in St. Louis’s time, five hundred years before, but the walls you would -have seen were not of the thirteenth, but rather of the early fourteenth -century, while the church which flanked the street was of the sixteenth, -and additions had been made of all periods. As you came out of the Cour -du Commerce and went up the street, you would have the convent running -all along the opposite side, from the little turret on the corner to the -church of St. Come in the Rue de la Harpe, save where it was interrupted -by private houses, and where it was broken in one place by a little -lane leading to the hall of the University College, which the convent -supported. Like so many great foundations, this rich place was in full -decay, and the vaulted hall, with its dim light and resonant echoes, was -given over to the meeting of the district, and later to the thunder of -the voice that threw back the armies of Europe. Alone of all the mediæval -buildings of the Cordeliers this hall remains to-day as the Musée -Dupuytren. - -There is yet one further point to be mentioned before we can make a -complete picture of Danton’s position before these elections of 1789. -There can be no doubt that the Masonic lodges had proved a powerful -instrument in the preparation of opinion, and though our information on -their formation in Paris is scanty, we can safely affirm that Danton -belonged to the lodge of the “Nine Sisters,” which included such -members as Sieyès or Bailly on the one hand and Collot D’Herbois on the -other.[45] It would be foolish to over-estimate the influence of these -societies. The subsequent history of their members proves quite clearly -that the bond between them was slight (who can, for instance, reproach -Desmoulins with a secret support of Bailly?), and (what is much more -important) the very character of their composition disproves effectually -any secret or prearranged action. The foolish Bailly, the learned Sieyès, -the admirable, unpractical, high-minded Condorcet, the weak Garat, Collot -D’Herbois the potential Red, all members of one lodge! They can have been -little more than associations whose character of mutual help and whose -opportunities of club-life (that comfort so lacking in Paris) attracted -men. They were authorised, and were one of the very few kinds of refuge -from a society where political discussion had decayed and where combined -action was almost unknown. - -This is all the importance, I think, which should be attached to them. -Where men are free, and where the suffrage is open and common, secret -societies may very justly be dreaded; their action will be at all -times separate from that of society in general, and may be in a hidden -antagonism to the will of the nation. But in a society where reunion, -discussion, and all that is the blood of civic political life has been -exhausted, then, like a special drug which cures, they have an excellent -use. They may, in such societies, just keep alive the habit of political -conversation and expectancy, and they may develop in some at least that -organising spirit without which a political movement degenerates into -anarchy. - -This, then (to recapitulate), is Danton’s position just before the -Parisian elections. He is in the midst of what are to be his group of -young Revolutionary friends on the outskirts of the Latin quarter; his -daily occupation is the conducting in his office on the north bank -and at the Palace in the Cité of those important pleas in the highest -court, which bring him into contact with the ministers, with the great -corporations, and especially with the various organs of government of the -old regime—for it was in cases for and against these that the Conseil -du Roi came into play. His income is sufficient for his needs and for -a slow but methodical payment of the price of his practice. It amounted -(we may presume) to something in the neighbourhood of 25,000 francs, -possibly a little less, but not much, for it was drawn from one of the -most important Chancery cases of his day, and his clientele, to judge by -the names which alone have reached us, was wealthy and of influence. He -was thoroughly well read; he was not expecting nor planning a political -career, as were so many of his friends (for instance, Desmoulins), -but certain characters which he was rapidly developing, or rather -discovering, in himself were preparing that career of necessity. He -was learning in discussion and laughter, first that he was an orator, -and secondly that his energy sufficed for a whole group of men, and -that he could avoid leadership only at the expense of entire seclusion. -In a time of innumerable pamphlets, he never put pen to paper outside -his profession; and in days that were producing the ardent similes of -Camille, and that were just beginning to feel the ravings of Marat, he -wrote nothing but three grave, learned, concise, and dull opinions, which -were admirable in argument, clear in exposition, and tolerable only to -elderly lawyers. - -As for his politics, he was centred wholly on the outward thing. He -seems to have lacked almost entirely the metaphysic. Here was France all -ruined and every day approaching more nearly to disaster; let her be -turned into a place where men should be happy, should have enough to eat -and drink, should be good citizens to the extent of making the nation -homogeneous and strong. Reform should be practical: in part it would -require discussion, not too much of it. In part, however, its lines were -laid down for it. Economics taught certain truths; let them be applied. -He had read in Adam Smith certain indubitable principles of this science; -let them be used. Science had in such and such matters definite remedies -to offer; let them be applied. Such were his over-simple aims. He was of -the Encyclopædists. Had he no beliefs, then, in his politics? Undoubtedly -he had; no man could desire “the good” without feeling it. But, like -all minds of his type, he refused to analyse. His dogmas were all the -more dogmas because he took them so entirely for granted that he refused -even to define them. At a time when all men had their first principles -ready-made in words, his was rather that confused instinct which is, -after all, nearest to the truth. Patriotism, good-fellowship, freedom -for his activities, the satisfaction of the thirst for knowledge—all -these he desired in himself and for the State. And that is why you will -find his great body at the head of mobs and daring criminal things -when it is a question of saving the nation, or later of breaking an -inquisitorial idea. It is this simplicity which makes him daring, and -this concentration on a few obvious points which makes him judicious, -unscrupulous, and successful in the choice of means and of phrases. - -On the 24th of January 1789, the Primaries were convened. It was the -opportunity for movement, in Paris especially, since it was the first -definite action after so much discussion, attention, and fever. The -district of the Cordeliers met in the hall of which so much mention -has been made above. But there does not seem to have been anything -of importance transacted, unless we call this important; I mean the -beginnings of the habit of reunion and of open discussion. For three -months the place seems to have had its doors open to the first comer of -the quarter. The cahier was drawn up here, and the rough foundations -of what was to be the famous permanent survival of the “République des -Cordeliers” were laid. But of Danton’s part in all this we have, as I -have said above, no trace. We can only conjecture and infer. - -It was on April 21 that the elections were finally held. The voters all -met together in the central halls of their districts (churches for the -most part) and elected the electors, who in their turn were to nominate -the deputies for Paris. Of Danton’s rôle in this important action, again -we know nothing. M. Bougeart[46] has taken it for granted that he was at -least “president of the district,” chairman (as we should say) of the -electoral meeting; but he is either in error, or else he is relying on -some verbal evidence which he has not given us. We have no document to -prove it, and we know that three months later Timbergue and Achimbault, -two barristers of the district, were successively presidents, not -Danton.[47] What we do know of importance is that the Cordeliers were -among those districts which did not disperse after the elections, but -maintained themselves as a permanent club. This action by the districts -was of the very first importance in the history of the Revolution. It -created the municipal movement in July, it made Paris an organisation, -gave the town a method and a voice, and more than any other accident it -placed the ladder for Danton’s feet. - -The elections of Paris once completed, the gates of the Revolution are -passed, and the States-General, whose Commons formulated its first -principles, are definitely formed; for Paris completed its voting much -later than the provinces. The Parliament meets at Versailles, and that -town presents for the next six months the centre of official interest. -But since Paris is going to be, by its destiny, the heart of the reform, -and since Danton is the tribune of Paris, we must, for the purposes of -this biography, mention the assembly only in its relation to what passed -in the capital. - -The tone of Paris during the first two months of the Parliament was, as -has been expressed earlier in this chapter, essentially one of ill-ease -and watching. But this anxiety of the town took long to find a formula -and to recognise its own nature. What Paris needed was the leadership; -but to hear the confused murmur of the thousand voices, you would -have thought that all her demands were for a number of more or less -conflicting ideals. And yet there was no appearance of Party. One may -say, by a just paradox, that her very cliques made for solidarity. The -higher bourgeoisie could afford at first to ignore the group of the Latin -Quarter, thinking the young lawyers and students to be merely foolish -demagogues, not even dangerous. The ears of these last were closed to -the confused demands of the populace, and the orators could honestly -believe that ideas rather than hunger were to be the goad of change. By -great good fortune their position was never wholly abandoned, and the -Revolution from first to last mastered Materialism and its attendant -Anarchy. Finally, the poor—the out-of-work, the starving labourers of -the economic crisis—standing apart from both these leading classes, -could convince themselves that the great phrases meant bread, and that a -constitution was allied in some vague way to a lowering of prices. They -were right in that instinct, but, with the picturesque inexactitude of -mobs, they fearfully under-estimated the length of the connecting links. - -The place where the average of these different views could best be found -was the Palais Royal. Here a great popular forum gathered in the gardens -which the Duke of Orleans had thrown open to the people. It was not a bad -thing that the debts of this debauchee and adventurer had led him to let -out the ground-floor of the wide quadrangle, for the cafés and shops that -surrounded it made it a more permanent resort than the squares or gardens -could have been, and there could be a perpetual mob-parliament held from -day to day. Its orators were the Dantonist group; its instigators, I -fear, the unprincipled men who surrounded D’Orleans, its committee-room -and centre (as it were) the Café Foy. Still, by the action of the main -virtue of revolutions, the general sense of the meeting was stronger than -any demagogue; for in such times society is not only turbulent but fluid, -and while it will support a leader who can swim, no mortal force can give -it any direction other than that which it desires. - -In this great daily crowd Danton was a prominent but not a principal -figure; undoubtedly (though we cannot prove it by any record) he had -begun to speak in his district, and we may presume that his voice had -been heard in the Palais Royal before July; for just after the fall of -the Bastille his name is mentioned familiarly. But even had he desired to -identify himself with the place, which is doubtful, his profession would -not have permitted it. He was not briefless, unmarried, and free, like -Desmoulins, but a man of three years’ standing in the highest branch of -his profession; doubtless, however, he was present daily when the crowd -was thickest—I mean on the holidays and during the summer evenings. - -All this pamphleteering, discussion, violence, salonising, oratory, and -anxious criticism, even the mob violence which hunger and bad laws had -inflamed, found a head in the three famous days that followed July 12, -1789. All the world knows the story, and even were it unfamiliar it would -be impossible to treat of it at any length in this book, for Danton’s -name hardly touches it, and our only interest here, in connection with -his life, is to discover if he took part in the street fighting; for -the event itself, one of the most decisive in history, a few words must -suffice. - -Paris, and especially the Palais Royal, had been watching the struggle -at Versailles with gathering anger. There, twelve miles off, every -purpose for which the Parliament had met, and every good thing which -the elections had seemed to ensure, lay in jeopardy. Step after step the -Commons had in fact, though not in their phrases, been beaten, and the -promises of six months before seemed in danger, not through any known or -calculable enemy, but from the sudden appearance of an opposition which -the nation, and especially Paris, had ignored. The King had retreated -from his position of the last December, and the privileged orders were -sympathising with a growing reaction. How far all this was due to the -unconstitutional and unprecedented action of the Commons in insisting -on a General Assembly cannot be discussed here. Suffice it to say that, -in the opinion of the nation, the new departure of the Commons was in -thorough accordance with the spirit, if not with the letter, of the -recent decrees; the King was held to have broken his word, and the -privileged orders to have abandoned their declarations in the face of -facts. The symbol, though a poor one, of the constitutional position -was the personality of Necker. Conceited, foreign, and common-place, -the father of an authoress whom neither Napoleon nor posterity could -tolerate, Genevese and bourgeois to the backbone, this mass of impotence -yet stood, by one of the ironies of history, in the place of an idol. -He, the banker, was the imagined champion for the moment of that other -man from Geneva, who had died of persecution ten years before, the -tender-eyed, wandering, unfortunate Rousseau, between whom and him was -the distance between a financier and an apostle. - -While the king was changing his advisers, and even while the foreign -troops—fatal error—were being massed in wretched insufficiency on the -Champ de Mars (not three miles from the Palais Royal) Necker still -stood like a wooden idol, a kind of fetish safeguard against force. He -just prevented the growing belief in the dissolution from becoming a -certitude, and on account of his attitude Paris waited. These things -being so, the king began his great programme of working out the good of -his people alone. Relying on the three thousand foreigners, a regiment -of home troops, and practically no guns wherewith to hold in check a -tortuous city of close on a million souls, the king on Saturday, July 11, -dismissed Necker. - -Desmoulins first brought the news, running. It was the morrow, Sunday, -and the Palais Royal was crowded. He forgot his stammer and hesitancy, -and shouted to the great holiday crowd in the gardens to strip the -trees for emblems, led them as they marched to the Place Louis Quinze, -saw the French troops defend their fellow-citizens against the mounted -mercenaries, and heard during a night of terror and of civil war the -first shots of Revolution. - -All the next day, Monday, July 13, 1789, Paris organised and prepared. -Thanks to the permanence of the assemblies in certain districts, a -rough machinery was ready, and on the 14th, a Tuesday, two great mobs -determined upon arms. The time is not untainted, for St. Huruge was there -promising and leading, but if D’Orleans was trying to make the most of -the adventure, he no more created the uprising than a miller makes the -tide. One stream of men seized the arsenal at the Invalides on the west -side of the town, the other going east in a smaller band demanded arms of -the governor of the Bastille, a place impossible to take by assault. The -demand was refused. - -A body of men, however, were permitted to enter the courtyard, for which -purpose the drawbridge had been lowered: once in that trap, De Launay -fired upon them and shot them down. There is no evidence, nor ever will -be, as to the motives of that extraordinary act; but to the general -people who were gathering and gathering all about in the narrow streets, -it was an act of deliberate treason, part of that spirit with which our -own time is not unfamiliar, and which has ruined a hundred reforms,—I -mean the sentiment that there is no honour to be kept between government -and insurrection. The misfortune or crime of De Launay struck a clear -note in the crowd; if after that they failed, the blow that was being -struck for the Parliament would fail also. Thus it was that, under a -dull grey sky, the whole of Paris, as it were, ran up together to the -siege of the fortress. Curés were there gathering up their soutanes and -joining the multitude, notably the man who had once been Danton’s parish -priest, the vicar of St. Germains, with his flock at his heels, like the -good Curé of Bazeilles in later times, or the humorous Bishop of Beauvais -six centuries before. Lawyers, students, shopkeepers, merchants, the big -brewer of the quarter, the pedants, the clerks in the offices, soldiers -and their officers, the young nobles even—there was nothing in Paris that -did not catch the fever. The castle fell at last, because its garrison -sympathised with the mob (of itself it was impregnable); the old governor -made a futile attempt to blow up his stronghold and his command; some few -who still obeyed him (probably the twenty Swiss) fired on the mob just -after the white flag had been hoisted on the Bazinière tower, and a great -tide of men mad with a double treason swirled up the fortress. Second on -the wall was a man with whom this book will have to deal again—Hérault de -Séchelles, young, beautiful, and of great family, beloved at the court -and even pampered with special privilege, the friend and companion of -Danton, and destined five years later to stand in the cart with him when -they all went up to the scaffold together on a clear April evening in the -best time of their youth. - -The Cordeliers were in the attack, and presumably Danton also, since -all the world was there. But his only allusion to the scene is a phrase -of his circular to the courts when he took the Ministry of Justice in -1792, and he mentions his district only without including his own name. -One anecdote, and only one, connects him with the days of July. It seems -that in the night of the morrow, the early morning of the 16th, he was -at the head of a patrol in that sudden levy of which mention will be -made in this chapter. He thought it his duty to pass into the court of -the Bastille, probably in order to gather some detached portion of his -command; but he was met by Soulès, whom the informal meeting at the Hotel -de Ville had named governor. Full of new-fangled importance, Soulès -pompously forbad him to enter, and showed his commission. Danton did a -characteristic thing, part and parcel of that intense sectionalism upon -which he based all his action until Paris was at last in possession -of herself: for him power was from below, and the armed district had -a right of passage: he called the informal commission a rag, arrested -Soulès, and shut him up in the guardroom at the Cordeliers; then, with -a rather larger force, he marched him back through the streets and -gave him into the custody of the Hotel de Ville, whose authority for -judgment he admitted. The matter would be of no importance were it not -for the fact that, in the very natural and on the whole just censure -which the informal municipality passed on Danton’s action, Lafayette -showed an especial bitterness.[48] It was the first clash between two -men one of whom was to conquer and drive out the other; and it was a -typical quarrel, for Danton stood in the matter for the independence of -the electoral unit and for the power of Paris over itself: Lafayette -represented the principle of a strong municipality based on moderate -ideas and on a limited suffrage; in other words, the compromise which was -planned for the very purpose of muzzling the capital. - -I have spoken of an armed force and a patrol: it is in this connection -that the meaning of the days of July—for Danton and for the -Revolution—must be considered. They form above all a municipal reform. -Those towns of which I have spoken as being the bond of France harked -back suddenly to their primitive institutions, and were organising -communal government. Paris of course was the leader. Even before the -taking of the Bastille, the districts had in some cases maintained their -electoral colleges as a permanent committee, and these electoral colleges -met at the Hotel de Ville, forming a rough government for the two nights -of the revolt, and finally directing the whole movement. Such a body was -of necessity too large to work. But its plans were rapidly formed. They -named a committee, which was formed of electors with one citizen (not -an elector) added. They invited and obtained the aid of the permanent -officers of what had once been the old dying and corrupt corporation, -and they thus had formed an irregular but sufficient organ of government -for the city. It was not confirmed from above, nor had it, for days, any -authority from the King, but it reposed on a force which was admitted in -the theory of those times to be the source of power, for it was composed -of men elected by the new suffrage. They had been elected for another -purpose, but they were the only popular representatives present at all in -Paris. - -Their weakness, however, lay in this quality of theirs. Reposing -merely upon power from the districts, they could not act with central -authority, nor had they an armed force of their own. They could, indeed, -prevent the success of the rough anarchy which threatened the Hotel -de Ville itself in the early morning of July 14, before the attack on -the Bastille, but they could not prevent the lynching of those against -whom the popular rage had arisen—De Launey, De Méray, De Persan. As for -force, they organised a huge levy of 1200 men from each of the sixty -districts, a force which, with certain additions, rose to 78,000. It was -in this suddenly armed militia that Danton was elected a captain (for -the moment), and in connection with its duties of police on the nights -following the taking of the Bastille that his quarrel with Soulès had -occurred. They named Bailly their first mayor. They gave the command of -the new national guard to Lafayette; on the 16th they ordered, with a -pomp of trumpets in the Place de Grève, the destruction of the Bastille, -in which their new governor was installed. But through all this vigorous -action there is one cardinal fact to be remembered: the whole of their -power was from below, not only in theory but in fact. We may construct a -metaphor to express the future effect of this, and say that, at the very -origin of the Revolution, the body of government in Paris was tainted -by an organic weakness which no structural changes could remove, and to -whose character all subsequent events for three years can be traced. -It was essentially _federal_; feeble at the centre, continually asking -leave, morally a servant and not a master; lacking above all things the -supreme force of conviction, it acted without power because it did not -believe in itself. - -The history, then, of its struggle with the extremists is the history -of a body attempting by compromise and ruse to attain a position whose -theory it openly denies, whose moral right it will not affirm, and whose -very existence is made dependent upon those whom it would coerce against -their will. The municipality tried to be a strong government while it -openly approved of voluntaryism, to be powerful in its acts and weak in -its structure. Ultimately the centre of compromise is captured by ardent -revolutionaries whom it has attempted to check, and _then_ we get a true -despotism in Paris—the terrible commune of the second period of the -Republic and of the Terror. - -But if the character of the new municipal government (a character which -became specially prominent after the legislation of the whole system -later in the year) is the special feature of the movement, its general -motive is of course more important. We have called it the Reform; what -occurred in the next few days was without any question the origin of the -active Revolution, and a little examination of facts will show that the -taking of the Bastille was not merely a dramatic incident, still less the -exaggerated _bagarre_ that certain modern special pleaders would make it, -but, on the contrary, the foundation of everything. The contemporaries -are proved to have been right in their view of this matter, as of so many -others. - -Why was this? Because, first, in taking the Bastille, after having sacked -the Invalides, the people of Paris (for it was not a particular mob, but -a gathering of every possible class) held all the cannon in the city, and -were thoroughly provided with small arms. They were suddenly become the -masters of that insufficient camp in the Champ de Mars on which the King -had relied. In open country and without artillery these seventy thousand -civilians would, of course, have been so many sheep, but in the town and -with a number of old artillerymen (officers and men) to work their guns, -it was another matter. On and after July 14, 1789, Paris had found that -possession of herself which we postulated as her first great appetite in -the Revolution. - -Secondly, by this sudden stroke Paris forced the Court to capitulate. -At Versailles the King went bareheaded to the Assembly, gave permission -for the reunion of the three orders, for a discussion of grievances -before supply, for the title of National Assembly, for the formation of a -constitution before the voting of fiscal measures—in a word, for all that -the Commons had demanded, and for the fulfilment of all the promises from -which he had attempted to recede. - -Thirdly, the victory, or rather the act of Paris, changed and weakened -the opposition. From openly gathering troops, and boasting an approaching -attack on the Parliament, they are reduced to intrigue and to the -difficult business of arming in the dark. Many of the heads of the -reaction (notably the Comte d’Artois) leave France in the “first -emigration,” and the whole action of the uncompromising party is made -weaker, and clearly unnational. - -Fourthly (and perhaps this is the most important point), that municipal -movement, of which mention has been made above, took its rise directly -from the 14th of July. The towns hear of Necker’s dismissal and of the -Parisian rising by the same courier, and in a week or ten days the -story is repeated all over France. Rouen, Lyons, Valence, Montpellier, -Nîmes, Tours, Amiens (to cite but a few of the more prominent examples), -organise a new town government. Sometimes the old hereditary or appointed -body is deposed, more often it is enlarged by the addition of the -electoral college of the city; occasionally it takes upon itself the -task of adding to itself representatives of the three orders. Again, the -towns arm themselves as Paris did; and finally, by what a contemporary -called “spontaneous anarchy,” the whole network of cities has received -the pulse and vibration of Paris; the National Guards are being drilled -in thousands; the rusty, confused, and broken machinery of the _ancien -régime_ is replaced by a simple if rough system of local government. -Moreover, since all this has been done by the people themselves, and -without a command or a centralised effort, since it is natural and not -artificial, it has entered into the body of the Revolution and cannot be -undone. - -You see, then, that the days of July gave Paris the first word, and -made the spirit of sectionalism and local autonomy based upon a highly -democratic theory. All these things are the conditions of Danton’s rise; -they make possible, and even necessary, the society of which he is to be -the guide. After the 14th of July the Cordeliers meet daily; the bell -was rung above the church at nine in the morning, and an assembly of the -district was held.[49] It was not yet in name the famous “club”; but when -we consider the action of the popular societies in Paris, we must always -remember that this, even before it regularly assumed its final name and -functions, was a society organised for debate and action, and that it was -the first to be established. - -From its origin, this famous meeting is sharply marked in its spirit—the -spirit that will later divide it not only from the moderate clubs, -such as the Feuillants, but from the Jacobins themselves. In the first -place, it is Parisian; it attempts no provincial propaganda; it confines -itself to action in Paris, and even to its own immediate neighbourhood. -In the second place, it is purely popular. But (it may be asked) were -not the Jacobins in their later stage a purely popular club? No, not -in the same sense. The Jacobins, as will be seen later in this book, -were an organised body; the public was admitted to their galleries; -but, even in the most feverish time of the Revolution, they are -distinguished by a close bond from the general people. Their membership -is almost exclusively confined to the politicians, and their business is -inquisitorial. They preach certain political dogmas, and make it their -affair to canalise the Revolutionary current; they desire to establish -in France a Republican religion, as it were, and we shall see later in -Robespierre their high priest and dictator. - -The Cordeliers had nothing of all this. If the Royalist writers begin -calling them from the outset the “République des Cordeliers,” it is -because they show the general spirit which Danton surely gave to, -rather than received from, his district. Freedom of opinion, the value -of varied discussion, open doors, and even an intermingling with the -street—such were their methods. The men who sat on the benches would vary -from one hundred to three,[50] according to the interest of the debate -or the value of the occasion. The number inscribed on the registers of -the society were simply the whole voting strength of the district; under -the limited suffrage of the time it would fluctuate round the figure six -hundred; and hence we may observe that those who were so strongly touched -by the contemporary movement as to add meeting and debating to their mere -votes numbered a good half of the electorate. Standing grouped, or moving -in and out of the far end of the hall, would be the chance-comers, the -disfranchised multitude of the district—those even who had no residence -in the quarter, but whom anger, interest, or curiosity might attract. -It was composed of every kind of man—the pedantic but accurate Sieyès; -the fastidious radical and poet D’Eglantine; the coarse, brutal, and -atheistic Hébert; Desmoulins, ardent and admirably polished, linked by -his style to the classics of his own country and of Rome; Legendre, the -master-butcher, no great politician, but an honest friend; and, added to -all these, the lawyers. There was a preponderance of the young men, the -students and barristers in their thirtieth year; but take it all in all, -it was the most representative, the most general of the meetings. - -The society, then, from which Danton rises is marked by these characters: -it tends always to defend the presence in politics of the whole people; -it is unitarian, designing above all things a common ground where -Frenchmen may found the new order in harmony; and finally, it possesses -nothing of the metaphysical spirit abroad at the time. It is all for -action along the lines of common sentiments—the defence of the new -individual liberty, the destruction as soon as may be of whatever relics -of the old machinery might be spared by the fear or inertia of certain -reformers. - -I cannot leave what has already grown to an over-lengthy description -of their political attitude without touching upon a quality of theirs, -which was not indeed a principle, but which was a method of action -necessarily flowing from the ideas they held. The Cordeliers are -essentially “Frondeurs.” They are rebellious and in opposition so long -as the Revolution remains incomplete. They do things deliberately -illegal, but which they justly consider to be in the spirit of the -reform and calculated to aid its rapid development. Why was this? -Because the day after Paris had captured the position, in the very -moment when the city had forced reaction into subterranean channels, -her power was bridled. The King came to Paris on the 17th of July and -confirmed the revolutionary appointments. Bailly is mayor, and Lafayette -is commissioned head of the National Guard. In those two names you -have the forces, or rather the resistances, against which Danton and -the Cordeliers made it their business to fight. Both of them were -amiable, both weak, and both sincere; but they belonged, the one to the -high bourgeoisie, the other to the noblesse; they were both full of -an intense class-prejudice; both thought rather of the restraints to -be imposed than of the great change in the midst of which they lived. -The little movements that Bailly might have mistaken for an enthusiasm -would arise at the sight of his telescope; the undoubted excitability of -Lafayette was aroused by the public mention of his own name. Under these -weaknesses their external sign was pomposity, their political action an -attempt to confine the Revolution to the middle class. Thus, later, the -sixty districts are replaced by the forty-eight sections in order to -jerrymander the Parisian radicals; thus Bailly tries to oppose Parisian -appeals to the Parliament; and thus Lafayette not only attempts to -convert the National Guard into a political army, but makes it impossible -for the poor to join it. - -Against all this the Cordeliers set their face. Such a partial conception -of the State was the enemy of that ideal by which they lived and which -has formed the Republic in France and the Jeffersonian democracy in -America. Only four days after the King had worn his tricolour cockade, -smiling on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville, they issue and print -a resolution to use the armed force of their district at its own -discretion; they do not (of course) claim to act further, but they -determine to be themselves the police which shall conduct prisoners to -the tribunals.[51] At the close of 1789, and especially in the succeeding -year, we shall find them in the affair of Marat, of Danton’s election, -of the _Mandat Imperatif_, and of the Châtelet continually acting in the -spirit of local autonomy, and refusing to admit any central authority -save that of the whole people—bowing after every revolt to the Assembly, -but refusing to admit the bourgeois power. - -The end of July was the destruction of the feudality in France. When the -towns had fallen with a shock into the new conditions, the great dust -of villages rose of itself into a storm, and there passed over all the -countrysides that strange panic, “The Great Fear,” whose legend alone of -Revolutionary memories remains among the peasantry to-day. - -The woods were full of terrors; ploughmen started out at night by bands -to meet invisible armies; an unsubstantial enemy threatened the thousands -of little lonely villages that lie undefended on the skirts of forests -or lost on the leagues and leagues of plains. In that mysterious panic -the Jacquerie arose; the cowed and the oppressed, who had forgotten the -generous anger which makes men brave, rose under the lash of fear. They -had heard of the promises of reform, they had seen the cahiers drawn up -that they might become free men, and yet the town close by had risen and -armed because something had gone wrong; the King, whom they loved, was -not allowed to help his people; some one was delaying or destroying their -hopes, and the brigands were coming down the road. Not with committees, -organisation, and battalions, as the intelligence of the towns had just -done, but instinctively and with the anarchy of the torch they destroyed -the skeleton idol of the old regime. Like their fathers of four hundred -years before, they were out to destroy the records of their servitude, -and where the records were defended the country-houses burned. But this -time no vengeance followed: the wild beast was dead. When in the noisy -night of the 4th of August the privileged men scattered away their -rights, then that last largesse of the nobles, the “Orgy,” as Mirabeau -called it, was but a gift of things already taken. After Paris, after -the cities, the peasantry had suddenly stiffened the phrases by an act; -perhaps it was their formless and vague energy that laid the heaviest -of the foundation-stones, for we are told that in twenty years an exile -returning thought that France had been re-peopled with a new kind of men. - -It is not wonderful that, with such a fire just smouldering down, and -with the spirit of renunciation abroad as well, a regular stream of -emigration should set out. But it did not leave the opposition powerless -though it deprived it of chiefs. If we consider the Court, the capital, -and the Assembly in the months of August and September, the next great -step (and the first in connection with which the name of Danton is -directly connected) becomes clear. - -At Versailles all the first part of August is taken up in voting the -famous decree which consecrated the debate of the 4th. The Parliament -abolished feudal dues, declaring all rights in service at an end, and -establishing a period for the national purchase and subsequent abolition -of the rest of the feudal dues. All the second part of August and the -whole of September were occupied in drawing up the declaration of the -rights of man and in decreeing the fundamental articles of the new -Constitution. The National Assembly, then, as a whole, is thoroughly -the organ of France. It is not yet so divided as to arouse definite -party feeling in the capital, nor to prevent on important occasions -a practically unanimous vote. But there is another factor. The Court -(especially the Queen) has a definite party formed; it has its -correspondence with the emigrés, and they with the personalities, if -not with the official organs of foreign governments. It was without any -question the object of this very small and very powerful group to arrest -the Revolution, and if possible to wipe out the last six months. Between -and above these stands the King. Louis (we are too apt to forget it in -our knowledge of what follows) still possessed far more power even than -the National Assembly; not only by the political decrees of the time, -but by that immeasurable force of custom, by the affection which he -personally had inspired in the great bulk of men, he was a powerful king. -What was his attitude? He was patriotic; he greatly sympathised with the -ideas at the root of the reform; he was sensible, and saw the practical -value of casting away what is broken and worn out. On the other hand, he -was not brave (especially in the face of the unknown); new developments -irritated him; he was (by the inevitable result of his training) -determined to preserve in his own hands the bulk of power, and sometimes -he was panic-stricken at a phrase or a debate which seemed to put it in -jeopardy. Finally—a matter of the utmost importance with a character of -such well-balanced mediocrity—the people with whom he hunted, dined, and -conversed were almost all of them members of a powerful, bitter, and -skilful faction, headed by the most determined and able of all—his wife, -for whom he had latterly developed a marked tenderness and even respect. - -This ring of courtiers, who were Louis’s evil fates, had a certain -quality that gave them great power in spite of their small numbers. -It must be remembered that they were of the high cosmopolitan type, -those who, a generation earlier, delighted in the wit of Voltaire, who, -a generation later, smiled at merely hearing the name of Talleyrand. -Perhaps there was never a body better fitted to influence an isolated man -by phrases, continual conversation, and intrigue. - -What is the effect? That the King, always honestly intending the -reform, always hesitates a little too long, with doubts that are often -intellectual in origin and sometimes wise in their nature, but foolish at -the moment. He hesitates to sign the decree of the 4th of August;[52] he -hesitates about this and that expression in the Declaration of rights. -He has a very strong reluctance to forego the absolute veto; all through -September you can hear the machinery creaking, and it gets worse as the -autumn advances. - -Meanwhile in Paris two forces are at work to aid this crisis at -Versailles. First, the popular societies, notably that meeting in the -Palais Royal, which now is almost a Parliament, where every prominent -Parisian name is heard, and whence those curious documents, parodies of -the old-fashioned decrees, emanate,[53] not unfrequently with the power -to cause insurrection. Secondly, the price of food, especially of flour, -is rising rapidly. We have explained in the first chapter how largely the -lack of food in the towns was due to vicious interference with exchange: -when such is the prime cause of economic trouble, the least disturbance -aggravates it to a high degree; thus it was that while the harvest was -being gathered in the north, and in the south had been already stored, -the supply of cereals in the capital was all but exhausted. - -Thus curiously side by side (and partly overlapping) the intense -political interest of the voting class and the growing misery of the -populace ran fatally towards the days of October. At the Cordeliers, -innocent of pedants, practical, alert, debating with open doors, there -met the two revolutionary interests, those of the politicians and of the -poor; and this is why they are heard so loudly in September, and why -Danton and his district become famous just before the march on Versailles. - -It will be remembered that the assembly of electors at the Hotel de -Ville had guided Paris through the great storm of July 13-17; their -powers were vague and unconstitutional, for they had been elected at -first merely to choose Deputies for Paris, nevertheless it was they who -had made Bailly mayor, who had nominated Lafayette, who had formed the -National Guard, and who had been confirmed by the King in their functions -of a provisional municipality. It was acting on this decree which gave -them a right to take political initiative, that on Thursday, July 23, -they had sent a circular to the sixty districts asking each to name two -members. The hundred and twenty so elected were to draw up a plan for a -new municipality; they met, did so, and the result of their labours was -the issue on August 30th of a scheme for a new municipal system, upon -which the primaries in every districts were asked to debate. Somewhat -illogically, however, the complicated document was accompanied by a writ -demanding the immediate election in each district of five members to form -the new corporation. In other words, the primaries were asked to form a -new municipality, to give it full powers, and then to debate academically -upon what they had done. - -It may have been only a blunder, but the Cordeliers took alarm at what -certainly seemed to be a plot on the part of the Moderates. The project -and the writ had reached them on _Sunday_ August 30th; by Thursday, -September 3rd, they had arrived at a decision to refuse the writ. They -argued that it was absurd to ask the districts to debate on a project -_after_ its most essential part had been realised, namely, the election -of deputies. On that election, its methods, the powers of the members, -and so forth, the greater part of the discussions would turn, and by -the time the districts had arrived at such and such conclusions, or had -modified the powers of their deputies in such and such a fashion, those -deputies would already have been sitting for some time as a municipal -council, would be helping to frame or to modify the new municipal system -on their own account. It would have been not only confusion but an -encroachment on the principle by which (nominally) the districts had -been consulted, viz., that the electors themselves in their districts -should thrash out the new system. The Cordeliers named commissioners -who examined the whole matter, and, on Saturday, the 12th, definitely -rejected the writ. Nevertheless, as the other districts had all obeyed -and had elected their five members each, the Cordeliers elected their -five under protest[54] on the following Monday, the 14th, and sent them, -bound by a strict oath, to the Hotel de Ville. - -This little incident merits a very considerable degree of attention, -although it has been somewhat neglected by the historians, and even by -Danton’s biographers. It was the first skirmish in that decisive struggle -between the democratic idea, headed by the Cordeliers, and the limited -suffrage of the first municipality—a struggle which is at the root of -all the action of Paris. It is the first act of Danton in an official -position; in much that the Cordeliers had done he was evidently the -leader, but in this document we learn that he is elected president of -the district, and see his name signed.[55] And finally, there appears -here, for the first time in the Revolution, the _Mandat Imperatif_, the -brutal and decisive weapon of the democrats, the binding by an oath of -all delegates, the mechanical responsibility against which Burke had -pleaded at Bristol, which the American constitution vainly attempted to -exclude in its principal election, and which must in the near future -be the method of our final reforms. It had been raised, and Danton had -raised it; for these five deputies, before being permitted to attend at -the Hotel de Ville, swore to a definite plan of action whose terms were -dictated at the general meeting of the district. - -The struggle as it continues becomes of greater importance, until, within -four months, it faces Danton himself in the Hotel de Ville; but we cannot -describe its further steps until we have mentioned the next action with -which the Cordeliers are associated, and in which their decisive rôle is -largely determined by the Revolutionary championship which this brush -with authority had given them. - -We have described above the various forces that were fatally converging -to form the whirlpool of October—the hesitancy of the King, the desperate -intrigues of the Court, the intense political excitement of the Palais -Royal and of the electors in Paris, the growing misery of the populace. -We have pointed out how the Cordeliers, with their popular audience and -popular sympathies, were at once the only great debating place in Paris -and the only spot where the forces of voters and non-voters could join -hands. Add to this the effect of the protest described above and of the -position such a struggle gave them in the democratic movement, and their -importance in the days of October becomes evident. - -It was at the close of September that all these tendencies came together. -Again, after three months of silence, the reaction found its voice, and -the King’s uncertainty, the Court faction’s plotting, culminated in the -arrival at Versailles of military reinforcements. The body-guards were -doubled, and there marched in the Regiment of Flanders—a body (by the -way) to whose name clings something of comedy, and whose raggedness has -passed into a marching legend. This book is not the place to describe -at any length what followed, save in its connection with Danton and the -Club. On Thursday, October the 1st, a famous dinner was given by the -body-guard to the newly arrived regiment. The Court dealt with excellent -material, and with the wine and the night the admirable feelings of -loyalty arose: the poor King assumed the halo of a leader to these men -whose regimental traditions were knit up with the monarchy; soldiers, -they appreciated his defeat, and, being comrades, they were angry at -his loneliness. They greeted him with a passionate song, destroyed the -three-coloured cockades, and pinned on the white ribbons; for the first -time in a year enthusiasm was with the beleaguered, though it lasted but -a few hours and stretched to but a few hundred of men. To Paris, hearing -of it on the next day, Friday, it was a challenge, discussed, oddly -enough, with some contradictions and confusions. Men talked of Bouillé, -the courtier, and his frontier command at Metz; people were afraid that -he would protect the King in some flight to the provinces; there ran a -vague uneasiness and a fear of anarchy with the King’s disappearance; -above all, in the minds of the politicians a fear of armed reaction, and -in the minds of the starving a terror that the reforms which were so -material to them were in jeopardy. Still, all Saturday the waters only -moved at the surface, and you might have thought that Paris was incapable -of any combined action. - -But if the reaction contained a powerful integrating force in the Court -party, Paris also possessed it in a small meeting and in one supremely -energetic man. On the morning of Sunday, a day when there was leisure -to read, the walls were placarded with the manifesto of the Cordeliers. -It demanded an insurrection, and was signed with Danton’s name. On -Monday morning they rang the tocsin at the belfry of the convent, and -the battalion of the district was drawn up and armed. De Crèvecœur, -their commander, prevented them marching in a body, but a number of the -district determined to merge with the crowd. Meanwhile, the mob gathered -from every quarter, especially the Place de Grève—a true mob this time, -and accompanied, as all the world knows, by a crowd of women, poured up -the Versailles road. They made a hideous night in the great space before -the palace. Lafayette followed tardily with his organised volunteers, -the National Guard; but on the Tuesday the palace was forced, and some -of its defenders killed. The royal family came in their heavy coach down -the twelve miles of falling road into Paris, and, not without some state, -they entered the Tuilleries. The National Assembly followed the King into -the capital. - -Thus the second milestone of the Revolution was passed. Of all the -revolutionary days, these were the most purely anarchic. The action was -that of men hardly possessing ideas, but fixed upon a practical thing—the -presence of the King in Paris. It had for its main object good, and for -its method mad anger. Nevertheless, the instinct of the mob had hit the -mark. Like all sudden actions, it had made issues definite which had -till then been confused. It put an end once and for all to the idea of -crushing the reform at its outset by force; it gave Paris a mastery over -every subsequent action; of the many ways the Court party might have -tried it reduced them to one only, namely, an organised secret diplomacy -with the object of raising Europe against France. - -As for Louis, we may honestly believe that his capture was not entirely -distasteful to him: as he was less acute, so he had certainly more -common-sense than his wife. If he was jealous of his dignity, which -had been grievously offended, yet he was very French, patriotic, and -not unwilling to see himself the object of a violent demand. Everybody -saw—the King must have seen it too—that the whole uprising was monarchic. -There was not any class more monarchic in France than the poor. The King -as their father was an idea bred in them for centuries, and he knew that -they made of him a kind of providence who could give them food; that -they rose not to make him less powerful, but to make a faction impotent. -And there was nothing distasteful to him in being a King of the French, -seated in the midst of his great capital, and on the summit, as it were, -of a new order. October did not threaten to make him less, but more of a -King. It was later, in questions that affected the heart, especially in -matters of religion, that the gulf opened between Louis and his people. - -With the King, then, at the Tuilleries, with the Assembly some three -hundreds yards off down the gardens in the riding-school of the -palace,[56] we enter the long avenue by which Paris obtains the -initiative in every subsequent reform. Let us turn, then, to follow once -more the action of the society and the man who, between them, determine -the direction of Paris for the next three years. - -The quarrel which was sketched earlier in this chapter, the assault of -the district upon the Moderates, continued throughout the autumn and -winter. Four times running Danton is elected President,[57] and it is -under his guidance that the affair proceeds. While the Assembly are -making a new France at the Manège, organising the departments,[58] fixing -the restricted suffrage,[59] creating the communes over all France,[60] -the Cordeliers are making the spirit of a new Paris on the hill over -the river; this spirit will conquer and transform the debaters in the -Parliament. - -On the 22nd of October they follow up their previous action. Already -before the revolt they had come into collision with the municipality: -in this new resolution they protest against a demand of Lafayette for -regular courts-martial in the National Guard. The protest had a meaning, -for Lafayette was raising an armed bourgeois power, but the motive of -the Cordeliers was mainly the desire to harass the Moderates. A week -later the Municipal Council gave its reply to these various encroachments -on the part of the Cordeliers in a decree of the 29th of October: it -condemned the action of the district in three definite points: first, -its habit of passing resolutions like a small municipal body; secondly, -its habit of asking the fifty-nine other districts to pass spontaneous -resolutions on important matters; thirdly (and most important), its -revolutionary action in demanding an oath from its delegates. In this -last point the purely democratic idea on the one hand, and the senatorial -theories of the Moderates on the other, came face to face, and on that -point the issue turned. On the 2nd of November the district replied by a -resolution denying the right of the elected to control the electors, and -especially condemning the interference of the Hotel de Ville with debates -in the districts. On the 12th, ten days later, they came out into the -open with a resolution that was like a declaration of war against Bailly -and Lafayette; they drew up a form of oath which their five deputies -were to swear, and this oath bound the members of the district not only -to obey the district in all its resolutions, but also to admit that they -could be dismissed after being called upon three times to resign by a -majority of the district. It was the full doctrine of delegacy and of the -corporate will. - -Only two of the five members took the oath, the rest resigned and were -promptly replaced by others, and these presented themselves at the Hotel -de Ville on November 16th. Condorcet was President of the municipal body, -and practically everybody there was furious against the Cordeliers. They -demanded a recital of the causes which had led to the dismissal of the -three members, and then they insisted on hearing the terms of the famous -oath that bound the five deputies. Of the two who had consented to take -the oath in the first instance, one (Peyrilhe) muttered excuses, but the -other (Croharé), who seems to have been more of a true Cordelier, was -very proud of the position he held, and would have explained the true -doctrine at great length, had not the meeting cut him short by a vigorous -vote, declaring all such oaths inadmissible, sending away the three -new members, and recalling those who had resigned. On the next day the -municipality broke the law. It turned Croharé out, but by a very small -vote, in which many abstained.[61] Of course such an action was not to -be tolerated, for it would have made the majority of the municipality -able to end all opposition or debate, and the mistake of Condorcet was -Danton’s opportunity. - -Every character he possesses is apparent in the struggle that follows. -He carries it on with something of the diplomacy that later was matched -against all Europe: he secures his allies and isolates his enemies: he -pleads to convince and to obtain official support, not (as do so many of -his contemporaries) in order to follow a line of thought. In a word, he -is _habile_, and practically he succeeds. - -Observe the quality of this action. When the district meets on the 17th -(while the Commune was dismissing Croharé), Danton sees the importance of -keeping its debate in bounds. That gathering, which is so enamoured of -abstract rights, is suddenly bound down by the superior ability of its -chairman: the discussion is made to follow points of legal technicality, -and Danton imposes upon the Cordeliers so strict a discipline for one -day, that two points alone emerge from the speeches, and they are -precisely the two which could be used as arguments. (1.) That the Commune -was _provisional_, and its _raison d’être_ was the formation of a new -municipal system: in such cases (say the Cordeliers) the subjects of the -experiment must remain masters, and it would be absurd to take away the -power of control, that later would have to be readmitted when the new -municipal constitution should be sent to the districts for acceptance -or rejection: in a word, they argued on the _vice de raisonnement_—the -want of logic—in the Commune’s action. (2.) They appealed to the -Assembly—that is, they recognised and submitted to the centre of national -power.[62] The Assembly was in a dilemma. It was in full sympathy with -the Moderates with Bailly and with Lafayette; on the other hand, it -could not, without a great loss of prestige, deny the very principles -upon which its own power rested. Their committee on the subject desired a -complete admission of the Cordeliers’ claim; the Assembly rejected this, -and tried to compromise by saying that both parties should go back to -“the state of things of November 10th”—that is, to the state of things -before the oath and before the whole trouble. The compromise would not -hold. The deputies thus legally reinstated all resigned (except Croharé) -on account of the feeling in their district, and the Cordeliers then, -with full legality, re-elected their popular champions of the _Mandat -Imperatif_. - -The Commune took its defeat ill. They tried to prove that the old members -had not really resigned. They sent a committee to interview them, but the -committee came back with proof that the resignation was voluntary, and -finally, on November 28, the little company of democrats were sworn in to -a very ungracious and unwilling Assembly, and Danton had won. - -My readers must excuse so detailed an account of an event which is empty -of picturesque detail and which is so small a part of that fertile -winter. From the point of view of general history it is the first -appearance of the _Mandat Imperatif_ in action; and from the point of -view of Danton’s rôle in the Revolution it is of the utmost importance, -though it is so insignificant a catalogue of quarrels. It was Danton’s -first victory, and it was decisive. It put a wedge, as it were, into -the gate that he was forcing open by persistent effort; and though his -final position in the administration of Paris is won after many further -failures, it is a direct consequence of this success in 1789. At the same -time it showed that a young, loud-voiced lawyer of the middle class could -have that one necessary quality of skill lying under the coarse exterior; -he could play the game with the subtlety of appreciation which was so -necessary in the terrible year of invasion, the keen aptitude of the mind -which the visionaries were too unpractised, the demagogues too brutal to -attain. That aptitude had appeared in Danton’s pleading, and was to make -him during the war a man necessary to France. - -It was a month or six weeks after these events, on some date in January -which we can only fix by indirect evidence, that Danton was himself -elected to represent the district. The restless society had caused a -further resignation, and five new members came to the Hotel de Ville.[63] -He came unimportant, effaced, known merely as a demagogue, into that -municipal assembly which contained the most dignified, the most learned, -and the most representative of the noblesse and higher bourgeoisie, to -sit under the frowns and endure the silence, and at first the contempt, -of Condorcet, of D’Espagnac, of the academicians Laharpe and Suard, the -astronomer De Cassini, Lavoisier, De Moreton-Chabrillant captain of the -guard, Bailly and Lafayette themselves. And in the very first hours of -his presence, before he had taken the oath, an incident occurred which -clinched, as it were, the disfavour in which he was regarded, and which -for a year put him in the background of a council which he was destined -ultimately to master. I refer to what is known as the incident of Marat. - -Marat was more of a gentleman than Danton; it is also fair to say that -he was nearly mad. No two men could have been more different than the -learned, irritable, visionary physician and the young, healthy country -lawyer who was for a moment his champion. The one has met continually the -ruling class, and has suffered from its insolence and privilege; the -other has known professional friends indeed of the first rank, but has -passed his life with the trading middle class, and has entered perhaps -during all his career in Paris not one salon, nor met perhaps one of the -brilliant women of his time. - -Marat presented from the outset the first problem to be faced by a people -who are testing liberty. He was a journalist and pamphleteer of unbridled -license, one of those who cannot find in themselves that control which, -when it is absent in public writers, can only be supplanted by the -cumbersome, dangerous, and necessary machinery of the Censor. Not for -money, of course, nor for any unworthy motive, but for the excellent end -of attaining freedom, this morbid mind poured out the wildest, the most -sensational, and the most dangerous appeals. - -Now the courts were in process of transition; rapidly as the reform had -marched since the summer, much of the old judicial procedure necessarily -remained, and among the rest a body known as the Châtelet, whose removal -was already planned, but which had to be maintained until the new system -could be put in working order. It was very typical of the old regime. -A body of privileged lawyers, many of them young and ignorant, holding -their places by inheritance or purchase, and charged with what we may -call the police of the capital. They had formerly possessed (and it had -not yet been abolished in detail) the power of arbitrary arrest. They -drew their name from the heavy fortress which had once defended the Pont -au Change when Paris was confined to the island of the Cité; some of -its walls dated at latest from the Norman siege of the tenth century, -and beneath it were cellars which had for centuries been the prisons of -those arrested in Paris by the city guard. It stood gloomy and strong -on the site of the modern place that bears its name, dominating the -close streets of the Boucherie, and possessing in its associations and -its waning power all the qualities that had made the Bastille odious to -the people. It may be imagined how the jurisdiction which it contained -was bound to attract the chief efforts of the reformers; it could not, -however, cease to exercise its functions until there was some more -liberal institution to supply its place, and it came of necessity into -violent collision with that spirit which was determined to break down by -force what the resolutions of the Assembly had abolished in theory, but -had not yet supplanted in fact. - -The principal object of Marat’s tirades was the moderate town council, -and especially Bailly. Moreover, the worthy astronomer was an admirable -butt. He assumed a livery, and put a fine coat-of-arms on his carriage, -and, while he weakly opposed the rising democracy of Paris, he was -very strong in the matter of pomposity. Marat was called to the bar of -the Commune to answer for these attacks upon the mayor on the 28th of -September. A warrant for his arrest was made out by the Châtelet on the -6th of October, but the day was too critical for an action of police -against an individual. On the 8th another warrant was sent out, and Marat -fled to a hiding-place up on Montmartre, from which, like a mad prophet -on a hill-top, he pamphleteered the city at his feet. His quarrels, -therefore (though very different in kind) were contemporaneous with the -important struggle between the Cordeliers and the Municipality which are -detailed above. The two attacks began to merge in December. - -Marat, on the 12th of that month, was hunted out of his retreat, and -brought before a lower court, but so confused were the powers of the -Châtelet in this period of its reform and extinction that the prosecution -was dropped. Emboldened by this failure on the part of his opponents, -he came to live and print his sheet openly in the Rue des Fossés St. -Germains—that is, in the midst of the district of the Cordeliers. What -followed is well known. At a moment when the struggle between the -district and the Hotel de Ville is at its height, just after the scene in -which Danton’s deputation had protested against the mayor’s commission -to the militia officers, while the insulting irony of the term “my lord” -was still ringing in Bailly’s ears, and when Danton himself had been -actually elected for the district, and was present in the Municipality -on the point of taking the oath—when all these causes of quarrel were, -so to speak, met in one date, the Moderates determined to strike. Marat -was pouring out his impossible diatribes from the territory of the -rebellious district, and no opportunity could be more favourable. The -Châtelet issued once more the warrant for his arrest, and this time it -was supported by Lafayette, who promised to lend four thousand of the -National Guard. - -Now note the importance of what follows. Neither side in the struggle of -the autumn had definitely won. The National Assembly had temporised, the -advantage of the Cordeliers in the matter of the disputed elections had -been achieved by a trick, and in the dead-lock between two principles, -the central power of the Municipality and the local autonomy of the -district, neither of the two theories was based upon tradition, neither -even (in the confusion of rapid reforms) could justify itself by a -definite pronouncement of the law. On the one side was the theory of -a highly restricted suffrage, government by a class socially refined -and lying with the nobility rather than with the people; this side was -determined to form an army to support their politics, and it was they -who, when they did act at last, achieved—but much too late—the sharp and -sanguinary reaction of July 1791. On the other side was the desire for -a wide, later for a universal, suffrage; a determination to emphasise -in the development of the Revolutionary theory, equality and the -general will, rather than order and the practical working of new laws; -a political attitude which was to lead the Revolution into the intense -idealism of 1792, and to end by declaring the Republic. And all this -was represented in the demand which, of its nature, is the expression -of extreme democracy—I mean the demand for local autonomy, the idea -that an act of government is most just when it emanates not even from -representatives, but from the lips of the governed themselves. - -Such were the two forces opposed to one another in the affair of -Marat—forces which, if not in all France, were in Paris at least the two -great camps of the Revolution. Already the district had declared its -intention to protect the liberty of the press within its boundaries,[64] -and had been wise enough to specially condemn Marat’s violence; already -had it named a committee of five to see that no arbitrary arrest should -take place in its territory,[65] when Lafayette sent his militia, cavalry -and infantry, on the 22nd of January to help the arrest of Marat. Not -content with the 3000 men thus employed, he clinched the matter with -cannon, placing a couple of pieces at the end of the Rue des Fossés St. -Germains.[66] He was determined to settle things by force, and beat the -extremists with their own weapons. His effort did not find force opposed -to it, as he had hoped; it broke itself in the most unexpected manner -upon the legal ability of Danton. - -The district might have raised, all told, 1500 men, and it possessed two -pieces of artillery; but Danton was far too wise to use them in such -a cause as that of defending Marat. A street fight, and one in which -the Cordeliers would have been infallibly beaten, would have ruined -the future chances of their politics. He armed no one, and did not add -a single man to the small guard which each district kept permanently -drilled, but he assigned them as their guard-room for the week the -ground-floor of Marat’s house. Then he went there himself with his four -companions on the newly elected committee, and awaited developments. - -The great body of the National Guard were massed in their blue and white -at the end of the street, their two pieces sweeping it, and there was -opposed to them nothing but a small crowd and few arguments. Through -their ranks, and accompanied by a small detachment, came the two officers -or policemen of the Châtelet.[67] They presented their writ, and -Plainville, the commander of the little detachment that accompanied them, -asked to be allowed to place sentries at the door. The commissioners -gave them leave with the greatest pleasure in the world, but when the -officers presented their warrant, the opportunity which Danton had been -waiting for with some anxiety presented itself. With a slovenliness that -was part and parcel of the old regime, the Châtelet had not made out a -new warrant, but had issued the old one which had done duty on the 8th of -October. - -Now, since that date the Assembly had passed several important changes in -the criminal law, notably one in the same month October which declared -that “no warrant for arrest can be issued against a householder save in -case of those charges which, if proved, would lead to imprisonment.”[68] -A very obvious principle; but in France of the old regime to seize a man, -hold him, and even to let him go without trial, merely for some purpose -of the police, was permitted, and the Châtelet may have acted upon this -tradition. Add to this the fact that the Assembly had created elective -councils in each district to watch the interest of every inhabitant -arrested in criminal cases,[69] and it is easily apparent that the -Châtelet had committed a great blunder, the value of which a man trained -in the courts and quick to seize an error in procedure immediately -recognised. - -Danton affirmed that the writ was illegal, offered to prove it, and -led the officers of the Châtelet to the hall of the district. There he -had the new procedure read to them, compared it with the date of their -warrant, and so confused the minds of those simple men that they signed -a _procès-verbal_ which declared that, after hearing such reasons, they -doubted how they should act. They came back escorted by Fabre d’Eglantine -through an angry crowd, and were received by the officers of the National -Guard with some heat. They stood firm, however, and refused to pursue the -arrest until they could consult with those who sent them, and finally the -difficulty was removed by Danton’s promising to appeal to the National -Assembly and to abide by its decision. The terms were accepted, the -sentries left Marat’s door, and the troops withdrew. - -All this debate and turmoil had taken up the morning and the -luncheon-hour, the Rue des Fossés St. Germains was evacuated in the early -afternoon, and by four o’clock of that day, 22nd of January 1790, Danton -and his companions were pleading their cause at the bar of the House. -It was the old policy of resorting to the National Assembly as the last -place of appeal, and of using this principal result of the Revolutionary -movement as a weapon against the Parisian Moderates. The Assembly found -itself in the old dilemma, and adopted the old compromise. By its theory -it was democratic; all its phrases and many of its decrees were based -on the “Contrat Social,” but by its personnel and its connections it -was naturally allied to the high professional class, to the Baillys and -the Lafayettes. It instructed Target (the President of the fortnight) -to write to the district; he condemned the attitude of the Cordeliers, -but Parliament “relied upon their patriotism to execute the will of the -Assembly.” The district, true to its policy, at once submitted. They -sent Legendre and Testulat to tell the commander of the forces (who had -re-entered the Rue des Fossés) that they had no longer the right to -prevent the arrest; whereupon he sent in the police and awaited Marat -in the street below. The house was empty, and Marat was on his way to -England, a country with which he was not unfamiliar, and the vices of -whose constitution had already furnished a theme for his too facile pen. - -Such are the details of the story of the famous Friday in the district -of the Cordeliers, events which put Danton’s name into some prominence, -but which also showed him to the most educated of his time, and therefore -to posterity, in something of a false light. He appears as the friend of -Marat, a man for whom he felt no sympathy, to whom he was immeasurably -superior, and whom he had supported only because Marat’s quarrel was a -tactical opportunity against the Moderates. To have been from the outset -admitted by the cultured would have been difficult to him—it would have -needed tact, self-effacement, and silence. For he showed by nature -just those rough gestures and loud, ill-chosen phrases which should be -the sign of a foolish and dangerous man; of what underlay it, of his -learning, his patriotism, and his common-sense he was to give plenty of -proof; but so violent were the prejudices he had raised that only great -length of time has effaced the false impression of his first appearance -on the scene of politics. _We_ can see the statesman clearly, but his -contemporaries never quite pierced the medium that had gathered round -him; here and there a just and noble man, as was Condorcet, would admit -his own misconception, but to the bulk of the gentlemen in power he was -and remained the demagogue. - -Two years of careful action fail to clear him, because, being already one -of those whose superficial qualities repel the close attention necessary -to a just opinion, he had also the misfortune to enter the arena from -the wrong door. Those who were most with him adored him, the great bulk -of his district-voters signed a fervent declaration in his favour, and -later his immediate friends are willing to die with him. But the class -with which at heart he had most in common held aloof; he had succeeded -twice in a pitched battle with them; they apologise for his acquaintance, -vilify him in their letters, and if his name has emerged from all this -error, if he has been given his statue in a time of social order and -reconstruction, it is because this man, who never wrote, who left only -a confused legend of his personality, saved his country when it was at -war with the whole world, and such actions compel history to inquiry and -restitution. - -On the 23rd, the day after the trouble, he was sworn in to the reluctant -Commune, and there follow two long years[70] of patient attempt to gain -the place for which he feels himself fitted, but years (on the whole) -of disappointment, and in which his real position in Paris (I mean the -prominence he held in the thoughts of men) contrasts curiously with the -little part he played. - - * * * * * - -1790 contains so great a portion of the Revolution, and sows the seed -of so much future division and civil war, that it seems ridiculous to -confine oneself to the description of the restricted action of one man -who had not yet even attained power. It will be necessary, however, to -make a survey of this restricted action in order that we may comprehend -the greater rôle of Danton in the two years that follow. - -Danton came, then, with Legendre and the three others into a city Council -very much opposed to him and to the district whose spirit he had formed. -He was not often heard, and there is no doubt that he deliberately tried -to purchase by silence the more just and equable judgment of such men as -he respected, but who knew him only by unfavourable report. For the bulk -of the Assembly he cannot but have felt contempt; they had no instinct -of the revolutionary tide; even when they were attempting to check the -movement that Danton represented, they were inefficient and unworthy -opponents, from whom his eye must have wandered inwards to the great -battles that were preparing. - -In the eight months during which he was a member of the Provisional -Commune, that is, from January to September 1790, his name appears in -the debates but a dozen times.[71] More than half of these are mention -of committees upon which his common-sense and legal training were of -service; in one only, that of February 4, does he speak on a motion, and -that is in support of Barré to admit the public when the oath was taken: -one other (that on the 19th of March concerning the formation of a “grand -jury”) would be interesting were it not that the whole gist of the debate -was but a repetition of the much more significant discussion at the -Cordeliers. Finally, there is one little notice which is half-pathetic -and half-grotesque: he is one of the committee of twenty-four charged -with the duty of “presenting their humble thanks, with the mayor at their -head,” to the King for giving the municipality a marble bust of himself. -But every entry is petty and unimportant: Danton at the Provisional -Municipality of 1790 is deliberately silent—he can do nothing. - -If we turn, however, to a field in which he was more at home, we find -him during that year more than ever the leader of the Cordeliers, which -itself becomes more than ever the leader of Paris. - -There are two important features in the part he plays at the assemblies -of the district during the spring and summer in which he was a silent -member of the Commune. First, the affair of his arrest; secondly, his -campaign against what may be called “the municipal reaction.” - -As to the first, it is a very minor point in the general history of the -Revolution, but it is of considerable influence upon the career of Danton -himself. When the affair of Marat was (or should have been) forgotten, -the Châtelet, with that negligence which we have seen them display in the -business of the warrant for Marat’s arrest, saw fit to launch another -warrant, this time for the arrest of Danton himself. Once more that -unpopular and moribund tribunal put itself on the wrong side of the law, -and once more it chose the most inopportune moment for its action. It was -on the 17th of March,[72] nearly two months after the affair—two months -during which Danton had been hard at work effacing its effects upon his -reputation—that the warrant was issued, and the motive of arrest given in -the parchment was of the least justifiable kind. In the district meeting -of the day, when the police officers had been taken to the hall of the -Cordeliers, and had had the changes in the law read out to them, Danton -had made use of a violent phrase: its actual words were not known; -some said that he had threatened to “call out the Faubourg St. Antoine, -and make the jaws of the guard grow white.” Other witnesses refused to -attribute those words to him, but accused him of saying, “If every one -thought as I do, we should have twenty thousand men at our back;” his -friends admitted that some angry and injudicious speech, such as he was -often guilty of, had escaped him, but they affirmed that he had added, -“God forbid that such a thing should happen; the cause is too good to be -so jeopardised.” - -Whatever he said (and probably he himself could not accurately have -remembered), the place and the time were privileged. It was a test -case, but the logic of such a privilege was evident. Here you have -deliberative assemblies to which are intrusted ultimately the formation -of a government for Paris: what is said in such a constituent meeting, -however ill-advised, must in the nature of things be allowed to pass; -if not, you limit the discussion of the primary, and if you limit that -discussion you vitiate the whole theory upon which the new constitution -was being framed. It must be carefully remembered that we are not dealing -with deliberative bodies long established, possessed of the central -power, and holding privilege by tradition and by their importance in -the State; we are dealing with the elementary deliberative assemblies -in a period which, rightly or wrongly, was transforming the whole State -upon one perfectly definite political theory—namely, that these primary -assemblies were the only root and just source of power. When, therefore, -Parisian opinion rose violently in favour of the president of a district -so attacked, when three hundred voters out of five signed a petition in -Danton’s favour, when he was re-elected president of the district twelve -days after the issue of the warrant, it was because the whole body of the -electors felt a great and justifiable fear of what was left of the old -regime. The Châtelet had acted so, not from a careful appreciation of -public danger—to fend off which temporary powers had been given it—but -because it was blind with old age; because it dated from a time and was -composed of a set of men who hated all deliberative assemblies, and it -was justly thought that if such actions were justified, the whole system -of revolutionary Paris was in danger. - -As though in proof of the false view that the Châtelet took of their -man, on the 19th of March, two days after the warrant was issued, -Danton was urging the replacement of the Châtelet by a Grand Jury; he -had an admiration and a knowledge of the old English system, and it was -against a man attempting so wise a reform that the last relic of the old -jurisprudence was making an attack. - -An appeal was lodged with the National Assembly, and Anthoine read a -long report to the Assembly upon May 18. This report was strongly in -favour of Danton. It was drawn up by a special committee—not partisan in -any way—and after examining all the evidence it came to this conclusion -against the Châtelet. Nevertheless the House, a great body of nearly -a thousand men, to most of whom the name of Danton meant only a loud -Radical voice, hesitated. To adopt the report might have irretrievably -weakened the Châtelet, and the National Assembly was extremely nervous -on the subject of order in Paris. It ended by an adjournment. The -report remained in Danton’s favour; he was not arrested, but the affair -was unfortunate for him, and threw him back later at a very important -occasion, when he might have entered into power peaceably himself and at -a peaceable time. - -But while this business was drawing to its close, during the very months -of April and May which saw his partial vindication, another and a far -more momentous business was occupying the Cordeliers—a matter in which -they directed all their energy towards a legal solution, but in which, -unfortunately for the city, they failed. - -Ever since the days of October—earlier if you will—there had been arising -a strong sentiment, to which I have alluded more than once, and which, -for lack of a better name, may be called the Moderate reaction in Paris. -It is difficult to characterise this complex body of thought in one -adjective, and I cannot lengthen a chapter already too prolonged by a -detailed examination of its origin and development. Suffice it to say -that from the higher bourgeoisie (generally speaking), from those who -were in theory almost Republican, but whose lives were passed in the -artificial surroundings of wealth, and finally from the important group -of the financiers, who of all men most desired practical reform, and -who of all men most hated ideals; from these three, supported by many a -small shopkeeper or bureaucrat, came a demand, growing in vigour, for a -conservative municipal establishment—one that should be limited in its -basis, almost aristocratic in quality, and concerned very much with the -maintenance of law and order and very little with the idea of municipal -self-government. - -It is a character to be noted in the French people, this timidity of the -small proprietor and his reliance upon constituted authority. It is a -matter rarely observed, and yet explaining all Parisian history, that -this sentiment does not mark off a particular body of men, but, curiously -enough, is found in the mind of nearly every Frenchman, existing side by -side with another set of feelings which, on occasion, can make them the -most arrant idealists in the world. - -For the moment this intense desire for order was uppermost in the minds -of those few who were permitted to vote. In the Cordeliers it was the -other character of the Parisian that was emphasised and developed. They -were determined on democracy, like everybody else; but, unlike the rest, -they were not afraid of the dangerous road. They were inspired and led by -a man whose one great fault was a passionate contempt of danger. On this -account, though they are taxpayers and bourgeois, lawyers, physicians, -men of letters and the like, they do all they can to prevent the new -municipal system from coming into play, but they fail. - -Now, consider the Assembly. That great body was justly afraid of Paris; -indeed, the man who was head and shoulders above them all—Mirabeau—was -for leaving Paris altogether. The Assembly, again, had the whole task of -re-making France in its hands, and it could not but will that Paris, in -the midst of which it sat, should be muzzled. Through all the debates of -the Provisional Commune it could easily be seen that Bailly and Lafayette -were winning, and that the Parliament would be even more Moderate than -they. Three points were the centres of the battle: first, the restricted -suffrage which was to be established;[73] secondly, the power which -was to be exercised over the new Commune by the authorities of the -Department; thirdly, the suppression of those sixty democratic clubs, the -districts, and their replacement by forty-eight sections, so framed as -specially to break up the ties of neighbourhood and association, which -the first of the Revolution had developed. It was aimed especially at the -Cordeliers. - -Against the first point the Cordeliers had little to say. Oddly enough, -the idea of universal suffrage, which is so intimate a part of our ideas -on the Revolution, was hardly thought of in early 1790. Against the -second they debated, but did not decree; it was upon the third that they -took most vigorous action. The law which authorised the new municipal -scheme was passed on May the 27th, and, faithful to their policy, the -Cordeliers did not attempt to quarrel with the National Assembly, but -they fought bitterly against the application of the law by Bailly and his -party. The law was signed by the King on June the 27th, and on the same -day the mayor placarded the walls, ordering an immediate installation -of the new system. The 27th was a Saturday. Within a week the new -sections were to be organised, and on the Monday, July 5, the voting was -to begin. The very next day, the 28th, the Cordeliers protested in a -vigorous decree, in which they called on the fifty-nine other districts -to petition the National Assembly to make a special exception of the -town of Paris, to consider the great federation of July 14, which should -be allowed to pass before the elections, and finally to give the city -time to discuss so important a change. All through the week, on the -1st, 2nd, and 3rd of July, they published vigorous appeals. They were -partially successful, but in their main object—the reconstruction of the -aristocratic scheme and the arousing of public spirit against it—they -entirely failed. Bailly is elected mayor on August 2 by an enormous -majority—practically 90 per cent. The old districts disappear, and, like -every other, the famous Cordeliers are merged in the larger section of -the Théâtre Français. It may not sit in permanence; it may not (save on a -special demand of fifty citizens) meet at all; it is merely an electoral -unit, and in future some 14,000 men out of a city of nearly a million are -to govern all. The local club, directing its armed force and appealing to -its fellows, is abolished. Danton then has failed. - -But, as we shall see later, the exception became the rule. No mechanical -device could check the Revolution. The demand for permanent sections is -continuous and successful. From these divisions, intended to be mere -marks upon a map, come the cannon of the 10th of August, and it is the -section of the Théâtre Français, wherein the traditions and the very -name of the Cordeliers were to have been forgotten, that first in Europe -declared and exercised the right of the whole people to govern. - -If I may repeat a common-place that I have used continually in this book, -the tide of the Revolution in Paris was dammed up with a high barrier; -its rise could not be checked, and it was certain to escape at last with -the force and destructive energy of a flood. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY - - -I have taken as a turning-point in the career of Danton the municipal -change which marks the summer of 1790, concluding with that event the -first chapter of his political action, and making it the beginning of a -new phase. Let me explain the reasons that have led me to make such a -division at a moment that is marked by no striking passage of arms, of -policy, or of debate. - -In the first place, a recital of Danton’s life must of necessity follow -the fortunes of the capital. The spirit of the people whose tribune he -was (their growing enthusiasms and later their angers)—that spirit is the -chief thing to guide us in the interpretation of his politics, but the -mechanical transformations of the city government form the framework, as -it were, upon which the stuff of Parisian feeling is woven. The detail -is dry and often neglected; the mere passing of a particular law giving -Paris a particular constitution, a system not unexpected, and apparently -well suited to the first year of the Revolution, may seem an event of -but little moment in the development of the reform; but certain aspects -of the period lend that detail a very considerable importance. In the -rapid transformation which was remoulding French society, the law, -however new, possessed a strength which, at this hour, we can appreciate -only with difficulty. In a settled and traditional society custom is -of such overwhelming weight that a law can act only in accordance with -it; a sudden change in the machinery of government would break down of -itself—nay, in such a society laws can hardly be passed save those that -the development of tradition demands. But in a time of revolution this -postulate of social history fails. When a whole people starts out to -make fresh conditions for itself, every decree becomes an origin; the -forces that in more regular periods mould and control legislative action -are, in a time of feverish reconstruction, increased in power and give -an impetus to new institutions; the energy of society, which in years -of content and order controls by an unseen pressure, is used in years -of revolution to launch, openly and mechanically, the fabric that a new -theory has designed. Thus you may observe how in the framing of the -American constitution every point in a particular debate became of vast -moment to the United States; thus in our time the German Empire has found -its strength in a set of arbitrary decrees, all the creation of a decade; -thus in the Middle Ages the Hildebrandine reform framed in the life of -one man institutions which are vigorous after the lapse of eight hundred -years; and thus in the French Revolution a municipal organisation, new, -theoretic, and mechanical, was strong enough, not indeed to survive so -terrible a storm, but to give to the whole movement a permanent change of -direction. - -This, then, is the transitional character of the summer of 1790, as -regards the particular life of Danton and the particular city of Paris. -What the Cordeliers had fought so hard to obtain as a constitutional -reform had failed. The direct action of the districts upon the -municipality was apparently lost for ever, and the centre of the new -system was in future to be controlled in the expression of ideas and -paralysed in its action. What the Cordeliers had represented in spirit, -though they had not formulated it in decrees—government by the whole -people—was apparently equally lost. The law of December (that which -established the “active and passive citizens”) was working for Paris -as for all France; and though a suffrage which admitted two-thirds of -the male population to the polls could not be called restrictive, yet -the exception of men working for wages under their master’s roof, the -necessity of a year’s residence, and the qualification of tax-paying did -produce a very narrow oligarchy in a town like Paris: the artisans were -excluded, and thousands of those governed fell just beyond the limits -which defined the municipal voter. Danton may receive the provincial -delegates, may make his speeches at the feast in the Bois de Boulogne; -but once the organ of government has been closed to his ideas, the road -towards the democracy lies through illegality and revolt. - -Now there is another and a wider importance in this anniversary of the -fall of the Bastille. It is the point at which we can best halt and -survey the beginning of the heat which turned the Revolution from a -domestic reform of the French nation to a fire capable of changing the -nature of all our civilisation. I do not mean that you will find those -quarrels in the moment; in 1790 there is nothing of the spirit that -overturned the monarchy nor of the visions that inspired the Gironde; you -cannot even fairly say that there are general threats or mutterings of -war, although the Assembly saw fit to disclaim them: it is a year before -the fear of such dangers arises. But there is in this summer something -to be discovered, namely, an explanation of why two periods differing so -profoundly in character meet so suddenly and with such sharp contrast at -one point in the history of the movement; it is from the summer of 1790 -and onwards that the laws are passed, the divisions initiated, which -finally alienate the King, from that lead to his treason, from that rouse -Europe, and from the consequent invasion produce the Terror, the armies, -and the Empire. The mind needs a link between two such different things -as reform and violence, and because that link is not supplied in the -mere declaration of war or in the mere flight to Varennes, men commit the -error of reading the spirit of the Republic into the days of Mirabeau, -or even of seeing temperate politics in the apostolic frenzy of ’93. -Some, more ignorant or less gifted than the general reader, explain it -by postulating in the character of the French nation quaint aberrations -which may be proper to the individual, but which never have nor can exist -in any community of human beings. - -Let me recapitulate and define the problem which, as it seems to me, can -be solved by making a pivot of the anniversary of the States-General. - -There are, then, in the story of the Revolution these two phases, so -distinct that their recognition is the foundation of all just views -upon the period. In the first, the leaders of the nation are bent -upon practical reforms; the monarchy is a machine to hand for their -accomplishment; the sketch of a new France is drawn, the outlines even -begin to be filled by trained and masterly hands. Phrases will be found -abundantly in those thirty months, because phrases are the christening -of ideas, and no nation of Roman training could attempt any work without -clear definitions to guide it. But these phrases, though often abstract -in the extreme, are never violent, and the oratory itself of the National -Assembly is rarely found to pass the limits which separate the art of -persuasion from the mere practice of defiance. - -In the second phase, for which the name of the Convention often stands, -those subterranean fires which the crust of tradition and the stratified -rock of society had formerly repressed break out in irresistible -eruption. The creative work of the revolutionary idea realises itself in -a casting of molten metal rather than in a forging, and the mould it uses -is designed upon a conception of statuary rather than of architecture. -The majestic idol of the Republic, in whose worship the nation has since -discovered all its glories and all its misfortunes, is set up by those -artists of the ideal; but they forget, or perhaps ignore, the terrible -penalties that attach to superhuman attempts, the reactions of an -exclusive idealism. - -What made the second out of the first? What made a France which had -discussed Sieyès listen to St. Just or even to Hébert? The answer to this -question is to be discovered in noting the fatal seeds that were sown in -this summer of 1790, and which in two years bore the fruit of civil war -and invasion. - -In the first place, that summer creates, as we have seen, a discontented -Paris—a capital whose vast majority it refuses to train in the art of -self-government, and whose general voice it refuses to hear. - -In the second place, it is the moment when the discontent in the army -comes to a head. The open threat of military reaction on the side of -a number of the officers, their intense animosity against the decrees -abolishing titles, their growing disgust at the privileges accorded to -the private soldiers—all these come face to face with non-commissioned -officers and privates who are full of the new liberties. These lower -ranks contained the ambitious men whose ability, the honest and loyal -men whose earnestness, were to carry French arms to the successes of the -Revolutionary wars. - -In the third place, it is the consummation of the blunder that attempted -to create an established National Church in France. Before this last -misfortune a hundred other details of these months that were so many -mothers of discord become insignificant. Civil war first muttering in -the South, counter-revolution drilling in Savoy, the clerical petition -of Nîmes, the question of the Alsatian estates, the Parisian journals -postulating extreme democracy, the Jacobins appearing as an organised and -propagandist body, the prophetic cry of Lameth—all these things were -but incidents that would have been forgotten but for the major cause of -tumult, which is to be discovered in the civil constitution of the clergy. - -Of course, the kings would have attacked, but they were divided, and -had not even a common motive. Of course, also, freedom, in whatever -form it came, would have worked in the moribund body of Europe like a -drug, and till its effect was produced would have been thought a poison. -But against the hatred of every oppressor would have been opposed a -disciplined and a united people, sober by instinct, traditionally slow in -the formation of judgments, traditionally tenacious of an opinion when -once it had been acquired. It would have been sufficient glory for the -French people to have broken the insolence of the aggressors, to have had -upon their lists the names of Marceau and of Hoche. - -But with the false step that produced civil war, that made of the ardent -and liberal West a sudden opponent, that in its final effect raised Lyons -and alienated half the southern towns, that lost Toulon, that put the -extreme of fanaticism in the wisest and most loyal minds—such a generous -and easy war was doomed, and the Revolution was destined to a more tragic -and to a nobler history. God, who permitted this proud folly to proceed -from a pedantic aristocracy, foresaw things necessary to mankind. In -the despair of the philosophers there will arise on either side of a -great battle the enthusiasms which, from whencever they blow, are the -fresh winds of the soul. Here are coming the heroes and the epic songs -for which humanity was sick, and the scenes of one generation of men -shall give us in Europe our creeds for centuries. You shall hear the -“Chant du Départ” like a great hymn in the army of the Sambre et Meuse, -and the cheers of men going down on the _Vengeur_; the voice of a young -man calling the grenadiers at Lodi and Arcola; the noise of the guard -swinging up the frozen hill at Austerlitz. Already the forests below the -Pyrenees are full of the Spanish guerillas, and after how many hundred -years the love of the tribe has reappeared again above the conventions -that covered it. There are the three colours standing against the trees -in the North and the South; and the delicate womanly face of Nelson is -looking over the bulwarks of the _Victory_, with the slow white clouds -and the light wind of an October day above him, and before him the -enemy’s sails in the sunlight and the black rocks of the coast. - -It may be well, at the expense of some digression, to say why the laws -affecting the clergy should be treated as being of paramount historical -importance. They ruined the position of the King; they put before a very -large portion of the nation not one, but two ideals; and what regular -formation can grow round two dissimilar nuclei? Finally—a thing that we -can now see clearly, though then the wisest failed to grasp it—they went -against the grain of the nation. - -It is a common accusation that the Revolution committed the capital sin -of being unhistorical. Taine’s work is a long anathema pronounced against -men who dared to deny the dogmas of evolution before those dogmas were -formulated. Such a criticism is erroneous and vain; in the mouths of many -it is hypocritical. The great bulk of what the Revolution did was set -directly with the current of time. For example: The re-unison of Gaul -had been coming of itself for a thousand years—the Revolution achieved -it; the peasant was virtually master of his land—it made him so in law -and fact; Europe had been trained for centuries in the Roman law—it was -precisely the Roman law that triumphed in the great reform, and most of -its results, all of its phraseology, is drawn from the civil code. But -in this one feature of the constitution of the clergy it sinned against -the nature of France. Of necessity the Parliament was formed of educated -men, steeped in the philosophy of the time, and of necessity it worked -under the eyes of a great city population. In other words, the statesmen -who bungled in this matter and the artisans who formed their immediate -surroundings were drawn from the two classes which had most suffered from -the faults of the hierarchy in France. - -Mirabeau, for example, has passed his life in the rank where rich abbés -made excellent blasphemy; the artisan of Paris has passed his life -unprotected and unsolicited by the priests, whose chief duty is the -maintenance of human dignity in the poor. Add to this the Jansenist -legend of which Camus was so forcible a relic, and the Anglo-mania which -drew the best intellects into the worst experiments, and the curious -project is inevitable. - -In these first essays of European democracy there was, as all the world -knows, a passion for election. In vain had Rousseau pointed out the -fundamental fallacy of representation in any scheme of self-government. -The example of America was before them; the vicious temptation of the -obvious misled them; and until the hard lessons of the war had taught -them the truth, representation for its own sake, like a kind of game, -seems to have been an obsession of the upper class in France. They -admitted it into the organisation of the Church. - -Now let us look in its detail at this attempt to make of the Catholic -Church in the eighteenth century a mixture of the administration of -Constantine, of the presbyteries of first centuries, and of the “branch -of the civil service” which has suited so well a civilisation so -different from that of France. - -The great feature of this reform was the attempt to subject the whole -clerical organisation to the State. I do not mean, of course, the -establishment of dogmas by civil discussion, nor the interference with -internal discipline; but the hierarchy was to be elected, from the -parish priest to the bishop; the new dioceses were to correspond to the -new Departments, and, most important of all, their confirmation was not -to be demanded from the Pope, but “letters of communion” were to be sent -to the Head of the Church, giving him notice of the election. - -This scheme passed the House on July 12, 1790, two days before the great -feast of the federation. A time whose intellect was alien to the Church, -a class whose habits were un-Catholic, had attempted a reformation. Why -was the attempt a blunder? Simply because it was unnecessary. There were -certain ideas upon which the reconstruction of France was proceeding; -they have been constantly alluded to in this book; they are what the -French call “the principles of ’89.” Did they necessarily affect the -Church? Yes; but logically carried out they would have affected the -Church in a purely negative way. It was an obvious part of the new era -to deny the _imperium in imperio_. The Revolution would have stultified -itself had it left untouched the disabilities of Protestants and of Jews, -had it continued to support the internal discipline of the Church by the -civil power. It was logical when it said to the religious orders: “You -are private societies; we will not compel your members to remain, neither -will we compel them to leave their convents.” (In the decree of February -13, 1790.) It would have been logical had it said to the Church: “It -may be that you are the life of society; it may be that your effect is -evil; we leave you free to prove your quality, for freedom of action and -competition is our cardinal principle.” But instead of leaving the Church -free they amused themselves by building up a fantastic and mechanical -structure, and then found that they were compelling religion to enter a -prison. Nothing could be conceived more useless or more dangerous. - -On the other hand, if this scheme as a whole was futile, there were some -details that were necessary results of what the clergy themselves had -done, and some which, if not strictly necessary, have at least survived -the Revolution, and are vigorous institutions to-day. It might have been -possible for Rome to seize on these as a basis of compromise, and it is -conceivable, though hardly probable, that the final scheme might have -left the Church a neutral in the coming wars. But if the councils of the -Holy See were ill-advised, the Parliament was still less judicious; its -extreme sensitiveness to interference from abroad was coupled with the -extreme pedantry of a Lanjuinais, and the scheme in its entirety was -forced upon Louis. He, almost the only pious man in a court which had so -neglected religion as to hate the people, wrote in despair to the Pope; -but before the answer came he had signed the law, and in that moment -signed the warrant for his own death and that of thousands of other loyal -and patriotic men. - -While these future divisions were preparing, during the rest of the year -1790 Danton’s position becomes more marked. We find a little less about -him in the official records, for the simple reason that he has ceased to -be a member of an official body, or rather (since the first Commune was -not actually dissolved till September) he remains the less noticeable -from the fact that the policy which he represented has been defeated; -but his personality is making more impression upon Paris and upon his -enemies. We shall find him using for the first time moderation, and for -the first time meeting with systematic calumny. He acquires, though he -is not yet of any especial prominence, the mark of future success, for -he is beginning to be singled out as a special object of attack; and -throughout the summer and autumn he practises more and more that habit of -steering his course which up to the day of his death so marks him from -the extremists. - -The failure of his policy, the check which had been given to the -Cordeliers, and the uselessness of their protests on the 1st, 2nd, and -3rd of July, had a marked effect upon the position of Danton even in his -own district. He had been president when they were issued, and his friend -D’Eglantine had been secretary. One may say that the policy of resistance -was Danton’s, and that but for his leadership it would have been unheard. -Hence, when it has notoriously failed, that great mass of men who (when -there is no party system) follow the event, lost their faith in him. - -Bailly is not only elected by an enormous majority in all Paris[74] on -the 2nd of August, but even Danton’s own district, now become the Section -of the Théâtre Français, abandoned his policy for the moment. In a poll -of 580, 478 votes were given for Bailly. - -In this moment of reverse he might with great ease have thrown himself -upon all the forces that were for the moment irregular. The Federation -of July had brought to Paris a crowd of deputies from the Departments, -and to these provincials the good-humour and the comradeship of this -Champenois had something attractive about it. In a Paris which bewildered -them they found in him something that they could understand. In a meeting -held by a section of them in the Bois de Boulogne it is Danton who is -the leading figure. When the deputies of Marseilles ask for Chenier’s -“Charles IX.,” it is Danton who gets it played for them at the Théâtre -Français in spite of the opposition of the Court; and again it is Danton -who is singled out during an _entr’acte_ for personal attack by the -loyalists, who had come to hiss the play.[75] - -The unrepresented still followed him, and he still inspired a vague fear -in the minds of men like Lafayette. Innocent of any violence, he stood -(to those who saw him from a great distance) for insurrection. He was -remembered as the defender of Marat, and Marat in turn annoyed him by -repeated mention and praise in his ridiculous journal. Note also that the -time was one in which the two camps were separating, though slowly, and -the rôle of a demagogue would have been as tempting to a foolish man on -the Radical, as the rôle of true knight was to so many foolish men on the -Conservative side. Each part was easy to play, and each was futile. - -Danton refused such a temptation. He, almost alone at that moment (with -the exception, in a much higher sphere, of Mirabeau), was capable of -being taught by defeat. He desired a solid foundation for action. Here -were certain existing things: the club of the Cordeliers, which had for a -while failed him; the Friends of the Constitution, which were a growing -power; the limited suffrage of Paris, which he regretted, but which was -the only legal force he could appeal to; the new municipal constitution, -which he had bitterly opposed, but which was an accomplished fact. Now -it is to all these realities that he turns his mind. He will re-capture -his place in the Section, and make of the quarter of the Odéon a new -République des Cordeliers. He will re-establish his position with -Paris. He will attempt to enter, and perhaps later to control, this new -municipality. It was for such an attitude that St. Just reproached him so -bitterly in the act of accusation of April 1794, while at the moment he -was adopting that attitude he was the mark of the most violent diatribe -from the Conservatives. Nothing defines Danton at this moment so clearly -as the fact that he alone of the popular party knew how to be practical -and to make enemies. - -The month of August may be taken as the time when Danton had to be most -careful if he desired to preserve his place and to avoid a fall into -violence and unreason. It was the 2nd of that month (as we have said) -that saw Bailly’s election, the 5th that gave Danton a personal shock, -for on that date he received, for an office which he really coveted and -for which he was a candidate, but 193 votes out of over 3000 present. - -From that moment he devotes all his energy to reconstruction. The first -evidence of his new attitude appears with the early days of September. -Already the old meeting of the Cordeliers had been changed into the club, -and already his influence was gaining ground again in the debates and in -the local battalion of the National Guard, when the news of Nancy came to -Paris. - -A conflict between the National Guard and the people, an example of -that with which Lafayette continually menaced Paris—the conflict of the -armed bourgeoisie and the artisans, or rather of the militia used as a -professional army against the people—this had happened at last. It was -an occasion for raving. Marat raved loudly, and the royalists gave vent -to not a little complacent raving on their side. In the great question -whether the army was to be democratic or not, whether reaction was to -possess its old disciplined arm, it would seem that reaction had won, and -France had seen a little rehearsal of what in ten months was to produce -the 17th of July. - -In such conditions the attitude of the Cordeliers was of real importance. -During all Lafayette’s attempt to centralise the militia of Paris this -battalion had remained independent; its attitude during the days of -October, its defence of Marat in January, had proved this. The crisis -appeared to demand from this revolutionary body a strong protest against -the use of the militia as an army to be aimed against the people. Such a -protest might have been the cause of an outbreak in Paris. Under these -circumstances Danton—by what arguments we cannot tell (for the whole -affair is only known to us by a few lines of Desmoulins)—obtained from -his battalion a carefully-worded pronouncement. “For all the high opinion -we have of the National Guards who took part in the affair of Nancy, we -can express no other sentiment than regret for what has happened.”[76] It -was moderate to the degree of the common-place, but it saved Danton from -the abyss and from the street. - -There followed another check in which he showed once more his power of -self-control. The “Notables”—corresponding something to the aldermen of -our new municipal scheme in England—were to be elected for Paris a little -after the elections for the mayor and for the governor of the Commune. -Each Section was to elect three, and Danton had so far regained his -influence at home as to be elected for the Théâtre Français. - -Unfortunately the new constitution of Paris had been provided with -one of those checks whose main object it is to interfere with direct -representation. The choice of each Section was submitted to the censure -or the approval of all the others. It is by the judgment which they pass -that we can best judge the suspicion in which he was held by the great -bulk of his equals. A regular campaign was led against him. The affair of -Marat was dragged up, especially the warrant for Danton’s arrest which -the Châtelet had issued six months before. That very favourite device in -electioneering, the doubt as to real candidature, was used. The voter, -not over-well informed in a detail of law (especially at a time when -all law was being re-modelled), was told that the warrant made Danton’s -candidature illegal. They said he was sold to Orleans, because he had -haunted the Palais Royal and because he hated Lafayette. The character -of demagogue—the one thing he desired to avoid—was pinned to his coat, -and alone of all the Notables he was rejected by forty-three Sections -(five only voting for him) in the week between the 9th and the 16th of -September.[77] - -In these five were the Postes, Invalides, Luxembourg. It was not the -purely popular quarters that supported Danton, but rather the University -and the lawyers. - -He took his defeat as a signal for still greater reserve, letting his -name take perspective, and refusing by any act or phrase to obscure his -reputation with new issues. The tactics succeeded. When, in October, -a public orator was needed, they remembered him, and he presents the -deputation of the 10th of November. The circumstances were as follows:— - -The ministry which surrounded the King was frankly reactionary. I do not -mean that it was opposed to the constitution of the moment. Perhaps the -majority (and the less important) of its members would have been loath -to bring back anything approaching the old regime. But there were in the -Revolution not only the facts but the tendencies, and in a period when -every day brought its change, the tendencies were watched with an extreme -care. France may have thought, seeing the federation on the Champ de Mars -and the altar where Talleyrand had said mass, that the Revolution was at -an end and the new state of affairs established in peace, but those in -the capital knew better; and the men immediately surrounding the King, -who saw the necessary consequences of his signing the civic constitution, -and the growing breach between himself and the assembly—these men were on -the King’s side. The affair at Nancy, which had aroused so many passions, -was the thing which finally roused Parisian opinion; and at the very -moment when the King is secretly planning the flight to Montmédy—that -flight which six months later failed—Paris is for the first time claiming -to govern the councils of the kingdom. - -It was the Sections that began the movement, those Sections whose action -was to have been so restricted, and which, upon the contrary, were -becoming the permanent organs of expression in the capital. - -The Section Mauconseil on the 22nd of October sent in a petition for -the dismissal of the cabinet and appealed to the National Assembly. The -Section of the National Library followed suit three days later, and -sent its petition not only to the Assembly but to the King. It must -be remembered that the legend of a good king deceived by his advisers -held at the time. Indeed, it survived the flight to Varennes; it partly -survived the 10th of August, and only the research of recent times has -proved clearly the continual intrigue of which the King was the head. - -On the 27th Mauconseil came forward again with a petition to the -mayor, Bailly, to call the general council of the Commune and consider -the complaints. Fourteen other Sections backed this petition. Bailly -hesitated, and while he temporised, all the forty-eight Sections -named commissioners and sent them to an informal gathering at the -Archbishopric.[78] - -Danton was a member of this big committee and was made secretary. He drew -up an address; the mayor was twice summoned to call the general council -of the Commune. Hesitating and afraid, Bailly finally did so, and after -a violent debate the resolution passed. Bailly was sent by the town to -“present the Commune at the bar of the Assembly and demand the recall” of -the Ministers of Justice, War, and the Interior—De Cicé, La Tour du Pin, -and St. Priest. - -Danton was taken out of the informal body to which he had acted as -secretary, and asked to be the orator of the legal Commune. There -followed on the 10th of November a very curious scene. - -Bailly pitifully apologising with his eyes brought in the representative -body of Paris. It was present for the first time in the National -Parliament, and before three years were over Paris was to be the mistress -of the Parliament. At present they were out of place; their demand -frightened them. It needed Danton’s voice to reassure them and to bring -the opposing forces to a battle. - -His voice, big, rough, and deep, perhaps with a slight provincial accent, -helped to strengthen the false idea that the gentlemen of the Parliament -had formed. This Danton, of whom they heard so much, had appeared -suddenly out of his right place—for he had no official position—and the -Right was furious. - -Yet Danton’s harangue was moderate and sensible. There is, indeed, -one passage on the position of Paris in France which is interesting -because it is original, but the bulk of the speech is a string of plain -arguments. This passage is as follows:— - -“That Commune, composed of citizens who belong in a fashion to the -eighty-three Departments—(_The Right_, No! no!)—jealously desiring to -fulfil in the name of all good citizens the duties of a sentinel to the -constitution, is in haste to express a demand which is dear to all the -enemies of tyranny—a demand which would be heard from all the Sections -of the Empire, could they be united with the same promptitude as the -Sections of Paris.”[79] - -For the rest, he is continually insisting upon the right of the -Parliament to govern—the right, above all, of a representative body to -dismiss a ministry. He had in this, as in certain other matters, a very -English point of view, and certainly the arguments he used were able. But -he was interrupted continually, and we get, even in the dry account of -the _Moniteur_, a good picture of what the scene must have been like— - -“A dismissal which the Assembly has the right to demand.” - -The Abbé Maury: “Who ever said that?” [Murmurs and discussion followed. -The Abbé was called to order, when....] - -M. Cazales remarked: “It is our duty to listen, even if they talk -nonsense.” - -Danton began again with: “The Commune of Paris is better able to judge -the conduct of ministers than....” - -The Abbé Maury: “Why?” [He is again called to order.] - -And so it went on. But in a duel of this kind lungs are the weapons, and -Danton had the best lungs in the hall. He had also perhaps the soundest -brain of any; but the Abbé Maury and his friends had chosen more rapid -methods than those of arguments. The short address ended (it did not take -a quarter of an hour to read), and the deputation left the Assembly. This -last debated and refused the decree; yet the Commune had succeeded, for -in a few days the Archbishop of Bordeaux left the Ministry of Justice, -and La Tour du Pin, “who thought that parchment alone made nobility” (a -phrase of Danton’s which had upset the Right), left the Ministry of War. - -The deputation had petitioned on Wednesday, the 10th of November. Four -days later he was elected head of the militia battalion in which he had -served for a year.[80] There is some doubt as to whether he remained -long at this post. Some antagonists talk vaguely of his “leading his -battalion” in ’92, but never as eye-witnesses. On the other hand, there -is a letter in existence talking of Danton’s resignation; but it is -unsigned and undated. Only some one has written in pencil, “Gouvion, 22nd -November.”[81] - -At any rate, the interest of the little incident lies in the fact that it -meant a meeting between Danton and Lafayette, and, as Freron remarks in -his journal, “Cela serait curieux.”[82] Perhaps they did not meet. - -The campaign continually directed against Danton was as active in -this matter as in all others. It gives one, for instance, an insight -into the management and discipline of the guards to learn that -“Coutra, a corporal, went about asking for signatures against Danton’s -nomination.”[83] He had just risen above the successes of his enemies. -November had put him on a sure footing again, and in January he reached -the place he had had so long in view, the administration of Paris. - -It will be remembered that the voting was by two degrees. The electors -nominated an “electoral college,” who elected the Commune and its -officers. Already in October Danton had been put into the electoral -college by twenty-six members chosen by his Section, but not without -violent opposition. Finally, after eight ballots, on the 31st of -January 1791, he became a member of the administration of the town—the -twenty-second on a list of thirty-six elected. He failed, however, in his -attempt to be chosen “Procureur,” and through all the year 1791 he keeps -his place in the administration of Paris merely as a stepping-stone. He -does not speak much in the Council. He used his partial success only for -the purpose of attaining a definite position from which he could exercise -some measure of executive control; this position he finally attains (as -we shall see) in the following December, and it is from it that he is -able to direct the movement of 1792. - -The year 1791 does not form a unit in the story of the Revolution. It is -cut sharply in two by the flight of the King in June. Before that event -things went with a certain quietude. The tendency to reaction and the -tendency to extreme democracy are to be discovered, but there can be no -doubt that a kind of lassitude has taken the public mind. After all, the -benefits of the Revolution are there. The two years of discussion, the -useless acrimony of the preceding autumn, began to weary the voters—there -is a sentiment of joviality abroad. - -After the flight of the King all is changed. To a period of development -there succeeds a period of violent advance, and of retreat yet more -violent; there appears in France the first mention of the word republic, -and all the characters that hung round Lafayette come definitely into -conflict with the mass of the people. The action of the troops on the -Champ de Mars opens the first of those impassable gulfs between the -parties, and from that moment onward there arise the hatreds that are -only satisfied by the death of political opponents. - -In that first period, then, which the death of Mirabeau was to disturb, -the 18th of April to endanger, and the flight of the King to close, -Danton’s rôle, like that of all the democrats, is effaced. Why should it -not be? The violent discussions that followed the affair of Nancy led, -as it were, to a double satisfaction: the loyal party saw that after all -the Radicals were not destroying the State; the Radicals, on the other -hand, had learnt that the loyalists could do nothing distinctly injurious -to the nation without being discovered. At least, they thought they had -learnt this truth. They did not know how for months Mirabeau had been in -the pay of the Court, and how the executive power had concerned itself -with the King rather than with the nation. - -A sign of this appeasement in the violence of the time (a movement, -by the way, which was exactly what Danton desired) is his letter to -La Rochefoucald, the president of the Department, when the successful -election, which I have described above, was known. This letter, one of -the very few which Danton has left, is a singularly able composition. He -alludes to the mistrust which had been felt when his name was mentioned; -he does not deny the insurrectionary character of the quarter of Paris -which he inspired. But he replies: “I will let my actions, now that I -hold public office, prove my attitude, and if I am in a position of -responsibility, it will have a special value in showing that I was right -to continually claim the public control of administrative functions.” -The whole of the long letter[84] is very well put; it is Danton himself -that speaks, and it is hard to doubt that at this moment he also was one -of those who thought they were touching the end of the reform, that goal -which always fled from the men who most sincerely sought it. - -He did not, however, come often to the Council—to less than a quarter of -its sittings, at the most; moreover, the men who composed it still looked -upon him with suspicion; and when, on the 4th of May, the committees were -drawn up, his name was omitted. He asked on the next day to be inscribed -on the committee that contained Sieyès, and his request was granted. - -The activity of Danton during these few months was not even shown at -the Cordeliers; though that club occasionally heard him, it was at the -Jacobins that he principally spoke. - -This famous club, on which the root of the Revolution so largely depends, -was at this period by no means the extreme and Robespierrian thing -with which we usually associate the name. It hardly even called itself -“the Jacobins” yet, but clung rather to its original name of “Friends -of the Constitution.” Its origin dated from the little gathering of -Breton deputies who were in the habit, while the Assembly was still at -Versailles, of meeting together to discuss a common plan of action. When -the Assembly came to Paris, this society, in which by that time a very -large number of deputies had enrolled themselves, took up their place in -the hall of the Dominicans or “Jacobins,” just off the Rue St. Honoré. -(Its site is just to the east of the square of Vendôme to-day.) It was a -union of all those who desired reform, and in the first part of the year -1790 it had been remarkable for giving a common ground where the moderate -and extremist, all who desired reform, could meet. The Duc de Broglie -figures among its presidents. It was the Royalists, the extreme Court -party, that dubbed these “Friends of the Constitution” “Jacobins,” and -it was not till somewhat later that they themselves adopted and gloried -in the nickname. It was composed not only of deputies, but of all the -best-born and best-bred of the Parisian reformers, drawn almost entirely -from the noble or professional classes, and holding dignified sessions, -to which the public were not admitted. - -Almost at the same moment, namely, towards the autumn and winter of -1790, two features appeared in it. First, the Moderates begin to leave -it, and the schism which finally produced the “Feuillants” is formed; -secondly, there come in from all over France demands from the local -popular societies to be affiliated to the great club in Paris. These -demands were granted. There arises a kind of “Jacobin order,” which -penetrates even to the little country towns, everywhere preaches the -same doctrine, everywhere makes it its business to keep a watch against -reaction. These local clubs depended with a kind of superstition upon -the decrees of what, without too violent a metaphor, we may call the -“Mother House” in Paris; it was this organisation that aroused the apathy -of provincial France and trained the new voters in political discussion, -and it was this also that was later captured by Robespierre, who, like a -kind of high priest, directed a disciplined body wherever the affiliated -societies existed. - -Danton first joined the society at the very moment when this double -change was in progress, in September 1790. His energies, which were -employed in the club to arrange the difficulty with the Moderates (if -that were possible), were also used (to quote a well-known phrase) -in “letting France hear Paris.” The Cordeliers had been essentially -Parisian; steeped in that feeling, Danton spoke from the Rue St. Honoré -to the whole nation. - -It is with the end of March that he begins to be heard, in a speech -attacking Collot d’Herbois; for that unpleasant fellow was then a -Moderate. It is apropos of that speech that the “Sabbots Jacobites” give -us the satirical rhyme on Danton, which recalls his face when he spoke, -looking all the uglier for the energy which he put into his words:— - - “Monsieur Danton, - Quittez cet air farouche, - Monsieur Danton, - On vous prendrez pour un démon.”[85] - -On the 3rd of April it was known in Paris that Mirabeau was dead. He -had been killed with the overwork of attempting to save the King from -himself. A masterly intrigue, a double dealing which was hidden for a -generation, had exhausted him, and in the terrible strain of balancing -such opposite interests as those of France, which he adored, and Louis, -whom he served, his two years of struggle suddenly fell upon him and -crushed him. He smiled at the sun and called it God’s cousin, boasted -like a genius, gave a despairing phrase to the monarchy, demanded sleep, -and died. - -Danton had always, from a long way off, understood his brother in silk -and with the sword. On this day he passionately deplored the loss. Like -all Paris, the Jacobins forgot Mirabeau’s treason, and remembered his -services when the news of his sudden death fell upon them. From their -tribune Danton spoke in terms in which he almost alone foretold the -coming reaction, and he was right. The King, hardly restrained from -folly by the compromise of the great statesman, plunged into it when his -support was withdrawn. He had been half Mirabeau’s man, now he was all -Antoinette’s. - -It was the fatal question of religion that precipitated the crisis. Louis -could not honestly receive the Easter communion from a constitutional -priest. On the other hand, he might have received it quietly in his -household. He chose to make it a public ceremony, and to go in state -to St. Cloud for his Easter duties. It was upon April 18th, a day or -two more than a fortnight after Mirabeau’s death, that he would have -set out. As one might have expected, the streets filled at once. The -many battalions of the National Guard who were on the democratic side -helped the people to stop the carriage; in their eyes, as in that of the -populace, the King’s journey to St. Cloud was only part of the scheme to -leave Paris to raise an army against the Assembly.[86] - -On the other hand, those of the National Guard who obeyed Lafayette[87] -could not, by that very fact, move until Lafayette ordered them. Thus the -carriage was held for hours, until at last, in despair, the King went -back to the Tuilleries. - -Meanwhile, what had occurred at the Hotel de Ville? The testimony is -contradictory and the whole story confused, but the truth seems to -have been something of this kind. Lafayette certainly called on the -administration of the Department and asked for martial law. Bailly as -certainly was willing to grant it. Danton was called from his rank and -came to oppose it; but did he end the matter by his speech? Camille -Desmoulins[88] says so, and draws a fine picture of Danton carrying -the administration with him, as he carried the club or the street. But -Desmoulins is often inaccurate, and here his account is improbable. -Danton’s own note of the circumstance (which he thought worthy of being -pinned to his family papers) runs: “I was present at the Department when -MM. the commandant and the mayor demanded martial law.” Nothing more. - -Desmoulins makes another mistake when he attributes to Danton the letter -which was written to the King, and which was sent on the night of the -18th; it reproached him for his action, sharply criticised his rejection -of constitutional priests. It was not Danton, it was Talleyrand (a member -also of the Department) who wrote this letter. - -It is probable that Danton and Talleyrand knew each other. Talleyrand was -a good judge of men, and would have many strings to his bow—we know that -he depended upon Danton’s kindness at a critical moment in 1792—but the -style of the letter is not Danton’s, and the document as we find it in -Schmidt is definitely ascribed to Talleyrand. - -This is all we can gather as to his place in the popular uprising to -prevent the King’s leaving Paris. A placard of some violence issued from -the Cordeliers, saying that he had “forbidden Lafayette to fire on the -people;” but Danton disowned it in a meeting of the Department. - -This much alone is certain, that the 18th of April had finally put -Danton and Lafayette face to face, and that in the common knowledge of -Paris they would be the heads of opposing forces in the next crisis. But -their rôles turned out to be the very opposite of what men would have -predicted. It was Lafayette who shot and blustered, and had his brief -moment of power; it was Danton who made a flank movement and achieved a -final victory. For the next crisis was the flight of the King. - -It would be irrelevant to give the story of this flight in the life of -Danton. Our business is to understand Danton by following the exact -course of his actions during June and July, and by describing exactly the -nature of the movement in which his attitude took the form which we are -investigating. - -Two things command the attention when we study the France of 1791. France -was monarchic and France was afraid. History knows what was to follow; -the men of the time did not. There lay in their minds the centuries of -history that had been; their future was to them out of conception, and -as unreal as our future is to us. You may notice from the very first -moment of the true Revolution a passion for the King. For most he is -a father, but for all a necessary man. They took him back to Paris; -they forced him to declarations of loyalty, and then, with the folly of -desire, accepted as real an emotion which they had actually dictated. -Such was the movement of the 4th of February 1790; such the sentiment -of the Federation in July of that year. And the people understood his -reluctance in taking communion from a nonjuring priest, however much the -upper class might be astonished. What no one understood was that only -Mirabeau stood between the Crown and its vilest temptations; only his -balance of genius, his great and admirable fault of compromise, prevented -Louis from yielding to his least kingly part, and while he lived the -king of the French preferred the nation to his own person. But Mirabeau -was dead. They did well to mourn him, those who had smelt out his treason -and guessed the weakness of the artist in him; they did well to forgive -him; his head misunderstood France, but his broad French shoulders had -supported her. The 18th of April was a direct consequence of his death; -the 21st of June was a fall through a broken bridge: Louis had yielded to -himself. - -Well, France was also afraid. This democracy (as it had come to be), -an experiment based upon a vision, knew how perilous was the path -between the old and the new ideals. She feared the divine sunstroke that -threatens the road to Damascus. In that passage, which was bounded on -either side by an abyss, her feet went slowly, one before the other, and -she looked backward continually. In the twisting tides at night her one -anchor to the old time was the monarchy. Thus when Louis fled the feeling -was of a prop broken. France only cried out for one thing—“Bring the King -back.” Tie up the beam—a makeshift—anything rather than a new foundation. - -Here is the attitude of Danton in this crisis. France is not republican; -his friends in Paris are. He inclines to France. It was Danton more than -any other one man who finally prepared the Republic, yet the Republic was -never with him an idea. The consequences of the Republic were his goal; -as for the systems, systems were not part of his mind. At the close of -this chapter we shall see him overthrowing the Crown; he did it because -he thought it the one act that could save France; but the Crown as an -idea he never hated: he lived in existing things. - -These were the reasons that made him hesitate at this date. A man -understanding Europe, he saw that the governments were not ready to move; -a man understanding his own country, he saw that it would have the King -in his place again; a man, on the other hand, who had met and appreciated -the idealists, he saw that the Republic already existed in the mind; and -a man who understood the character of his fellows better than did any -contemporary, he saw that the men who were bound to lead were inclined to -a declaration against the King. He suffered more than his action should -have warranted, and he goes through a sharp few days of danger on account -of association and of friends in spite of all his caution. - -When Louis was known to have fled, and when Paris, vigilant beyond the -provinces, and deceived by the declaration of April, had undergone its -first wave of passion, the word Republic began to be spoken out loud. The -theorists found themselves for once in accordance with public humour; and -against the keenness, if not the numbers, of those who petitioned for -the deposition of the King on his return, there stood two barriers—the -Assembly and the moderate fortunes of the capital. Danton lived with the -former, thought with the latter, and was all but silent. - -The bust of Louis XIV. before the Hotel de Ville was broken; men climbed -on ladders to chisel off the lilies from the palaces, and there soon -appears a new portent: some one cries out, “Only a Republic can defend -itself at the last.” - -To this somewhat confused cry for a Republic came the very sharp -announcement from no less a person than Condorcet. Condorcet, the -moderate and illumined, was also half a visionary, and there had always -floated in his mind the system of contract by which England had excused -the movement of 1688, but which France took seriously. England had for -him the attraction which it had for all the professionals of that date—an -attraction which lasted till the disasters of 1870, and which you may -yet discover here and there among those who are the heirs of Lamartine. -England had given them Locke, and Condorcet’s reasoning on the King’s -flight[89] reads like a passage from the Bill of Rights. Yet he was a -good and sincere man, and died through simplicity of heart. - -On the 4th of July, ten days or more after the King had been brought back -to Paris,[90] it was Condorcet who made the demand for the Republic; in a -speech at Fauchet’s club he asked for a National Convention to settle the -whole matter. He wrote so in the papers[91] all through July, and even -after the affair of the Champ de Mars he continued his agitation. - -Now how do we know Danton’s attitude? The Cordeliers presented a petition -of June 21st itself and demanded the Republic. It is largely from this -document that the error has arisen. But Danton was not then with the -Cordeliers; his name does not appear. It is at the Jacobins that he is -heard, and the Jacobins took up a distinctly monarchical position. They -all rose in a body on the 22nd and passed a unanimous vote in favour of -the constitution and the King.[92] Danton was present when this vote was -passed, and he had just heard the hissing of the Cordeliers’ petition; -he was silent. Thomas Payne is demanding the Republic in the _Moniteur_; -Sieyès replies for the monarchy;[93], even Robespierre tardily speaks -in favour of ideas and against change of etiquette; Marat shouts for a -dictator;[94] Danton, almost alone, refuses to be certain. On June 23rd -he spoke at the Jacobins in favour of a council to be elected by the -Departments immediately, but he proposed nothing as to its actions; it -was merely his permanent idea of a central, strong power. - -Lafayette amused himself by arresting people who repeated this in the -street, but Lafayette hated Danton blindly. Nothing republican can be -made of a speech which his enemies said was “a loophole for Orleans.” - -Danton attacked Lafayette: he saw persons more clearly than ideas, and -Lafayette was Danton’s nightmare. He was that being which of all on earth -Danton thought most dangerous, the epitome of all the faults which he -attacked to the day of his death; in Louis, in Robespierre, “The weak man -in power.” He drove him out of the Jacobins on the 21st, and later in the -day gave the cry against his enemy in the street, which the fears of the -Assembly so much exaggerated. - -For the events of the twenty-four hours had all added to his natural -opposition to Lafayette, and as we relate them from Danton’s standpoint, -we shall see this much of truth in the idea that he led the movement, -namely, that the three days of the King’s flight and recapture, while -they put Lafayette into a position of great power, made also Danton his -antagonist, the leader of the protest against the general’s methods. It -is the more worthy of remark that in such conditions the word “Republic” -never crossed his lips. - -At eleven o’clock at night on the Monday of the King’s flight, Danton and -Desmoulins were coming home alone from the Jacobins. Each remarked to the -other the emptiness of the streets and the lack of patrols, and at that -moment, when the evasion was little suspected, each was in a vague doubt -that Lafayette had some reason for concentrating the National Guard.[95] -Desmoulins will even have it that he saw him enter the palace, as the two -friends passed the Tuilleries. - -The next morning at the Cordeliers Danton cried out against Lafayette -for a moment, and then at the Jacobins he made the speech that has been -mentioned above. Continually he attacks the man who was preparing a -counter-revolution, but I do not believe he would have attached the least -importance at that moment to a change in the etiquette of government. -Thus, as the Department was sent for by the Assembly in the afternoon, -Danton came later than his colleagues, provided himself with a guard, and -as he crossed the Tuilleries gardens he harangued the people, but against -Lafayette, not against the King. - -Now, to make sure of this feature, the duel between Lafayette and Danton, -and to see that it is the principal thing at the time, turn once more to -the scene at the Jacobins, and compare it with Lafayette’s Memoirs, and -you will find that Danton was the terror of the saviour of two worlds, -and that it was upon Lafayette that Danton had massed his artillery. - -Here is Danton at the Jacobins, sitting by Desmoulin’s side; he goes to -the tribune and speaks upon the disgrace and danger that the Moderates -have brought about. When Lafayette entered during the speech, he turned -upon him suddenly, and launched one of those direct phrases which -made him later the leader of the Convention: “I am going to talk as -though I were at the bar of God’s justice, and I will say before you, -M. Lafayette, what I would say in the presence of Him who reads all -hearts.... How was it that you, who pretend to know nothing of me, tried -to corrupt me to your views of treason?... How was it that you arrested -those who in last February demanded the destruction of Vincennes? You are -present; try to give a clear reason.... How was it that the very same men -were on guard when the King tried to go to St. Cloud on the 18th of April -were on guard last night when the King fled?... I will not mention the -6000 men[96] whom you have picked as a garrison for the King; only answer -clearly these three accusations. For in their light you, who answered -with your head that the King should not fly, are either a traitor or a -fool. For either you have permitted him to fly, or else you undertook a -responsibility which you could not fulfil: in the best case, you are not -capable of commanding the guard.... I will leave the tribune, for I have -said enough.”[97] - -This is clear enough in all conscience to show what was Danton’s -main pre-occupation in the days of June 1791. And if, upon the other -hand, you will turn to Lafayette’s Memoirs, the third volume, the -83rd and following pages, you will find that Danton was Lafayette’s -pre-occupation, and that he makes this moment the occasion to deliver -the most definite and (luckily) the most demonstrably false of his many -accusations of venality. He tells us that he could not reply because it -would have “cost Montmorin his life;” that Montmorin “had the receipt -for the 100,000 francs;” that Danton had been “reimbursed to the extent -of 100,000 francs for a place worth 10,000,” and so forth. We know now -exactly the amount of compensation paid to him and his colleagues at the -court of appeal,[98] and we know that Lafayette, writing a generation -later, animated by a bitter hatred, and remembering that somebody had -paid Danton something, and with his head full of vague rumours of -bribing, has fallen into one of those unpardonable errors common to vain -and vacillating men. But at this juncture the main point that should be -seized is that Danton was taking the opportunity of the King’s evasion -to attack Lafayette with all his might, and that a generation later the -old man chiefly remembered Danton as leading the popular anger which the -commander of the guard thought himself bound to repress. It is this that -will explain why Danton, who so carefully avoided giving the word for the -Republican “false start,” was yet marked out, fled, and returned to lead -the opposition. - -The Cordeliers followed Danton’s lead. They got up a petition,[99] signed -by 30,000 in Paris, demanding that the affair should be laid before -the country, but not demanding the abolition of the monarchy. Memdar, -their president, declared himself a monarchist. But the petition, though -read at the Assembly, was not adopted, and, on the 9th of July, the -Cordeliers presented another. Charles de Lameth (who was president that -fortnight) refused to read it. The Assembly, in other words, was dumb; -it was determined (like its successor a year later) to do nothing—an -attitude which (for all it knew) might be very wise, and those who -were following Danton determined upon a definite policy. On Friday the -15th, at the Jacobins, it was determined to draw up a petition which -begged that the Assembly should _first_ recognise Louis as having -abdicated by his flight, unless the nation voted his reinstatement, and -_secondly_ (in case the nation did not do so), take measures to have him -constitutionally replaced. Now the constitution was monarchist. - -The petition was to be taken to be read at the Champ de Mars on the -altar, and there to obtain signatures. It was drawn up by Danton, -Sergent, Lanthanas, Ducanel, and Brissot, who wrote it out and worded -most of it. The events that follow must be noted with some care, because -on their exact sequence depends our judgment of Lafayette’s action and of -Danton’s politics. - -On Saturday[100] the 16th, about mid-day, a deputation of four from the -Jacobins came to the Champ de Mars. The petition was read by a little -light-haired Englishman on one side, and by a red-haired Frenchman in -a red coat on the other; picturesque but unimportant details. Danton -leapt on to the corner of the altar, and read it again to the thick -of the crowd. The signatures were written in great numbers, and when -the completed document was about to start for the Assembly, when the -deputation that was to take it was already formed, it was suddenly spread -abroad that the Assembly had passed a vote exonerating Louis. - -The Jacobins were appealed to, and replied that under the conditions the -petition which they had drawn up could not be presented. The Cordeliers, -however, lost their tempers, and Robert determined to draw up a new -petition. Now in this second action Danton took no part. It was this new -petition that (signed by Robert, Peyre, Vachard, and Demoy) was drawn up -hastily in the Champ de Mars on Sunday the 17th, to this that the 6000 -signatures were attached, and this which demanded a “Convention to judge -the King.” There followed the proclamation of martial law, the appearance -of Lafayette and Bailly in the Champ de Mars with the red flag, the -conflict between the National Guard and the crowd, and all that is called -the “Massacre of the Champ de Mars.” - -That petition was not signed by Danton.[101] He was not even -present,[102] as we know from his speech on his election to be -“Substitut-Procureur,” and especially from the fact that in the fortnight -of terror, when the red flag stood over the Hotel de Ville, when the -democrats were arrested or in hiding, when the door of the Cordeliers -was shut and nailed, and when the Radical newspapers were suppressed, no -warrant of arrest could be issued, because there existed nothing definite -against him. Lafayette was determined, however, to act in a military -fashion, and on the 4th of August the arrest of Danton was ordered, on -some other plea which he alludes to in his speech of the next January, -but the exact terms of which have not come down to us. - -He had left Paris at once when he saw that Lafayette had practically -absolute power for the moment. He first went to his father-in-law’s, -Charpentier, at Rosny-sur-Bois, and then escaped to Arcis. Before the -warrant was actually made out, Lafayette had sent a man to watch him -at Arcis. He was “giving a dinner. It would need a troop of cavalry to -arrest him. Everybody was on his side.”[103] Marseilles and Bar spoke up -for him. But the attack only grew stronger. On the 31st of July he moved -again to Troyes, to the house of Millaud, of his father’s profession, -and a friend, because he feared a new arrival from Paris who seemed a -spy.[104] He was there when the warrant was sent down to the “procureur” -for the arrest; the official in question was Beugnot, and Beugnot told -Danton jocularly that he would not arrest him. He did not think this -a sufficient guarantee, and as his stepfather, Recordain, was off to -England to buy some machinery for a cotton-mill that he thought of -starting, Danton went to England with him, and remained in this country -for a month, staying in the house of his stepfather’s sons, who were -established in London. It was in the last days of July or the first days -in August[105] that he arrived, and he did not return to Paris until the -appointment of his friend Garran de Coulon as President of the Court of -Appeal. He appears again at the Jacobins on the 12th of September; some -say he was in Paris on the 10th.[106] - -It would be of the utmost interest to know how he passed those thirty or -forty days. Unfortunately there is no direct evidence as to whom he met -or what negotiations he entered into. As to his English acquaintances, -his letters from Priestley and Christie, the relations he had with -Talleyrand, and their common diplomacy for the English alliance—all -these properly belong to Danton in power, the minister directing France -after August 1792, and it is in that place that they will be dealt with. -Of historical events in his voyage we have none, and there is no more -regrettable gap in the very disconnected series of ascertained facts -concerning him. - -On his return, he discovered that the Section of the Théâtre Français had -named him a member of the electoral college which sat at the Archbishop’s -palace. Many members of this Assembly had been arrested, or had fled -during Lafayette’s violent efforts of reaction in August and September. -The new Parliament which had just met did not decree an amnesty (as it -was asked to do on the 5th of September), but it was of course far more -democratic than the old Assembly, and it was understood to be tacitly in -favour of the return of those whom Lafayette had driven out. Following -Danton’s example, they slowly came back; but a curious incident shows how -much of the danger remained. - -On the 13th of September the Parliament, at the desire of the King, -voted the amnesty. While it was actually voting, a constable called -Damien got into the gallery of the hall in which Danton and the electors -were debating, and sent a note to the president asking him to allow the -arrest. The president and the electoral college (who did not like Danton, -by the way, and who would not give him more than forty votes when it came -to electing members for Paris) yet ordered the arrest by Damien, and it -was only when they learnt of the amnesty that, on Danton’s own motion, he -was released. - -It has just been said that Danton failed to be elected: let us point out -the conditions under which the Legislative met, that short Parliament -of one year which made the war, and saw to its dismay the end of the -monarchy. - -The Legislative was not elected in one of those moments of decision which -were the formative points of the Revolution. It came upon a very curious -juncture, and showed in all its first acts a marked indecision. - -The members were chosen under the action of a peculiar combination, or -rather confusion of emotions. The King had fled, had been recaptured. -France, of many possible evils, had chosen what she believed to be the -least when she reinstated him. “The New Pact” was accepted even by those -who had spoken of the Republic in July. Condorcet, who had led the civic -theorists towards the Republic, leads them also now in this movement of -reconciliation. Again, these were the first elections held since the -middle class and the peasantry had been given the suffrage over the heads -of the artisans: it was the most sober part of France that dictated the -policy of the moment. The divisions that the King’s flight had laid -bare, the sharp reaction and terror of the Champ de Mars—all these were -forgotten. - -Thus the Parliament will not have Garran-Coulon for its first president, -and yet on the next day passes the extreme democratic etiquette as to -the reception of the King should he visit the Assembly. Next day it -repeals this, and when the King does visit the Assembly, he is met by an -outburst of loyalty and affection. - -As to parties, the power lay, as it always does in a French Assembly, -with the centre—some three hundred men, unimportant, of no fixed idea, -unless indeed it were to keep the Legislative to the work for which it -had been elected, that is, to keep it moving moderately on the lines laid -down for it by the constitution of 1791. - -The right, well organised, loyal and brave, was Feuillant; that is, it -was monarchic and constitutional, but more monarchic than constitutional. -It was the support of Lafayette, and on the whole the centre would vote -with it on any important occasion. - -But there sat on the left a group less compact, full of personal -ambitions and personal creeds, containing almost all the orators whose -names were to make famous the following year. It was but a group of 130 -men, even if we include all those who signed the register of the Jacobins -when the Assembly met; yet it was destined, ill-disciplined as it was, -part wild and part untrue, to lead all France. Why? Because the King was -to make impossible the action of the Moderates, because his intrigue made -Frenchmen choose between him and France, and in the inevitable war the -men who were determined to realise the Revolution could not but be made -the leaders. - -As has been said above, Danton was not elected. The electoral college, -of which he was a member, chose Moderates for the most part, such as -Pastoret and De Quincy, and the narrow suffrage represented the true -drift of Parisian feeling only in the case of a few—De Séchelles, -Brissot, Condorcet, and a handful of others. But though Danton did not -sit in the Legislative he was free for action in two other directions, -which (as it turned out) were the commanding positions in the great -changes that came with the war. He was free to attain an administrative -position in the municipality of Paris, and he was free to use his power -of oratory at the Jacobins. - -As to the first, it came with his moderate but important success in the -municipal elections at the close of the year. Bailly, frightened out of -place, half-regretting his action of the Champ de Mars, had resigned, and -Pétion, on November 16th, was elected in his place. Only ten thousand -voted, and he obtained 6700 votes. On the same day the Procureur of the -new Commune was to be elected. A Procureur under the new system was a -position of the greatest importance. He was, so to speak, the advocate of -the town, its tribune in the governing body, and with his two substitutes -(who aided and occasionally replaced him) was meant to form a kind -of small committee whose business was to watch the interests and to -define the attitude of the electorate whenever those interests were in -jeopardy or that attitude was opposed to the policy of the elected body. -These three positions were dangerous, but would lead to popularity, and -perhaps to power, if they were directed by a certain kind of ability. It -was precisely such a power, the quality of a tribune, that Danton knew -himself to possess. - -His candidature for the principal position was cordially supported by the -Cordeliers, but the Jacobins were divided, and they hesitated. Manuel was -elected, and Danton obtained only the third place. This vote, however, -was not decisive, and there was a second ballot on December the 2nd. In -this Manuel was definitely elected. - -Cahier de Gerville (the second substitute) was made Minister of the -Interior, and Danton, on December 6th,[107] was elected to his place by -a majority of 500 over Collot d’Herbois. It was from this position that -he prepared the 10th of August, and it was still as substitute that he -remained side by side with the insurrectionary commune, and lending it -something of legal sanction when the King was overthrown. - -Let me, before leaving this point, define exactly the position in which -his new dignity placed him. Three men were charged with the advocacy -of public opinion, the Procureur and his two substitutes. Manuel, who -was elected to the principal position, was energetic, kindly, and -conscientious, but a man of no genius; he was good to Madame De Staël -in the days of September, as is apparent from her rather contemptuous -description of how she appealed to him for safety; he did his very best -(with no power in his hands) to stop the massacres at that same time. He -was fond of work, and a little pompous in his idea of office; he was, -therefore, a man who would only leave his substitutes the less important -work to do, and, from close by, would have been the dominating member -of the three. On the other hand, his lack of decision and of initiative -effaced him in moments of danger or of new departures, and it is thus his -second substitute who seems to lead when seen from a distance, from the -point of view of the people, who only look round when there is a noise. - -The first substitute was Desmousseaux. He had not resigned, and had -therefore not been re-elected. Forming part of the old Commune, and in -office since the winter of 1790, he was a Moderate by preference and long -tradition. - -As for Danton himself, standing third in the group, it was for him a -position of honour and of dignity. That part of him which was so capable -of high office and so desirous of an opportunity to act was well served -by the election. It seemed to put a term to the misconceptions which his -person, his faults, and the course of the Revolution had created. But -the great stream of events moved him at their will. This office wherein -he desired to appear settled at last, to show himself an administrator -rather than a leader of unreasoning men, was precisely suited in case -of danger to call out those other qualities which had made him despised -by many whom he himself respected, and had aroused against him hatred—a -passion which he himself had never allowed to arise from anger. - -If the spirit of 1791 had been kept, and if after so many false promises -the Revolution had been really accomplished, then the official, or, -if you will, the statesman, would have appeared in him. I can see him -in the difficulties which even a settled kingdom would have had to -meet, convincing his contemporaries as he has convinced posterity. He -was the man to impress on others the true attitude of Europe—the only -diplomat among the patriots. His disadvantages were of the kind that -are forgotten in the constant proof of ability; and his learning, which -was exactly of the kind to be used in the new regime (a knowledge of -languages, of law, of surrounding nations, a combination of detail and of -comprehension)—this learning would have made necessary a man so popular -with the people to be ruled, and, in the matter of the heart, so honestly -devoted to his country. Had France, I say, by some miracle been spared -her Passion, and had she been permitted to be happier and to do less for -the world, then as the new regime settled into the lower reaches of quiet -and content, I believe Danton would have remained for us a name, perhaps -less great, but certainly among the first. England has been permitted. -She has been given good fortune, and no fate has asked her to save -civilisation with her blood, and therefore in England we are accustomed -to such careers; men whose origin, whose exterior, and whose faults might -have exiled them, have yet been seen to rise from the municipal to the -imperial office, because they were possessed of supreme abilities, and -because they devoted those abilities to the service of England. They have -died in honour. - -I will not discuss what it was that made the war. There are no causes. -Burke raved like a madman, but then so did Marat. The King was alienated -by the clerical laws, but nothing is an excuse for treason. Pilnitz was -an affront and even a menace, but it was not a declaration of war. There -were peoples behind the kings, as Mayence tragically proved; and if -France fought intolerable evils, she also seemed the iconoclast when she -put out the altar-lamp, which she is lighting again with her own hand. -There are no causes. Only, if you will look and see how Europe has lived, -and how our great things have been done, you will find nothing but armies -upon armies marching past, and our history is an epic whose beginning is -lost, whose books are Roncesvalles and Cortenuova and Waterloo, and whose -end is never reached. The war came, and with it a definite necessity to -choose between France and the Crown. In that crisis Danton is thrown back -upon insurrection. He, who desired men to forget the days of October, -was compelled to the 10th of August because he was aroused. Even the -massacres were attached to his name, and there still trails after him an -easy flow of accusation, only a little less sordid or less terrible. - -To follow his action during the first months of 1772, to hear his -speeches on the war, and to note his policy, we must leave him at his -post in the Commune (where we shall find him again when Paris rises in -the summer), and see how he stands for the Mountain at the Jacobins. - -This club was now definitely the organ of the left. It was after Danton -had been elected, but before he was definitely installed in office,[108] -on the 14th of December, a week after the former and five weeks before -the latter event, that the debate on the war was begun at the Jacobins,—a -debate of the first importance, because it opened the breach between the -Girondins and the Mountain, between the orators who insisted on going -to meet Europe, and even on a war of propaganda, and the reformers who -wished Europe to take the first step, who dreaded war or who thought a -war of aggression immoral. At the head of these last was Robespierre. -But it is not too much to say that in the first months of the year -Danton was more important at the Jacobins than Robespierre. What was his -attitude? It was part of the general policy upon which he had determined: -he compromised. In his first motion on the 14th of December, he attacked -the idea of declaring war. On the 16th he still attacked it, but in other -terms. “I know it must come. If any one were to ask me, ‘Are we to have -war?’ I would reply (not in argument, but as a matter of fact), ‘We shall -hear the bugles,’” But the whole speech is taken up with an argument upon -its dangers, and especially upon “those who desire war in the hope of -reaction, who talk of giving us a constitution like that of England, in -the hope of giving us, later, one like that of Turkey.” - -In March and April, the months when the war was preparing and was -declared, he was silent. And we can understand his silence when we turn -to his speech in the Commune when he was given office. He alludes to the -false character given him; he speaks of the reputation which his past -actions in Paris had given; he says things that indicate a determination -to play the part of a Moderate, and to see whether in his case, as in -that of so many others, there would not be permanence in the compromise -of the last six months. But there rankled in his mind the insults of the -men with whom he sat, Condorcet’s disavowal in his paper of so much as -knowing Danton, and he made a peroration which at the time offended, but -which possesses for us a certain pathos. “Nature gave me a strong frame, -and she put into my face the violence of liberty. I have not sprung from -a family which was weakened by the protection of the old privileges; -my existence has been all my own; I know that I have kept and shown my -vigour, but in my profession and in my private life I have controlled -it. If I was carried away by enthusiasm in the first days of our -regeneration, have I not atoned for it? Have I not been ostracised?... I -have given myself altogether to the people, and now that they are beyond -attack, now that they are in arms and ready to break the league unless -it consents to dissolve,[109] I will die in their cause if I must, ... -for I love them only, and they deserve it. Their courage will make them -eternal.” - -This outburst is the one occasion of his public life in which Danton -spoke of himself, and it has the ring of genuine emotion; for in all -his harangues he preserved, both before and after this, an objective -attitude, if anything too much bent upon the outward circumstances. - -Thus, when the notes came to go between the Austrian and the French -governments, he was silent. He fears that France is unprepared; he -fears that the King is betraying the nation. How much he was a traitor -was not known till a far later period; but when at least it is proved -that something is undermining the French people, that, apart from the -defeats and the lack of preparation, there is treason, then he leaves -his silence. The policy of the Moderate acting in a settled state is no -longer possible to any one; the court and the nation stood one against -the other, and one side or the other must be taken by every man. Then -he put off the conventions which he respected, and which he regretted -to the end; he went back into the street; he headed the insurrection, -destroyed the monarchy; for twelve months he took upon himself all the -responsibility of errors in his own policy, and of crime in that of his -associates. He saved France, but at this expense, that he went out of the -world with a reputation which he knew to be false, that he saw his great -powers vulgarised, and that he could never possess, either in his own -mind or before the world, not even in France, his true name. The whole of -this tragedy is to be found in his trial, and here and there in the few -phrases that escape him in the speeches or with his friends. If you sum -it up, it comes to this paraphrase of a great sentence: _Son nom était -flétri mais la France était libre_. - -It was upon April the 18th that the new Girondin ministry received the -note from Vienna rejecting the French proposals of a month before. The -poor King, who had been protesting his loyalty to the nation in Paris, -had been protesting in Vienna the necessity of sending an army to save -him, and Austria gave this reply. On April 20th the Assembly declared war -with practical unanimity[110] upon “the King of Hungary and of Bohemia.” -But the phrase was useless. You might as well put a match into gunpowder -and say, “It is the sulphur I am after, not the charcoal.” Prussia -joined, and within a year we shall see all Europe at war with France, in -a war that outlawed and destroyed. - -Danton was right. France was hopelessly unready. She had not learnt the -necessary truth that the soldier is a man with a trade. The orators -had mistaken words for things; honest and great as they were, they had -fallen in this matter into the faults common to small and dishonest -verbiage. The rout and panic under De Dillon, his murder by the troops, -the occupation of Quiévrain, came one upon the other. Paris was full of -terror and anger in proportion to the greatness of the things she had -done, which now seemed all destroyed. “We said and did things that should -have convinced the world; we were to be a people unconquerable from our -love of liberty, and we appear a beaten, panic-stricken lot—volunteers -and babblers who cannot stand fire.” The King dismissed the Girondin -ministers, even sent Dumouriez away, heard Roland’s remonstrance, knew -that the Assembly was more and more against him; but he remained calm. -There was a plan of the simplest. There was to be nothing but a few days -of monotonous marching between the allies and Paris. Lafayette with his -army of the centre was on his side. The Assembly decreed a great camp of -20,000 men under Paris, and the disbanding of the guard; the guard was -disbanded, but the King vetoed the decree. Lafayette wrote his letter -menacing the Parliament with his army; the reaction seemed in full -success and the invaders secure, when Danton reappeared. - -On the 18th of June he found the old phrases against Lafayette at the -Jacobins. “It is a great day for France; Lafayette with only one face on -is no longer dangerous.” He did not make, but he permitted the 20th of -June; and as Paris rose, and the immense mob, grotesque, many-coloured, -armed with all manner of sharp things, passed before the Assembly and -into the Tuilleries, it might have been a signal or a warning. The -excited citizen makes a poor soldier, but if Paris moves the whole great -body of France stirs. Such giants take long to be fully awake, and it is -a matter of months to drill men; still it is better to let great enemies -sleep. There was in that foolish, amiable crowd, with its pleasure at -the sight of the King, its comic idea of warning him, something serious -underlying. Danton will be using it in a very short time; for there are -points of attack where mobs are like machine-guns—ridiculous in general -warfare, but very useful indeed in special conditions, and in these -conditions invincible. This something serious was that vague force (you -may call it only an idea) which you will never find in an individual, and -which you will always discover in a mass—the great common man which the -French metaphysicians have called “Le Peuple;” that, drilled, is called -by the least metaphysical an army. - -A week later Lafayette appeared. He demanded the right to use the army, -and July opened with the certainty of civil war. - -July is the month of fevers; the heat has been moving northward, and -all France is caught in it. The grapes fill out, and even in Picardy or -in the Cotentin you feel as though the Midi were giving her spirit to -the north. July made the Revolution and closed it. A month that saw the -Bastille fall and that buried Robespierre is a very national time. - -If you overlook France at this moment, you may see the towns stirring as -they had stirred three years before; it is from them that the opposition -rises—especially from Marseilles. A crowd of young men dragging cannon, -the common-place sons of bourgeois, whom the time had turned into -something as great as peasants or as soldiers, surged up the white -deserts along the Rhone, passing the great sheet of vineyards that slopes -up the watershed of Burgundy. As they came along they sang an excellent -new marching song. When they at last saw Paris, especially the towers -of Notre Dame from where they just show above the city as you come in -from Fontainebleau, and as the roads came in together and the suburbs -thickened they sang it with louder voices. On the evening of the 30th -they came to the gates, and the workmen of the south-eastern quarter -began to sing it and called it the “Marseillaise.” No one can describe -music; but if in a great space of time the actions of the French become -meaningless and the Revolution ceases to be an origin, some one perhaps -will recover this air, as we have recovered a few stray notes of Greek -music, and it will carry men back to the Republic. - -For ten days the insurrection grew. In a secret committee which the -Sections formed, men violent like Fournier, or good soldiers like -Westermann, or local leaders of quarters like Santerre—but all outside -the official body—organised the fighting force, and at their head the -one man who held the strings of the municipality—Danton. The Assembly -had heard Vergniaud’s angry speech, but it had also confirmed the -constitution and the monarchy in the “baiser Lamourette.” Paris had -to work alone, and the King, seeing only Paris before him, filled the -Tuilleries, and stood by with a small garrison to repress the mere -movement of the city—“something that should have been done in ’89.” - -It was on a Paris thus enfevered, doubtful, nursing a secret -insurrectionary plan, but full of men who hesitated and doubted, -having still many who were loyal, that there fell[111] the document -which the King had asked of his friends—but which he must, on seeing -it, have regretted—the manifesto of the commander of the allies. This -extraordinary monument of folly is rarely presented in its entirety. It -is only in such a form that its full monstrosity can be appreciated, and -I have therefore been at pains to translate for my readers the rather -halting French in which Charles William proposed to arrest the movements -of Providence. It ran as follows[112]:— - -“Their Majesties the Emperor and the King of Prussia having given me the -command of the armies assembled on the French frontier, I have thought -it well to tell the inhabitants of that kingdom the motives that have -inspired the measures taken by the two sovereigns and the intentions that -guide them. - -“After having arbitrarily suppressed the rights and the possessions of -the German princes in Alsace and Lorraine, troubled and overset public -order and their legitimate government, exercised against the sacred -person of the King and against his august family violence which is -(moreover) repeated and renewed from day to day, those who have usurped -the reins of the administration have at last filled up the measure by -causing an unjust war to be declared against his Majesty the Emperor, and -by attacking his provinces in the Netherlands. - -“Several possessions of the German Empire have been drawn into this -oppression, and several others have only escaped from a similar danger -by yielding to the imperious threats of the dominant party and its -emissaries. - -“His Prussian Majesty with his Imperial Majesty, by the ties of a strict -and defensive alliance, and himself a preponderant member of the Germanic -body (_sic_), has therefore been unable to excuse himself from going to -the aid of his ally and of his fellow State (_sic_). And it is under both -these heads that he undertakes the defence of that monarch and of Germany. - -“To these great interests another object of equal importance must be -added, and one that is near to the heart of the two sovereigns: it is -that of ending the domestic anarchy of France, of arresting the attacks -which are directed against the altar and the throne, of re-establishing -the legitimate power, of giving back to the King the freedom and safety -of which he is deprived, and of giving him the means to exercise the -lawful authority which is his due. - -“Convinced as they are that the healthy part of the French people abhors -the excesses of a party that enslaves them, and that the majority of -the inhabitants are impatiently awaiting the advent of a relief that -will permit them to declare themselves openly against the odious schemes -of their oppressors, His Majesty the Emperor and His Majesty the King -of Prussia call upon them to return at once to the call of reason and -justice, of order, of peace. It is in view of these things that I, the -undersigned, General Commander-in-Chief of the two armies, declare— - - “(1) That led into the present war by irresistible - circumstances, the two allied courts propose no object to - themselves but the happiness of France, and do not propose to - enrich themselves by annexation. - - “(2) That they have no intention of meddling with the domestic - government of France, but only wish to deliver the King, and - the Queen, and the Royal Family from their captivity, and - procure for his Most Christian Majesty that freedom which is - necessary for him to call such a council as he shall see fit, - without danger and without obstacle, and to enable him to work - for the good of his subjects according to his promises and as - much as may be his concern. - - “(3) That the combined armies will protect all towns, boroughs, - and villages, and the persons and goods of all those that will - submit to the King, and that they will help to re-establish - immediately the order and police of France. - - “(4) That the National Guard are ordered to see to the peace of - the towns and country-sides provisionally, and to the security - of the persons and goods of all Frenchmen provisionally, that - is, until the arrival of the troops of their Royal and Imperial - Majesties, or until further orders, under pain of being - personally responsible; that on the contrary, the National - Guards who may have fought against the troops of the allied - courts, and who are captured in arms, shall be treated as - enemies, and shall be punished as rebels and disturbers of the - public peace. - - “(5) That the generals, officers, non-commissioned officers, - and privates of the French troops of the line are equally - ordered to return to their old allegiance and to submit at once - to the King, their legitimate sovereign. - - “(6) That the members of departmental, district, and town - councils are equally responsible with their heads and property - for all crimes, arson, murders, thefts, and assaults, the - occurrence of which they allow or do not openly, and to the - common knowledge, try to prevent in their jurisdiction; - that they shall equally be bound to keep their functions - provisionally until his Most Christian Majesty, reinstated in - full liberty, has further decreed; or until, in the interval, - other orders shall have been given. - - “(7) That the inhabitants of towns, boroughs, and villages - who may dare to defend themselves against the troops of their - Imperial and Royal Majesties by firing upon them, whether - in the open or from the windows, doors, or apertures of - their houses, shall be punished at once with all the rigour - of the laws of war, their houses pulled down or burnt. All - those inhabitants, on the contrary, of the towns, boroughs, - and villages who shall hasten to submit to their King by - opening their gates to the troops of their Majesties shall - be placed under the immediate protection of their Majesties; - their persons, their goods, their chattels shall be under the - safeguard of the laws, and measures will be taken for the - general safety of each and all of them. - - “(8) The town of Paris and all its inhabitants without - distinction shall be bound to submit on the spot, and without - any delay, to the King, and to give that Prince full and entire - liberty, and to assure him and all the Royal Family that - inviolability and respect to which the laws of nature and of - nations entitle sovereigns from their subjects. Their Imperial - and Royal Majesties render personally responsible for anything - that may happen, under peril of their heads, and of military - execution without hope of pardon, all members of the National - Assembly as of the Districts, the Municipality, the National - Guards, the Justices of the Peace, and all others whom it may - concern. Their aforesaid Majesties declare, moreover, on their - word and honour as Emperor and King, that if the Palace of the - Tuilleries be insulted or forced, that if the least violence, - the least assault, be perpetrated against their Majesties, the - King, the Queen, and the Royal Family, and if steps be not at - once taken for their safety, preservation, and liberty, they, - their Imperial and Royal Majesties, will take an exemplary and - never-to-be-forgotten vengeance, by giving up the town of Paris - to military execution and to total subversion, and the guilty - rebels to the deaths they have deserved. Their Imperial and - Royal Majesties promise, on the contrary, to the inhabitants of - Paris to use their good offices with his Most Christian Majesty - to obtain pardon for their faults and errors, and to take the - most vigorous measures to ensure their persons and goods if - they promptly and exactly obey the above command. - - “Finally, since their Majesties can recognise no laws in France - save those that proceed from the King in full liberty, they - protest in advance against any declarations that may be made in - the name of his Most Christian Majesty, so long as his sacred - person, those of the Queen and of the Royal Family, are not - really safe, for which end their Imperial and Royal Majesties - invite and beg his Most Christian Majesty to point out to what - town in the immediate neighbourhood of his frontiers he may - judge it best to retire with the Queen and the Royal Family, - under good and sure escort that will be sent him for that - purpose, in order that his Most Christian Majesty may be in - all safety to call to him such deputies and counsellors as he - sees fit, call such councils as may please him, see to the - re-establishment of order, and arrange the administration of - his kingdom. - - “Lastly, I engage myself, in my own private name and in my - aforesaid capacity, to cause the troops under my command to - observe everywhere a good and exact discipline, promising to - treat with mildness and moderation all well-meaning subjects - who may show themselves peaceful and submissive, and to use - force with those only who may be guilty of resistance and of - recalcitrance. - - “It is for these reasons that I require and exhort, in the - strongest and most instant fashion, all the inhabitants of this - kingdom not to oppose themselves to the march and operations - of the troops under my command, but rather to give them on all - sides a free entry and all the good-will, aid, and assistance - that circumstances may demand. - - “Given at our headquarters of Coblentz, July 28. - - (Signed) “CHARLES WILLIAM FERDINAND, - Duke of Brunswick-Lunebourg.” - -With that weapon the insurrection was certain of all Paris. Mandat, who -had replaced Lafayette at the head of the armed force in the town, was -still loyal to the King; he organised, as far as was possible, the forces -that he could count upon. The other side also prepared, and the movements -had all the appearance of troops entrenching themselves before battle. - -Danton went to Arcis and settled an income on his mother in case of -his death, came back to Paris, and on the night of August the 9th -the Sections named commissioners to act. They met and formed the -“insurrectionary commune.” At eight the next morning they dissolved the -legal commune, kept Danton, and directed the fighting of the morning. - -Meanwhile the King had gathered in the Tuilleries about 6000 men, and -depended very largely upon the thick mass of wooden buildings in the -Carrousel for cover. The Swiss Guard, whom the decree had removed, were -only as far off as Rueil, and were ordered into Paris, over 1500. They -were the nucleus, and with them some 2000 of the National Guard, 1500 -of the old “Constitutional Guards,” and a group of “Gentilshommes.” -Mandat had ordered a battery of the National Guard’s artillery to keep -the Pont Neuf; they revolted and joined the people, and Mandat himself, -the chief of the defence, was killed on the steps of the Hotel de Ville. -Danton, who had not slept, but had lain down in Desmoulin’s flat till -midnight, had been to the Hotel de Ville since two in the morning, and -he took before posterity—in his trial—the responsibility of Mandat’s -death. He did more. He acted during the short night (a night of calm and -great beauty, dark and with stars) as the organiser and chief of the -insurrection. Especially he appoints Santerre to lead the National Guard. -On these rapid determinations the morning broke, and the first hours of -the misty day passed in gathering the forces. - -Meanwhile all morning the King had waited anxiously in the Tuilleries -gardens, and asked Roederer, like a king in comic opera, “when the revolt -would begin.” - -All night the tocsin had sounded, but the people were slow to gather—“le -tocsin ne rend pas”—and it was not till the insurrectionary commune had -done its work that a great mob, partly armed, and in no way disciplined, -came into the Carrousel. - -Westermann (riding, as was Santerre) came up to parley with the Swiss -Guard; he asked them in German (which was his native tongue, for he was -an Alsatian) to leave the Tuilleries, and promised that if the guard -retired and left the palace un-garrisoned the people would also retire. -The Swiss—the only real soldiers in Paris—replied that they were under -orders, and when Westermann retired to the crowd they opened fire. - -Antoinette had said, “Nail me to the Palace,” and even Louis, timid and -uncertain, thought that the chances were in his favour. Let only this day -succeed, and the city could be kept quiet till the allies should arrive; -that had been the boast in the Royalist journal of August 1st; it was -Louis’s hope now. - -Had the Carrousel been a little more open, the battle might have ended in -favour of the garrison, but the numerous buildings, on the whole, helped -the attack, and the Swiss, unable to deploy, fought, almost singly, -a very unequal fight. There were no volleys except the first. Rapid -individual firing from the doors and windows of the palace, the crowd -pressing up through the narrowest space (but at a loss of hundreds of -lives), and finally, by the end which gave on the “Grande Galerie” the -Tuilleries were forced, the garrison killed, and only a small detachment -of the Swiss Guard retreated through the gardens, firing alternate -volleys, and saving themselves by an admirable discipline. - -But while the issue was still doubtful, Louis and his family had gone -slowly through the same gardens to the Riding-school, and had taken -refuge with the Assembly. The noise of the fusillade came sharply in -at the windows, and the event was still uncertain when the Parliament -received the King and promised him protection. The president opened for -him a small door at the right of the chair, and the King and Queen and -their children watched the meaningless resolutions through a grating as -they sat in the little dark box that gave them refuge. The debate, I say, -lacked meaning, but the battle grew full of meaning as they heard it. -The shots were less frequent, the noise of the mob—the roar—was suddenly -muffled in the walls of the palace. The crowd had entered it. Then came -the few sharp volleys of the retreating guard right under the windows of -the Manège, and finally the firing ceased, and the Assembly knew that -their oath was of no value, and that the Tuilleries had fallen. Louis -also knew it, eating his grotesque roast chicken in the silent and hidden -place that was the first of his prisons. He saw in the bright light -of the hall many of the faces that were to be the rulers of France, -but for himself, in his silence, he felt all power to be gone. He had -become a Capet—there was truth in the Republican formula. There had been -played—though few have said it, it should be said—a very fine game. The -stakes were high and the Court party dared them. They played to win -all that the Kings had possessed, and for this great stake they risked -a few foolish titles without power. The game was even; it was worth -playing, and they had lost. But the man who had been their puppet and -their figure-head hardly knew what had happened. Perhaps the Queen alone -comprehended, and from that moment found the proud silence and the glance -that has dignified her end. In her the legend of the lilies had found its -last ally, but now the great shield was broken for ever. - -So perished the French monarchy. Its dim origins stretched out and lost -themselves in Rome; it had already learnt to speak and recognised its -own nature when the vaults of the Thermae echoed heavily to the slow -footsteps of the Merovingian kings. Look up that vast valley of dead men -crowned, and you may see the gigantic figure of Charlemagne, his brows -level and his long white beard tangled like an undergrowth, having in -his left hand the globe and in his right the hilt of an unconquerable -sword. There also are the short, strong horsemen of the Robertian house, -half-hidden by their leather shields, and their sons before them growing -in vestment and majesty, and taking on the pomp of the Middle Ages; -Louis VII., all covered with iron; Philip the Conqueror; Louis IX., who -alone is surrounded with light: they stand in a widening interminable -procession, this great crowd of kings; they loose their armour, they -take their ermine on, they are accompanied by their captains and their -marshals; at last, in their attitude and in their magnificence they sum -up in themselves the pride and the achievement of the French nation. But -time has dissipated what it could not tarnish, and the process of a -thousand years has turned these mighty figures into unsubstantial things. -You may see them in the grey end of darkness, like a pageant all standing -still. You look again, but with the growing light and with the wind that -rises before morning they have disappeared. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE REPUBLIC - -AUGUST 10, 1792—APRIL 5, 1793 - - -The 10th of August is not, in the history of the Revolution, a -turning-point or a new departure merely; it is rather a cataclysm, the -conditions before and after which are absolutely different. You may -compare it to the rush of the Atlantic, which “in one dreadful day and -night” swept away the old civilisation in the legend. It is like one of -the geological “faults” which form the great inland escarpments, and to -read or to write of it is like standing on the edge of Auvergne. You have -just passed through a volcanic plateau, rising slowly, more and more -desolate: you find yourself looking down thousands of feet on to the -great plain of Limagne. - -There is no better test of what the monarchy was than the comparison of -that which came before with that which succeeded its overthrow. There -is no continuity. On the far side of the insurrection, up to the 9th of -August itself, you have armies (notably that of the centre) contented -with monarchy; you have a strong garrison at the Tuilleries, the -ministers, the departments, the mayor of Paris (even) consulting with the -crown. The King and the Girondins are opposed, but they are balanced; -Paris is angry and expectant, but it has expressed nothing—it is one of -many powers. The moderate men, the Rolands and the rest, are the radical -wing. It is a triumph for the Revolution that the Girondins should be -again in nominal control. Pétion is an idol. The acute friction is -between a government of idealists standing at the head of a group of -professional bourgeois, and a crown supported by a resurrected nobility, -expecting succour and strong enough to hazard a pitched battle. - -Look around you on the 11th of August and see what has happened. -Between the two opponents a third has been intervened—Paris and its -insurrectionary Commune have suddenly arisen. The Girondins are almost -a reactionary party. The Crown and all its scaffolding have suddenly -disappeared. The Assembly seems something small, the ministry has fallen -back, and there appears above it one man only—Danton, called Minister of -Justice, but practically the executive itself. A crowd of names which -had stood for discussion, for the Jacobins, for persistent ineffective -opposition, appear as masters. In a word, France had for the moment a new -and terrible pretender to the vacant throne, a pretender that usurped it -at last—the Commune. - -The nine months with which this chapter will deal formed the Republic; it -is they that are the introduction to the Terror and to the great wars, -and from the imprisonment of the King to the fall of the Girondins the -rapid course of France is set in a narrowing channel directly for the -Mountain. The Commune, the body that conquered in August, is destined -to capture every position, and, as one guarantee after another breaks -down, it will attain, with its extreme doctrines and their concomitant -persecution, to absolute power. - -What was Danton’s attitude during this period? It may be summed up as -follows: Now that the Revolution was finally established, to keep France -safe in the inevitable danger. He put the nation first; he did not -subordinate the theory of the Revolution; he dismissed it. The Revolution -had conquered: it was there; but France, which had made it and which -proposed to extend the principles of self-government to the whole world, -was herself in the greatest peril. When discussion had been the method -of the Revolution, Danton had been an extremist. He was Parisian and -Frondeur in 1790 and 1791; it was precisely in that time that he failed. -The tangible thing, the objective to which all his mind leaned, appeared -with the national danger; then he had something to do, and his way of -doing it, his work in the trade to which he was born, showed him to be -of a totally different kind from the men above whom he showed. I do not -believe one could point to a single act of his in these three-quarters of -a year which was not aimed at the national defence. - -It is a point of special moment in the appreciation of his politics that -Danton was alone in this position. He was the only man who acted as one -of the innumerable peasantry of France would have acted, could fate have -endowed such a peasant with genius and with knowledge. The others to the -left and right were soldiers, poets, or pedants every one. Heroic pedants -and poets who were never afraid, but not one of them could forget his -theories or his vision and take hold of the ropes. Such diplomacy as -there is is Danton’s; it is Danton who attempts compromise, and it is -Danton who persistently recalls the debates from personalities to work. -It is he who warns the Girondins, and it is he who, in the anarchy that -followed defeat, produced the necessary dictatorship of the Committee. -Finally, when the Committee is formed, you glance at the names, the -actions, and the reports, and you see Danton moving as a man who can see -moves among the blind. He had been once “in himself the Cordeliers”—it -had no great effect, for there was nothing to do but propose rights; now, -after the insurrection, he became “in himself the executive,” and later -“in himself the Committee.” So much is he the first man in France during -these few months of his activity, that only by following his actions can -you find the unity of this confused and anarchic period. - -It falls into four very distinct divisions, both from the point of view -of general history and from that of Danton’s own life. The first includes -the six weeks intervening between the 10th of August and the meeting of -the Convention; it is a time almost without authority; it moves round the -terrible centre of the massacres. During this brief time the executive, -barely existent, without courts or arms, had him in the Ministry of -Justice as their one power—a power unfortunately checked by the anarchy -in Paris. - -The second division stretches from the meeting of the Convention to -the death of the King. It covers exactly four months, from the 20th of -September 1792 to the 21st of January 1793. It is the time in which the -danger of invasion seems lifted, and in which Danton in the Convention is -working publicly to reconcile the two parties, and secretly to prevent, -if possible, the spread of the coalition against France. - -The third opens with the universal war that follows the death of Louis, -and continues to a date which you may fix at the rising of the 10th of -March, or at the defeat of Neerwinden on the 19th. Danton is absent -with the army during the greater part of these six weeks; he returns -at their close, and when things were at their worst, to create the two -great instruments which he destined to govern France—the Tribunal and the -Committee. - -Finally, for two months, from the establishment of these to the expulsion -of the Girondins on the 2nd of June, he is being gradually driven from -the attempt at conciliation to the necessities of the insurrection. He -is organising and directing the new Government of the Public Safety, -and in launching that new body, in imposing that necessary dictator, we -shall see him sacrificing one by one every minor point in his policy, -till at last his most persistent attempt—I mean his attempt to save -the Girondins—fails in its turn. Having so secured an irresistible -government, and having created the armies, the chief moment of his life -was past. It remained to him to retire, to criticise the excesses of his -own creation, and to be killed by it. - - * * * * * - -Immediately after the insurrection, a week after he had taken the oath -and made the short vigorous speech to the Assembly,[113] Danton sent out -his first and almost his only act as Minister of Justice, the circular of -the 18th of August,[114] which was posted to all the tribunals in France. -It is peculiar rather than important; it is the attempt to convince -the magistracy and all the courts of the justice and necessity of the -insurrection, and at the same time to leave upon record a declaration of -his own intentions now that he had reached power. In the first attempt -he necessarily fails. The old judicature, appointed by the Crown and by -the moderate ministers, largely re-elected by the people, wealthy for the -most part, conservative by origin and tradition, would in any case have -rejected such leadership; but the matter is unimportant; this passive -body, upon which the reaction had counted not a little, and which De Cicé -had planned to use against the Revolution, was destined to disappear -at the first demand of the new popular powers. France for weeks was -practically without courts of law. - -Those passages, on the other hand, in which Danton makes his own apology -are full of interest. They contain in a few sentences the outline of all -his domestic policy, and we find in them Danton’s memories, his fears of -what his past reputation might do to hurt him. - -“I came in through the breach of the Tuilleries, and you can only find -in me the same man who was president of the Cordeliers.... The only -object of my thoughts has been political and individual liberty, ... the -maintenance of the laws, ... the strict union of all the Departments, ... -the splendour of the State, and the equality, not of fortune, for that is -impossible, but of rights and of well-being.” - -If we except the puerilities of the new great seal, the Hercules with -eighty-four stars (to represent the union of the Departments), replaced -by the conventional Liberty and fasces, there is practically nothing -more from Danton as Minister of Justice. But as the one active man in -the Cabinet he is the pivot of the whole time. Those qualities in him -which had so disgusted the men of letters were the exterior of a spirit -imperatively demanded in Paris at the time. His heavy, rapid walk, -the coarseness and harshness of his voice, his brutality in command, -exercised a physical pressure upon the old man Roland, the mathematician -Monge, and the virtuous journalists who accompanied them. I know of but -one character in that set which could have prevented Danton’s ascendancy, -and have met his ugly strength by a force as determined and more refined. -Roland’s wife might have done it, but though she was the soul of the -ministry, she was hardly a minister, and being a woman, she was confined -to secondary and indirect methods. Her hatred of Danton increased to -bitterness as she saw him succeed, but she could not intervene, and -France was saved from the beauty and the ideals which might have been the -syrens of her shipwreck. - -The three weeks following the 10th of August were filled with the news of -the invasion. The King of Prussia had hesitated to march. France, full of -herself, never understood that such a thing was possible. The kings were -on the march, the great and simple ideas, so long in opposition, had met -in battle. All France thought that 1792 was already 1793. Perhaps there -were only two men in the country who saw the immaturity, the complexity, -and the chances of the situation—I mean Danton and Dumouriez: Dumouriez, -because he was by nature a schemer who had seen and was to see the -matter from close at hand; Danton, because, from the first moment of his -entrance into the ministry, he had gathered up the threads of negotiation -into his hand. - -The King of Prussia had hesitated, so had Brunswick. It was the success -of the insurrection that decided them. They made the error that the -foreigner always makes, the error that led the most enlightened Frenchmen -to exaggerate the liberal forces in England, the error of seeing -ourselves in others. They imagined that “the sane body of the nation,” -the Frenchmen that thought like Prussians, would rise in defence of the -monarchy and in aid of the invasion. They had no conception of how small -in number, how hesitating, and how vile were the anti-national party. - -On Sunday the 19th the frontier was crossed; on the Thursday Longwy -capitulated, and a German garrison held the rocky plateau that overlooks -the plain of Luxembourg. A week later, Thursday the 30th, Verdun was -surrounded. - -From the hills above the town, the same hills which make of Verdun the -fifth great entrenched camp of modern France, the Prussian batteries -bombarded with a plunging fire. There may have been food and ammunition -for two or three more days, but fire had broken out in several quarters, -and the town council was imploring Beaurepaire to surrender. Brunswick -proposed a truce and terms of capitulation. On the Saturday, the 1st of -September, after a violent discussion, the terms were rejected, but -Beaurepaire knew that nothing could save the town, and in the night he -shot himself. On the next day, Sunday the second, Verdun yielded and the -road to Paris lay open. - -Meanwhile, in the capital itself, a vortex was opening, and the poor -remnants of public authority and of public order were being drawn down -into it. The 10th of August had been a victory into which there entered -three very dangerous elements. First, it was not final; it had been won -against a small local garrison under the menace of an invasion, and this -invasion was proving itself irresistible. Secondly, it had left behind -it terrors accentuated by success; I mean whatever fears of vengeance or -of the destruction of Paris existed before the insurrection were doubled -when so much greater cause had been given for the “execution” that -Brunswick had threatened. Finally, the success of the insurrection had of -itself destroyed the last shadow of executive power, for all such power, -weak and perishing though it was, had centred in the King. - -But besides these clear conditions which the 10th of August had produced, -there was something deeper and more dangerous—the fear which fed upon -itself and became panic, and which ran supported by anger growing into -madness. There was no news but made it worse, no sight in the streets and -no rumour but increased the intolerable pressure. Trade almost ceased, -and the whole course of exchange, which is the blood of a great city, -seemed to have run to the heart. Over the front of the Hotel de Ville -hung that enormous black flag with the letters “Danger” staring from it -in white, and in the heavy winds another blew out straight and rattled -from the towers of Notre Dame. Every action savoured of nightmare, and -suffered from a spirit grotesque, exaggerated, and horrible. The very -day after the fight a great net had been cast over Paris and drawn in -full of royalists. The gates had been shut suddenly, and every suspect -arrested by order of the Commune. The prisons were full of members of the -great conspiracy, for in civil war the vanquished appear as traitors. -Then there arose a violent demand for the trial and punishment of those -who had called in the foreigner, and a demand as violent, touching on -miracle, for innumerable volunteers. In every project there ran this -spirit of madness mixed with inspiration. - -If Paris lost its head, so did the Assembly and the Moderates, but in -another fashion. Paris was pale with the intensity of anger, Roland -from a sudden paralysis. The fear of Paris was an angry panic; with the -Girondins it was the sudden sickness that takes some men at the sight -of blood. Paris had clamoured for an excess when it demanded the trial -of the Swiss, who had done nothing beyond their mercenary duty; but the -executive met it by an excess of weakness when it produced its court of -ridiculous and just pedants, afraid to condemn, afraid to decide. Already -the people had learned the secret payments of the old civil list,[115] -the salaries paid to the emigrants, the subsidised press. Golier’s report -had appeared but a day before the invasion. - -The news of Longwy was already known. Verdun stood in peril, when the -acquittal of Montmorin on Friday the 31st seemed to be the deciding -weakness of the government that pushed the populace to their extreme of -violence. - -He had been governor of Fontainebleau, openly and patently a conspirator -on the side of the Tuilleries; he was not acquitted of this. It was -admitted that he had “planned civil war;” he was released by that -heroic but fatal fault of the Girondins, the fault that later sent them -to the guillotine, and that now inspired their tribunal—they would -not bend an inch to compromise with necessity; rather than do so they -would deliberately aggravate the worst conditions by inclining against -the passions of the moment. They seemed to say, “You clamour for mere -reprisals; we will show, on the contrary, that we are just, and we will -even irritate you with mercy.” Yet they knew that Montmorin deserved -death. - -After that decision, and when Osselin the judge took with great courage -the prisoner’s arm in his own and led him away, a voice in the court -cried out, “You acquit him now, and in a fortnight his friends will march -into Paris.” The massacres were certain from that moment; the thing -had been said which made the small band of murderers start out, which -made Paris look on immovable, and which kept the National Guard silent, -refusing to stop the carnage. “We will go to the frontier, but we will -not leave enemies behind us. If the law will not execute them, the people -will.” The damnable spirit which runs in colonies and wild places had -invaded civilised Europe, and the lynching was determined. - -When the Assembly had yielded to the Commune, when it was certain that -the insurrectionary Commune would have its own way, and when it was known -that Longwy had fallen, that Verdun was surrounded, there took place -one of those scenes that stand out like pictures in the mind, and that -interpret the characters of history for us better than any accumulation -of detail. - -In the garden of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at its end, and away -from the house, and under the low foliage, the six ministers were met in -an informal gathering—rapid, half-silent, a council not predetermined, -suited to the time; a few hurried words, whose description has come -down to us by no minute, but by the accident of Fabre’s presence. Fabre -d’Eglantine, the uncertain poet, Danton’s protégé, and dangerous, -ill-balanced friend,[116] stood watching at a little distance. - -Roland spoke for all his friends. He was very pale and broken-down; -he leaned his head against a tree—“We must leave Paris.” Danton spoke -louder, “Where do you mean to go?” “We must go to Blois. We must take -with us the King and the treasure.” So said Servan; so said Clavière. -Kersaint, whom Danton had known at the old Commune in 1791, and who -was something of Danton’s kind, added his word: “I have just come from -Sedan, and I know there is nothing else to be done. Brunswick will be -here in Paris within the fortnight as surely as the wedge enters when -you strike.” Danton stopped six waverers by a phrase, a phrase of just -such a character, exaggerated, violent, as his good sense made use of -so often in the tribune. “My mother is seventy years old, and I have -brought her to Paris; I brought my children yesterday. If the Prussians -are to come in, I hope it may be into a Paris burnt down with torches.” -Then he turned round to Roland in person and threw out a fatal sentence, -necessary, perhaps, but one of many that dug the great gulf between him -and the Girondins. “Take care, Roland, and do not talk too much about -flight; the people might hear you.”[117] - -I know of no anecdote that tells more about Danton, or explains with -greater clearness his attitude during the crisis that brought on the -massacres. For these over-vigorous words, full of excess, were uttered -by a man whose character was all for material results—results obtained, -as a rule, by compromise. This same Danton, who talked of “torches” and -“Paris en cendres,” was the only man in France who had the self-control -to negotiate for the retreat of the Prussians after Valmy. His “mother of -seventy years” had indeed been brought to Paris, but from Arcis, which -every one knew to be right in the track of the invasion. What we have to -discover in this speech, as in every phrase he uttered, is the motive; -for with any other of the great Revolutionaries words were the whole of -the idea, and sometimes more than the idea, but with Danton alone words -were the means to a tangible end. - -He desired to prevent that fatal breach with Paris which he had foreseen -to be a risk from the beginning, and which Mirabeau in his time had -thought so near as to be necessary. He was determined to keep this -shadow—the national executive—in reach of the one thing that was alive -and vigorous and defending the nation. It is of the greatest importance -in appreciating his attitude to know that he dreaded the Commune. Later, -no one of the deputies of Paris in the Convention saw as he saw the -necessity of amalgamation with the Departments. Marat he thoroughly -despised. Most of the men of the Commune had sat in one room with -him; Panis and Sergent had even desks under him. He knew them, and he -contemned them all. He did not know to what crimes they were about to -commit themselves, or perhaps he would have interfered, but he knew they -were worthless. - -Behind them, however, he saw Paris, and in Paris he ardently believed, -in its position and in its necessity. He was entirely right. Once let -the ministers leave the city, and civil war would begin—a civil war -waged within ten days’ march of the enemy, and between what forces? An -imbecile, a man like one of our moderns, who thinks in maps and numbers, -would have said, “Between eighty-three departments and one.” But Danton -knew better. He had that appreciation which is common to all the masters; -he knew the meaning of potential and of the word ‘quality.’ It would have -been a fight between the members and the brain, and the brain would have -died fighting, leaving a body dead because the brain had died. - -Thus while the Assembly and the Commune fight their sharp battle of -the last days of August, while the Parliament commands new municipal -elections, breaks the municipality, then flatters it, then yields and -permits it to be practically reinforced under the form of a fresh vote -from the Sections,[118] Danton acts as though both Parliament and Commune -had dropped from the world. There are two speeches of his, one of the -28th of August, one of the 2nd of September, and between them they mark -his attitude and form also the origins of that full year of action and -rhetoric which define him in history. - -In the first, he proposes and carries the measure which has been made an -excuse for laying upon his shoulders the responsibility of the massacres. -The speech was made for a very different purpose. He authorised the -domiciliary visits, but his object was to obtain arms. One thought only -occupied him: to counteract the intense individualism of the Moderates, -to force despotic measures through a Parliament that hated them, and to -force these measures because without them the situation was lost. He -got his arms, and just afterwards his mass of volunteers, but the other -measure which he had introduced to pacify the Commune, the domiciliary -visits, have marked more deeply in the memories of the time, because in -the troubled days that followed these visits seemed to be a beginning. - -It was Sunday morning, the 2nd of September. Verdun (though no one knew -it yet in Paris) had just fallen; Beaurepaire was dead. The “Comité de -Surveillance” of the Commune had admitted Marat illegally,[119] and -for a sinister reason. For three days the prisons had been marked, and -those whom the Comité wished to save had been withdrawn; and though -the movement was spontaneous, though the most of the Sections spoke -before Marat,[120] yet there was an executive and a directory, and that -madman was its chief. The moment that the massacres were beginning at -the Carmes, Danton was making the last effort to turn the anger of the -moment into an enthusiasm for the Champ de Mars and for the volunteers. -If ever there was an attempt to influence by rhetoric a popular emotion -which could not be checked, and to direct energy from a destructive to -a fruitful object, it is to be found in this his most famous speech—the -speech that even the children know to-day in France, the closing words -of which are engraved upon his pedestal. For the only time in his life -he turned and leant upon the mere power of words: there is something in -their extraordinary force which savours of despair, and they rise at the -close to an untranslatable phrase in which you hear rhythm for the first -and last time in his appeals: “De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours -de l’audace—et la France est sauvée.”[121] - -He did not wholly fail. When he had rung the great bell of the Hotel -de Ville and had gone to the Champ de Mars, he looked over a great and -growing crowd of young men running to the enlistment. But for four -days—days in which he doggedly turned his back to the Commune which -called him—the killing went on in the prisons. He and his volunteers, -his silence, were most like this: a man in a mutiny on ship-board, in a -storm at night, keeping the helm, saving what could be saved and careless -whether the morning should make him seem a traitor on the one hand or -a mutineer upon the other. For the tragedy of those five days—the days -of Sedan—always seems to be passing in a thick night. We read records of -action at this or that hour in the daylight, but we cannot believe the -sun shone. Maillard, tall and pale in his close black serge and belt, is -a figure for candles on the Abbaye table and for torches in the cloisters -and the vaults. There never was a horror more germane to darkness. - -But why did Danton not save the prisoners? I know that question is -usually answered by saying that he was indifferent. So much (it seems -to me) survives of a legend. For history no longer pretends that he -organised or directed the crime. Indeed, history finds it daily more -difficult, as the details accumulate, to fix it upon any one man. But -the fact that he persistently defended the extremists in the following -month, that he made himself (for the purposes of reunion) an advocate for -many men who were blameworthy, and tried to reconcile the pure minds of -the Girondins with such terrible memories—in a word, the fact that for -months he sacrificed himself in the Convention, that he demanded union, -has condemned him to every suspicion. _Que mon nom soit flétri et que la -France soit libre._ - -He might, indeed, have spoken. Popular, the one vigorous and healthy -personality in the face of Paris, he might have bent his energy to the -single aim of preventing an outbreak. I will not deny that in his mind, -over which we have seen passionate anger falling suddenly in October -1789 and in June 1792, there may have arisen some such feeling as that -which restrained the vast mass of the Parisians from interfering with -the little band of murderers—a feeling of violent hatred, a memory of -the manifesto and a disgust which made the partisans of Brunswick seem -like vermin. There is something of that deplorable temper in the anecdote -which Madame Roland gives of him, striding through the rooms on the -second day and saying that the prisoners “could save themselves.” But -this anecdote is not history; it is an accusation, and one made by a -partisan and an enemy.[122] There is another and better reason for his -action, which must, I think, have made the greater part of his motive. To -have spoken would have been to play a very heavy stake. If he spoke and -failed to prevent the rising, he ceased to be Danton. His influence fell, -he became a Moderate, and himself, the one man left to direct affairs, -entered the confused ranks of opposition—un-Parisian, rejected of either -party, while France beneath him fell into mere anarchy. - -It would have been gambling with all that he most desired: the English -neutrality, the union of the coming Parliament, the rapid organisation -of the armies, all this staked to win something that was not precious to -him at all—the lives of a mass of men the bulk of whom had demanded the -success of the invasion. - -Why did he not act? Because nobody could act. Remember the phrase which -he delivered while Louis was being executed four months later: “Nulle -puissance humaine.”[123] We are so accustomed to an aristocratic and -orderly society that a title of office implies power. The Home Secretary -or some other man “does this,” but the man who really does it—does it -with his hands—is the policeman or the soldier. Now these did not exist -at the moment in Paris. It explains a hundred things in the Revolution -to remember that every successive step reduced society to powder, to -a mere number of men. Rousseau had said that this compact, this thing -based on voluntary union, was not made for the cities. Paris gave us -in September an awful proof. Roland, a man whom Marat had put upon his -list and whom Danton had saved, talked on the Monday of the “just anger -of the people.” Yet Roland was a just man, and brave in matters that -affected himself alone, and the massacres chiefly concerned him. He was -Minister of the Interior, that is, responsible for order, but there was -nothing with which to work. On the Tuesday he sent to Santerre and said, -“Call out the National Guard.” Santerre answered that he could not gather -them. He was right. Again, Pétion was an honest man, a Moderate, the -mayor of Paris; all he could do was to sit at a useless committee of the -Sections and talk of the “National Defence;” that utter disintegration -which the theories of the Revolution had produced—that purely voluntary -condition of the soldier, the official, the police (a mere anarchy)—was -irresistible when there was spontaneity of action; it was useless where -the conditions demanded organisation and initiative. It withstood the -cannonade at Valmy, it stormed the height of Jemappes, but it fled in -rout when the spring had melted enthusiasm. So here police, the function -that most requires discipline, was lacking in the State. And the whole -situation is summed up in the sharp picture we have of Manuel pushing -his way though the crowd with “two policemen” who had “volunteered,” and -trying in vain to stop the lynching at the Carmes. It was to this anarchy -that Danton, after six months of struggle, succeeded in giving government -during 1793. - -Danton himself, after four months of vain effort to reconcile his -enemies, put the whole matter in the last phrase of his defence: “No -human power” could have stopped the massacres;[124] all that could -be done was to work, from that moment forward, against the extreme -theories of a voluntary state, and towards the establishment of a strong -government.[125] - -When, on the Thursday, September 6, the wave receded, and when on the -morrow Pétion was able to interfere, the people and the Assembly looked -round them and saw that a thing had happened which was to hurt the future -of the Revolution more than all the armies. It was like the breaking of -day after that moral night, a daybreak in which the wind goes down and -you see the wreckage. - -Paris was very silent; the accusations had not yet begun; the Assembly -was dying. The electoral council of Paris had met during the very days -of the massacre, and had proceeded to choose the members who were to -represent the capital in the Convention that was about to meet. It also -voted in silence, and sat in the mingled panic and remorse that oppressed -the whole city. The names came out in the balloting. On the 5th (the -murderers were still growling in the streets) Robespierre was elected in -a small meeting of 525; on the 6th Danton was elected second, but with a -much larger attendance and with a much greater majority—638 votes out of -an attendance of 700, a curious result. Danton’s name forced itself upon -them, was acclaimed beyond any other; yet his attitude of conciliation, -his attempt to have all Paris represented, was set aside. The man and his -reputation succeeded, his policy failed. They elected also Marat, Panis, -Sergent—those who had directed the crime. Danton and Manuel alone of all -the twenty-four had any touch of the Moderate about them. The long list -ends with the name of Egalité, elected by a majority of one.[126] - -There came, therefore, into the Convention an apparently united body of -men from Paris—the Mountain. Up on the benches of the extreme left, in -the grey, dark theatre of the Tuilleries, there were to sit, in a compact -group, these extremists; and across the floor the Departments, the pure -Republicans of the south, who despised the city and them, who feared them -terribly, and who hated with the force of a religion, were to single them -out as tyrants. And in this Mountain, this body of Reds, Danton was to -find himself imbedded, bound up, falsified. He had determined to prevent -such parties. He had tried hard to make Paris elect not only Robespierre -but Pétion also as a mark of unity: he had failed. - -When the country members came up to the capital, September had grown -to be an awful legend. The number of those killed was multiplied ten -times,[127] twenty times—number lost meaning. Paris seemed a city of -blood. Guides volunteered story after story. “Here, in the Abbaye, the -blood had risen so high”—they made a mark in the wall; “there, under -that tree, the massacres were planned by such and such a one”—any name -suited, sometimes it was Robespierre, sometimes Danton. The deputies came -from their little towns and from the fields, over seven hundred—pilgrims -from places where the pure enthusiasms of 1790 still lingered, where -even 1792 had brought no passion. They came, many of them for the first -time, bewildered in the enormous city; its noise confused them, its -crowds, its anger—“Yes; that was where the massacres were committed a -fortnight ago—we can believe it.” The Convention from its first day -seemed a battlefield—Paris defiant in the Mountain, and the Departments -silent with an angry fear in the plain and on the benches of the right. -And when the newcomers asked to be shown the group of deputies for Paris, -as men would ask to be shown lurking enemies or wild beasts, they would -have their gaze directed to that high place on the left where sat the -names that had terrified and fascinated them in the prints of their -country-sides. - -There were no windows; the skylight, high above that deep well of a -room, sent an insufficient light downwards upon the foreheads, making -the features sharp and yet lending them a false gloom. That man with -the small squat body and the frog’s face was Marat; you could just see -his great vain mouth in the dim light. Those small, keen features, well -barbered and set up, the high forehead, the pointed bones of the cheek -and chin, stood for Robespierre. The light fell chiefly on the white of -his careful wig; his thin smile was in shadow. And who was that huge -figure, made larger by the darkness and carrying a head like Mirabeau? -They saw it moving when the others were fixed. He would speak to his -neighbours with heavy, sweeping gestures. They grew accustomed to the -half-light, and they could distinguish his face—the strong jaw, the -powerful movement of the lips, torn and misshapen though they were; the -rough, pitted skin, the small, direct, and deep-set eyes. Who was he? He -seemed to them the very incarnation of all the bloodshed and unreason -which they hated in Paris, a master of anarchy. It was Danton. - -Against that impression all policy and wisdom broke. He demanded unity; -he checked the growing attack on the rich; he said things that were like -France speaking. But the voice was harsh and loud; they heard it in their -minds at the head of mobs; they fled from him to the Girondins; they -forced him back upon the Mountain, and he had to do his work alone in -spite of those orators whom he would have befriended and whose genius he -loved—in spite of those madmen who surrounded him, and who later killed -him and the Republic with one axe. - -It was on the 25th of September, a Thursday, that the Convention met -in the Tuilleries; on the Friday, in the same place, with doors shut -and with the galleries empty, they declared the Republic, and moved -off to the Manège, where their predecessors had sat. In those two days -the violent quarrel between Paris and France was hushed for a moment. -Danton, in the lull, said all he could to define his own position and -to prevent that quarrel from ever reaching a head. He went out to meet -the Moderates. He declared, with the common sense of the peasant, that -property must first be declared inviolable; and it is curious that the -Convention, the majority that misunderstood him and broke with him, was -yet less moderate than he; it passed the resolution, but in the form, -“property is under the safeguard of the nation.” In order to calm opinion -he resigned the Ministry of Justice on the spot;[128] he did everything -to make his position clear and true, and to save the unity of the -Parliament. - -But the attack came from the others. Within a week Lasource had proposed -a guard for the Convention, “drawn from the departments;” and in the face -of this proposition, that was almost civil war, Danton found himself -able to speak once more for unity. The Girondins had elected one of -themselves for president, and had chosen from among their own members the -secretaries of the Assembly; they had wittingly ostracised the left, and -they desired to make it dumb. Danton still attempted union. “I myself -come from the Departments, from a place to which I always turn my eyes. -But Paris is made of the Departments, and we are not here as members of -this place or that, but as members for France.” He continually presented -the idea of France united; the Girondins as continually rejected it. He -knew that they thought him a shield for Marat; he rejected Marat openly -from the tribune. But all this intense and personal action had but an -effect upon individuals. Two especially it moved—Vergniaud, the young -orator, sincere and brave beyond all his colleagues, and more far-seeing -than any of the dreamers around him; Condorcet, to whom a year before -Danton had seemed so repulsive, but whose calm and just mind had arrived -at the truth; who had said, “Danton has that rare faculty of neither -hating nor envying genius in others;” who had voted and spoken for his -appointment as Minister of Justice, and who, up to the catastrophe of the -following June, continued to understand and to support him. - -But, for the mass of the Girondins, he remained an outcast. He used words -that one could not use before Roland’s wife, and the great group that -surrounded her (men over-full of utopias, but heroic, men whom Danton -himself regretted bitterly) made him an outcast. He replied often with -passion, and once with insult, but as we shall see he did not abandon -them entirely till the insurrection destroyed them in ’93. - -Meanwhile, while they voted the Republic in Paris, under Argonne -a battle among the most curious in history was making a momentary -security—that is, a momentary union of good feeling throughout France, -and even in Paris itself. The Prussian army had been checked on the -little rise of Valmy. As you stand upon the field in that same season -of the year to-day, in the mist of the early morning, as the volunteers -and the battered remnants of the line stood then; as you look from -that standpoint at the open road, at the great plain of Champagne, so -well suited to maintain an army; as you see to the east the long wall -of the Argonne, and remember that Dumouriez had been outflanked in -his Thermopylæ, a confusion seizes the mind. Why on earth was Valmy -so important a victory? It is a common-place to say that Valmy was a -cannonade, but what was a cannonade in 1792? If indeed to-day a line -of guns were drawn up and served, as I have seen them served in the -manœuvres within sight of these same hills, and if a force should be -discovered capable of withstanding the shrapnel of twelve batteries -of artillery, sure of their range, turning the mark into a ploughed -field—then that force would merit peculiar names, for it would be -immortal. But in the eighteenth century guns were not the arbiters of -battles. Infantry could charge the batteries then. France, which was -crushed yesterday and will succeed to-morrow solely through artillery, -had not a hundred years ago to dread the random solid shot of smooth -bores; what she had to dread was the bayonet charge of that superb -infantry which the great Frederick had trained, and on which the -monstrous scaffolding of Prussia still reposes. All we can say of Valmy -is this, that men quite ignorant of warfare, badly held together, managed -to stand firm under an ill-directed, at times a desultory and distant -cannon fire. - -Valmy was not a victory. The results of Valmy have changed the world, but -no one could have seen it then. Goethe, in the course of a long life, -discovered it, and put it beautifully into his own mouth over one of the -bivouac fires: “We entered on a new world then;” but there were better -prophets than Goethe, and not one perceived it. For days the Prussian -army hesitated. Dumouriez did not dare to meet them. A pitched battle in -the last days of September might have changed all history. - -Why then did the King of Prussia retreat? No force compelled, but two -arguments convinced him. The peasantry, and Danton, the man who through -the whole year is, as it were, a peasant trained and illumined. The -resistance of the peasantry had taught the King that to reach Paris it -required not a war of the dynasties, such as had filled the eighteenth -century—wars in which armies passed like visiting caravans; the invasion -of France would need a crusade. He was no crusader. He had undertaken the -war with only half a heart, and at this slight check he hesitated. The -second argument came from Danton. He bargained like a peasant secretly -for the purchasable and obvious good, while the Parliament was talking as -might talk a conqueror who was something of a poet and well read in the -classics. When there was a talk of negotiations just after the battle, it -launched the great words, “That the Republic does not discuss till its -territory is evacuated.” That was on Tuesday; the Republic was young to -discuss anything—it was four days old. On Wednesday night, Westermann, -Danton’s man of the 10th of August, and his companion at the scaffold, -started off secretly to diplomatise. That foolish man D’Eglantine -followed him, but his folly was swallowed up in the wisdom of Danton, who -sent him, a secretary and a mouthpiece, to do that which, had he done -it himself, would have produced some violent and ill-considered vote. -Between them this clique settled the matter, and the invaders passed -back through the Argonne heavily, in wet roads and through drenched -woods, with Kellermann following, impatient, above the valleys, but -bound by Danton’s policy not to harass the retreat; till at last, more -than a month after Valmy,[129] he fired the salute from Longwy, and the -territory was free. - -Did Danton know, as he was pursuing these plans, why Dumouriez helped -him? Did he understand thoroughly that vain, talented, and unprincipled -soldier? I think it certain. It is among those things which cannot be -proved; one does not base such convictions upon documents, but rather -on the general appreciation of character. Thus Danton undoubtedly -helped and used Talleyrand at another time in England, and Talleyrand -was patently false. But Talleyrand was, as patently, the cleverest -diplomatist he could find. Dumouriez wished the King of Prussia to be -left unmolested for a number of very mixed reasons, in which patriotism -played a small part; Danton wished it for the sake of France, and for -that only; but if Dumouriez at the head of an army was to hand, so much -the better. Danton supported Dumouriez, his policy, even his retreats -up to the disaster of March. To say “he sympathised with a traitor” -is one of those follies which men can only make when they forget that -contemporaries cannot have known what we know. With all his time-serving -and his separate plans, no one dreamt that in six months the general -would join the Austrians; it was a sudden blow even to those who sat in -his tent. - -October was a month of reconciliation. When the man broad awake succeeds, -the dreamer is ready to build a new dream on that result. The Gironde was -almost silent, the Mountain was afraid. In the short visit that Dumouriez -paid, between a victory and a victory, to Paris, Danton appears for a -moment a partner in the mental ease, the brilliant expression, and the -Republican faith of the Girondins. He might perhaps have ended there, -and with his great arms and shoulders have held apart the men whose -mutual hatred killed the Republic. In his success—and every one bore him -gratitude after Valmy—that which he most desired almost happened, and -the alliance between the opposing Girondist and the Mountain was half -realised. - -Michelet gives us two pictures[130] which, like the revelation of -lightning, show us that rapid drama standing still. In the first it -is Madame Roland, in the second Marat, who makes the tragedy. In the -first Dumouriez and Danton sat in the same box at the theatre, and -Vergniaud was coming in with the soul of the Girondins. The door opened -and promised this spectacle: Danton and the general and the orator of -the pure Republicans, and the woman most identified with the Right. -It would have been such a picture for all the people there as Danton -would have prayed or paid for. The door was ajar, and, as she came -near, Madame Roland saw Danton sitting in the box; she put out her hand -from Vergniaud’s arm and shut the door. There is in her memoirs a kind -of apology,“des femmes de mauvaise tournure.” Utter nonsense; it was -Roland’s box, and his wife was expected. Danton and Dumouriez were not -of the gutter. No, it was the narrow feminine hatred, so closely allied -to her intense devotion, that made Madame Roland thrust Danton at arm’s -length. The same spirit that made her vilify the Left like a fury made -her the calm saint of the Girondins. For she lived entirely in the Idea. - -The second scene is a reception. I will not repeat Michelet’s -description; its spirit is contained in an admirable phrase: “France -civilised appealed therein against France political.” Danton was -surrounded with those whom he would have taught, as he taught all who -ever knew him closely, to respect or to love him. Marat heard that he -was there—Marat, whom he had repudiated in public a few days before. He -heard that Danton was there, surrounded by the soldiers, and the women, -and the orators. He called at the door, and shouted in the hall, “I want -to see Danton,” and at the sound of his voice everybody grew troubled, -and Danton was left alone. On the 29th of October Danton attempted openly -to break with Marat: “I declare to you and to France,” he said in the -Convention, “that I have tried Marat’s temperament, and I am no friend of -his.” But the attempt came too late. - -The discussions broke out again in November. On the 10th, the victory of -Jemappes was heard in Paris. This book, dealing only with a man, cannot -detail those famous charges; it was a victory won by men singing the -new songs; it is the inspiration of “La victoire en chantant.” But the -security it gave only went further to destroy what was left of union. -Danton found himself more and more alone. He who had been named on a -committee with Thomas Paine, with Condorcet, with Pétion, on the very day -after his election to the presidency of the Jacobins,[131] who had in -his own temporary success seemed to realise his policy of union, found -himself after a month once more pushed back towards the Mountain. The -growing sense of security had destroyed the chances of union. He remained -silent. One would say that the time passed him by untouched, because -the one thing he cared for had failed, and because the inevitable civil -dissensions of the next spring covered his mind with clouds. France was -irretrievably divided. The arraignment of the King, the discovery of -the secret papers, all the movement of November leaves him, as it were, -stranded, waiting his mission to Belgium. - -There belongs to this period only one considerable speech. It is the -only thing in all his public acts in which you can discover beauty. You -may find in this speech the pity and the tenderness which his intimates -loved, the memory which they for sixty years defended, but which no -document or letter remains to perpetuate. - -Cambon, careless of anything but his exchequer, had thought the new era -come. That cold and inflexible head determined, seeing the steep fall -towards bankruptcy that France was making, to save a hundred millions, -but to save it at an expense. He proposed to separate the State from what -was left of the Church, to break the vow of 1790. In almost the last -speech before he went off to the armies, Danton opposed him and gave this -passage—a passage better fitted to the defence of an older and stronger -thing than the wretched constitutional priesthood:— - -“... It is treason against the nation to take away its dreams. For my -part, I admit I have known but one God. The God of all the world and of -justice. The man in the fields adds to this conception that of a man who -works, whom he makes sacred because his youth, his manhood, and his old -age owe to the priest then: little moments of happiness. When a man is -poor and wretched, his soul grows tender, and he clings especially to -whatever seems majestic: leave him his illusions—teach him if you will -... but do not let the poor fear that they may lose the one thing that -binds them to earth, since wealth cannot bind them.” - -Before he left on the mission to the armies there occurred a scene which -has always been, since Michelet described it, the most striking passage -of his relations with the Girondins. He, the man who saw safety for -France only in diplomacy, had, for the sake of unity, held his tongue -when the Girondins passed the decree of the 19th November, which was to -sustain a revolutionary crusade against Europe. I say that November is -full of Danton’s attempt to maintain the unity of the Parliament. After -all these efforts he was worsted, because the Girondins were possessed by -a dream which admitted of no compromise and of no realities. - -The scene of his last attempt was this:—He made a rendezvous with their -party. They were to meet secretly at night and away from Paris in a -house in the woods of Sceaux at the very end of November. The whole life -of this man was a tragedy, and we see in this sad journey that kind of -dramatic presentiment of his death and of theirs, the “foreknowledge” -with which the tragedies of the world are filled. - -He went through the desolate bare woods of November, under the hurrying -sky, that recalls to our minds in France to-day the charges of Jemappes. -The night was as wild as the time, and as dark as his forebodings, when -he came on to the little group of men in the candlelight, and argued -with them, and against them, and alone. Michelet gives to Danton’s mind -a sentiment of coercion. He shows us Danton dragged by necessity. But I -can see no necessity except the supreme desire to unite the parties and -make the government real. They would not receive his alliance, and he -went away from that meeting at midnight, pushed back upon Paris, thrown -into the comradeship of violence. Guadet rejected him with an especial -fervour. Danton as he left turned upon him with this phrase: “Guadet, -Guadet, you cannot understand and you do not know how to forgive; you are -headstrong, and it will be your doom.” The next day he started on his -mission to the army. - -During the arraignment and during the trial of the King the opinions that -divided the Left and the Right fought it out in his absence.[132] He was -not there to attempt such a movement as his character demanded. No one -in all the Assembly dared hold out a hand as he would have done and see -whether after all Vergniaud might not perhaps be right on the one hand, -and the Mountain perhaps be patriots on the other. - -There was in this debate upon one man’s life an element to which Danton’s -nature was well suited. There had to be kept in view for the French -nation the effect upon Europe which would follow from the determination -as to the death or life of the King, and Danton’s great voice has so -strongly and so rightly affected the historians of the period that he -thrusts his personality forward into their narrative, and in at least one -notable place Danton appears, in history, and in one of the greatest -pages of history, by no right, and figures upon scenes which do not -possess the advantage of his voice. He has been made to defend Louis’s -life, to plead for a respite, and then by a violent change to vote for -his death. - -Let me now explain how this error passed into the mind of Michelet and of -other men. Danton returned from Belgium on the night of the 14th January. -On that same day a certain Dannon, apparently an honest man,[133] -rose late in the evening and demanded respite for Louis. When Gallois -reprinted the _Moniteur_, he saw this obscure name coupled with a politic -demand; he read it again, and said, “This Dannon must be a misprint for -Danton.” He corrected it so. On this chance venture there fell the eye -of Michelet, the eye that from a glance or a word could bring back the -colours and the movements of living men. In him also the tragedy of -Danton powerfully worked; he moulded a figure from these few words in the -_Moniteur_, and made of them an admirable anti-climax. Here was Danton -(Dannon) hot from the armies, knowing in what peril France stood, having -seen with his own eyes how momentary had been the effects of Jemappes. -He comes from his travelling coach to the Assembly, and with the mud of -the road yet upon him, gives his expression as an ally to the Girondins -and to the Moderates. Then some rebuff, some unrecorded insult throws -him back again as he had been so often thrown back into the arms of the -Extremists. On the next day, the 15th of January, we are asked to watch -him sitting by the side of his dying wife, sullen and despairing. On the -16th he comes back furious, and votes for the death of the King. - -There are those for whom detail in history is pedantic, yet here upon -three letters and their order hangs the interpretation not only of an -individual character but of a policy whose effects we are still feeling. -Michelet’s great picture is false from beginning to end. Danton had -returned on the 14th, and came jaded with his journey to the bedside -of her who had been his young wife of five years, who was now near to -childbirth and to death. He had his own drama as well as that of the -historian’s, and our own dramas are acted upon a stage where the results -are real. All that night of the 14th and all the 15th he was watching in -his flat of the Passage du Commerce a fate which was coming upon him, and -certainly for whose thirty-six hours the Revolution was a little thing -to him. He came back wearily to his position and to his duties on the -16th; he remembered there was such a thing as the Revolution—that Louis -was after all on trial, and descended from his home into the hall of the -Parliament to give the short angry sentence in which we seem to read less -moderation and less of diplomacy than was his by nature. The scene in the -home had made him not only bitter but weak, for there is surely weakness -in saying, “I am not a statesman,” in borrowing, that is, the vulgar -acrimony of Marat, or in talking of “the tyrant,” and in repeating the -phrases of the Mountain. - -But in the days that followed Michelet finds a good excuse. Certainly one -would say, if one knew nothing about him except his action of January -1793, that Danton was the Mountain and nothing else. This error would be -supported by the unreasoning vehemence, the almost brutal anger, into -which he allows himself to fall. - -They asked whether the King could be condemned to death by a mere -majority, and whether that majority was decisive. Danton threw back at -them: “You decided the Republic by a mere majority, you changed the whole -history of the nation by a mere majority, and now you think the life of -one man too great for a mere majority; you say such a vote could not be -decisive enough to make blood flow. When I was on the frontier the blood -flowed decisively enough.” - -So naturally was he at that moment the Danton of unreason, so much had -his character yielded to its persistent temptation of violent words, that -there could be heard a voice once calling out to him as he rushed to the -tribune without leave from the Speaker, “You are not a king yet, Danton.” -And yet this was the man who had saved France from any folly of defiance -after Valmy, who was determined upon saving her in the future by keeping -upon the helm a quiet and unswerving hand. Vergniaud’s great simile, -“That France might become, if she did not take care, like the statues of -Egypt; they astonish by their greatness, and yet are enigmas to all who -see them, because the living spirit that made them has died,” passed him -by without effect. He was one of those who voted in the fatal majority, -and he threw down as gage of battle the head of a king.[134] - - * * * * * - -The word had become reality, and Louis had stood at mid-day trying to be -heard beyond the ring of soldiers, had cried out that he was innocent, -and had died in the noon of that cold January day. This act was destined -to produce the one thing that Danton had most ardently desired to -avoid—it put an end once and for all to the neutrality of England. - -Another people, then in their infancy, now old, whom Louis had been -persuaded to help against his will, received the death of Louis like -a kind of blow in the face. The people of the United States in their -simplicity had imagined the French king to be their saviour; they did -not know Louis’s phrase, “I was dragged into that unhappy affair of -America; advantage was taken of my youth.” They regarded his crown with -a certain superstition, as they still regard what is left of baubles -in Europe; and when the axe fell upon him, France lost not only the -calculating hypocrisy of Pitt, but the genuine sympathy of the American -people. - -In the days that followed (they were only ten) between the 21st of -January and the end of the month, it is still plain that the shock which -most affected Danton’s vigorous and independent judgment was that return -after seven weeks to the wife whom he had passionately loved, and whom -this ugly Orpheus felt slipping from his arms back into the shades. After -her death, as we shall see, he did not reel so heavily, but in that -fortnight of January, which was of such supreme importance, he permitted -misfortune to rouse mere passion in his mind; and he who might have led -the Moderates, who might have played with the life of Louis like a card, -chose to remember his rebuff in the winter and threw his trump away. - -Many have tried to explain Vergniaud’s vote. Is it not probable that he -was drawn by the example of a man whom he did not understand, and whose -opinion attracted an orator not unappreciative of energy? Vergniaud has -always before history a doubting and a hesitating face, and it seems more -than possible that the wrath of Danton carried him and many others into -the vote for death. - -Ever since the 10th of August had thrust him into unexpected power, -Danton had held in one way or another the threads of a certain diplomacy. -It was as follows:—To rely upon all the elements in Europe which admired -or were indifferent to the Revolution, and to combine them in a kind of -resistant body; to use, as it were, their inertia against those who were -setting out as crusaders against France. On this account the foolish war -of propaganda was most distasteful to him. On this account England’s -neutrality haunted his mind. He knew that in this country there existed -a body strong in its influence though not in its numbers, a body which -would have supported the French. Priestley had written to him before his -exile. Talleyrand was working for him at the moment, and opposing as an -informal Dantonist the Girondin acerbity of Chauvelin.[135] Danton was -even willing to use Dumouriez, mainly because Dumouriez was about to -compromise with England. To this policy of observation, a policy which -took advantage of England as the lover of individual liberty and of -England as the merchant, the death of the King put a sudden stop. It was -Danton that killed his own intrigue. - -Before he left on his second mission to the armies on the 31st January -1793, he shows that new face in which he attempts to retrieve, as far as -possible, the errors of which he had been largely the author. In a speech -which shows once again all his old power of party political action, -he demands the annexation of Belgium. He has seen that general war is -inevitable, and harking back again to that unique French conception -of which he was the heir, the _raison d’état_, he determines to save -the State, and to do it by an action which opposed every theory of the -Revolution. He asked “everything of their reason, nothing of their -enthusiasm,” and he demanded the annexation of Belgium with France. It -was pure opportunism—the determination to get hold of a revenue by force -of arms; and the next day, after having painfully come back to his old -policy of the real and objective, burdened by a past error, and having -broken with all that he valued in French opinion, he went off again -to the army. While his chaise was yet rolling on the flat roads of -Flanders, Chauvelin returned with Pitt’s scrawl in his hand, and France -was at war with the whole world. - -This next voyage to Belgium occupied but a very short time. He did not -get there until the 3rd February, and he started to come back on the -15th. But the moment, which is necessarily a silent one in his biography, -would be one of capital importance to us had he remained in Paris to -speak, and to leave us by his speeches some clue as to the revolution -through which his mind had passed. - -Consider these contrasting pictures: Danton, up to the death of the -King, seems uniquely occupied in pursuing the threads of a very careful -diplomacy, and in welding as far as possible the opposing factions of -the Parliament. Of course, his general theories in politics remain -unaltered, but something has happened which makes him, on returning from -Belgium for the second time, pursue this different policy: the immediate -construction of a strong central government, and the providing of it -with exceptional and terrible machinery. He works this as absolutely the -unique policy. He seems to have forgotten all questions of diplomacy, -nearly to have despaired of settling the quarrel between Paris and -the Girondins. In fine, Danton, when first in power, had been a man -so representative of France as to have many different objects, and to -attempt their co-ordination. We see him the brief fortnight of Louis’s -execution violent, angry, unreasoning; we see him again in less than a -month transformed into a man with a single object, pursued and succeeded -in with the tenacity common to minds much narrower than his own. - -I know that events will largely account for the change. The Girondins had -repelled him; diplomacy had no further object when once the universal war -was declared; the grave perils, and later the disasters of the French -armies, which he had seen with his own eyes, called imperatively for -a dictatorship. Nevertheless events will not of themselves account for -the very great transformation in all that he says and does. I believe -that we must look to another cause—one of those causes which historians -neglect, but which in the lives of individuals are of far more importance -than their political surroundings. By nature he had great tendencies to -indolence as well as to violence. He was capable of temporising to a -dangerous extent, and this, I think, was largely the cause of his action -in the autumn. But such natures are also of the kind which disaster spurs -to action. As we have seen, the return in January to his household, -ruined by an impending fate, made him the violent and bitter speaker who -spoiled his own plans by his own speeches. But returning from Belgium in -February, not a menace but a definite disaster awoke in him a much more -useful energy. - -Coming from fields in which he had seen the whole force of the early -battles breaking up in confusion and retreat, he had suddenly to meet the -news of his wife’s death. He bought a light carriage for himself in order -to travel with greater speed, and arrived at the city in time, they say, -to have her coffin taken out of the grave and opened, so that he might -look once more upon her face. The home was entirely empty. The two little -children, one of whom was in arms, the other of whom was just beginning -to talk, had been taken away to their grandmother’s. The seals were on -the furniture and on the doors. One servant only remained. The house had -been without a fire for a week when he entered. It was an opportunity -and a command for another origin in his political life. Coming and going -from these rooms, he found them intolerable; he took refuge in direct -and determined action, calling to his aid all that vast reserve of -energy which he was accustomed to expend at the cost of so much future -exhaustion. - -Here was the first thing to be done—to construct at once that strong and -simple government which he had talked of so long. The report which he and -the other commissioners had prepared on the state of the army[136] was -one deliberately intended to make such a government voted. The Commune of -Paris immediately after the preparation of the report made its vigorous -appeal for a further levy, and on the 8th of March Danton made the first -of those speeches which riveted the armour all round France.[137] - -In the first phrase of this speech he strikes the note upon which -depended so much of his power. He reads his own character into that of -the nation. “We have often discovered before now that this is the temper -of the French people—namely, that it needs dangers to discover all its -energy.” Then he strikes the other note, the appeal to Paris which had -marked so much of his career. “Paris, which has been given so ill a fame” -(a stroke at the Girondins), “I say is called once more to give France -the impulse which last year produced all our triumphs. We promised the -army in Belgium 30,000 men on the 1st of February. None have reached -them. And I demand that commissioners be named to raise a force in the -forty-eight Sections of Paris.” - -If there was some talk at that moment of making him Minister of War after -Beurnonville’s resignation, it was because no one but Danton himself -understood how much his energy could do. He rejected the proposal, but -he had the desire to replace the ministers themselves by a power more -formidable and more direct. - -In these days one disaster after another came to help his scheme. More -than one of his enemies had suspected in a vague fashion that he was -framing a new power,[138] but they could not imagine in Danton anything -higher than ambition, and they lent him the ridiculous project of -forcing a new ministry upon the Assembly. What he was really preparing, -and what he produced on the 10th of March, was the weapon which history -has called the Revolutionary Tribunal. - -It was the moment when the mutterings against the Girondins seemed about -to take the form of an insurrection, when their printing presses were -broken, and when, in the vague panic that always followed any popular -movement since September, men feared a renewal of the massacres. The -proposal is put forward with ability of argument rather than with -passion; but, in the teeth of the majority and a ministry to which such -methods were detestable, in the teeth, that is, of the Girondin idealism -which was ruining the country, he affirmed the necessity of his scheme, -and he passed it.[139] He had given the Revolutionary Government its -first great weapon, a weapon that was later to be turned against himself; -his second move was to put it into vigorous hands. - -This next proposition, which, combined with the establishment of the -Revolutionary Tribunal, was to change the history of France, did not -proceed from Danton alone, but it was based upon Danton’s suggestion; -it sprang largely from the vivid impression he had given of the peril -in which France lay and of the necessity of forming something central -and strong, of providing a hand which could use the dictatorship of -the Terror. The Committee of Public Safety, in a word, could not have -been declared but for the interpretation which Danton had given to the -disasters of March. - -The crowning defeat of Neerwinden, which at the time must almost have -seemed the death of the Republic, gave the first impulse. The old -Committee of General Defence was renewed. But though this committee was -far too large and far too feeble, we owe it to Danton that it contained -a vigorous minority from the Left. The final blow that replaced it by an -institution round which the rest of this book will turn was the treason -of Dumouriez. - -Let us consider what the situation was at this moment. The Republic had -lost every man upon whose ability she could rely in the leadership of -armies. Of all the school of generals who had grown up under the old -regime, Lafayette alone in his weak way had loved freedom, and Dumouriez -alone had remained on the side of the French. Spain, England, the German -Powers—nine allies—were threatening the territory of the Republic and the -very existence of the new regime; the civil war, which was soon to take -such gigantic proportions, had already made its successful beginning at -Machecoul. Between the Convention and immediate disaster there lay only -the personality of Dumouriez. When the news of his desertion, following -on the news of his defeat, reached Paris, the Girondins were hopelessly -discredited, and the line of their political retreat, the pursuit of -their enemies, ran in a direction that Danton’s speeches had prepared. - -For several days he had himself been the object of the most violent -attacks, especially for his friendship with Dumouriez and on the question -of the Belgian accounts. For he had just returned from a third mission -to the army, and had been close to the general. On the 1st of April -practically the whole sitting was devoted to an attack upon him and to -his defence. Had you been sitting in the house that night, you would -have said that a violent demagogue, surrounded by a little group of yet -more violent friends, was resisting with some difficulty the attacks -of an honest and loyal majority. But this demagogue was so far-seeing, -was so much the greatest of all those in the hall, that when three days -afterwards the Parliament was brought face to face with the reality, -Danton’s method becomes the only solution. They hear of Dumouriez’ -treason, and on the night of the 4th of April, Isnard, himself a -Girondin, proposed the creation of the Committee. Danton supported him at -midnight with a definite speech such as no Girondin would have dared to -make. He said practically, “This Committee is precisely what we want, a -hand to grasp the weapon of the Revolutionary Tribunal.” - -It was Isnard that formulated the idea, but it was Danton that baptised -it “A Dictator.” It was at midnight that he spoke, and he closed his -short speech just on the turn of the morning of the 5th of April. That -very day a year later the Dictator seized him, and his own Tribunal put -him to death. - -On the 5th of April, the next day, in the evening, we begin to get those -large measures and rapid which came with the new organ of power. And -Danton speaks with a kind of joy, and demands at once such measures as -only a dictatorship can produce—calling all the people to the defence, -fixing a maximum upon the price of bread, even the first mention of a -levée _en masse_. The air is full of such a spirit as you get in an army, -the certitude that with discipline and unity and authority all things -can be done. On the following day, the 6th, the Committee was chosen, -and on the 7th the names were read out, which showed that the power had -finally passed from the Girondins to those whom they had rejected at the -moment when France was forgiving everything for the sake of Jemappes. The -Convention, in need of men of action, had been forced to abandon its own -leaders and to turn to Danton. - -The names that they heard read out were Barrère, Delmas, Bréard, Debry, -Morvaux, Cambon, Treilhard, Lacroix, and Danton. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE TERROR - - -From the 6th April 1793, from the act which was described at the end of -the last chapter, we have something new in the course of the Revolution. -We have at last an Institution. - -It is in the nature of the French people (for reasons which might to -some extent be determined, but whose discussion has no place in this -book) that their history should present itself in a peculiarly dramatic -fashion. Their adventures, their illusions, their violence, their -despair, their achievements, seem upon a hundred occasions to centre -round particular men or certain conspicuous actions, in such a fashion -that those men and these actions fit themselves into a story, the plot -and interest of which absorb the reader. But if we attempt to connect -the whole into a series, even if we attempt to give the causes or the -meaning of a few years’ events, the dramatic aspect fails. This quality, -which has fascinated so many, has also mistaught us and confused us, and, -in the desire to “throw the limelight” upon the centre of action, one -historian after another has left in obscurity that impersonal blind force -which directs the whole. - -This force in France is the Institution. Understand the character and -methods of her central power, and you find yourself possessed of this -great key to the understanding of her history, namely, that events follow -each other in the order that the Institution requires, and the nation -moves along the lines which the Institution determines. The Institution -provides a standpoint from which all falls into perspective, even the -details of personality no longer remain in confusion. You find, in a -little while, that you are dealing with an organism more simple and of -far greater vitality than any man, as truly a living, and much more truly -a permanent, force than a monarch or a great minister can be. - -The consideration of half-a-dozen examples will make this clear. What -is all that marvellously dramatic action between Pepin le Bref and the -coronation of Hugh but confusion? It ceases to be so when we follow with -Fustel de Coulanges the transformation of the Imperial system. You can -make nothing of the tenth and eleventh centuries, for all their personal -interest, until you have grasped Feudalism, and it is a common-place that -the six hundred years that follow are but the development of the Capetian -method. It is not in Louis the XI., or in Mazarin, or in Louis XIV. that -we find the Force—it is in the French monarchy. Look about you at the -present day, ask yourself what has recreated the prosperity of modern -France, and you will certainly not be able to find a special man. It is -the System that has done the work. - -Now it is the note of all the Revolution, as we have followed it up to -this point, that the Institution was lacking. France without it was -France without herself: she dissolved. The cause of this lack was as -follows: The monarchy, round which everything had centred, was dying, and -the social theories of the time—the great Philosophy on which France was -fed—neglected and despised the Institution, relying as it did upon the -vague force of general opinion. It was the chief—I had almost said the -only—fault of the Jeffersonians in America and the idealist Republicans -in France, that they could see neither the necessity of formulæ nor the -just power of systems. Nevertheless it was the instinct which remained -in the French mind, the “sub-conscious” sense of what the Institution -was to France, that made half the violence of the time. I do not mean -that the speeches recognised this character openly—on the contrary, the -enmities and the divisions seem to turn entirely upon personal hatreds; -but I mean that the underlying fear, unexpressed but real, was that -such and such a proposition would create a permanent tendency, and that -Girondin or Jacobin success meant the deflection of the torrent into one -or the other of two divergent channels. Here in England, living under an -order which is well established and old, we wonder at the intensity of -passion which some abstract resolution could arouse in the Convention. -We should wonder no longer were we to comprehend that in the extreme -rapidity with which all France was being remoulded, a few words agreed -upon, a mere principle, might add a quality to all the future history of -the nation. - -Two men in the Revolutionary period rose higher than the flood, Mirabeau -and Danton. Each was able to perceive what the permanent character of -the nation was, and each gave all his efforts to the uniting or welding -round some stable centre the new order to which both were attached. In -a word, each understood what the Institution was to France, and desired -to lend it force and endurance. With Mirabeau it was the monarchy. Would -he have saved, recreated, and restored that declining power which had -once been the framework of the nation? We cannot tell. Had he lived, ’92 -would have shown us; only we know that if the monarchy had seemed to -him at last beyond repair, he would have proposed at once some similar -power to replace it. Now Danton had survived; doubtful in 1791, “more -monarchist than you, M. de Lafayette,” he was determined in 1792 that the -crown and France were separate for ever. He overthrew the palace, but -from that very moment all his policy was directed to the construction of -a governing power. It is here that he and the Girondins, for all his -personal attempts at unity, were hopelessly divided. The Girondins were -bent upon that local autonomy and that extreme individual liberty in -which the central power disappears. With the growing danger, with his own -experience of Belgium, Danton, during the early part of 1793, becomes -set upon the idea of government and of nothing else. He gave it a weapon -before it existed, for he made the Revolutionary Tribunal, and though -Isnard first proposed it, it is known that Danton led the movement which -ended in the establishment of the Committee. - -All government since that time in France has been its heir. It was -the Committee that forged the centralised system, that showed how the -administration might radiate from Paris, that gave precedent for the -conscription and for all determined action. That dictatorship so plainly -saved the country in its worst peril that under many different names the -French people have often recalled it, and rarely without success. - -All the remaining year with which this chapter must deal is the story -of the Committee. The Committee explains and gives us the clue to -every action. Its changes, the men who dominated it, the reasons it -had for violence or for clemency, its main object of throwing back the -invasions—these are the central part of 1793 and 1794. - -Had we an accurate account of what passed in that secret council, almost -every event could be referred to it. But such an account is lacking. -Barrère, always inconsistent, wrote a rigmarole in his old age which has -anecdotes of interest, but which is almost valueless for our purpose. -Here and there we have a disconnected anecdote or a lame confession, -but the doors of the room are as closed to us as they were to the -contemporaries who stood in the outer hall and received the official -nothings of Barrère, or later of St. Just. Nevertheless what we can -reconstruct of its spirit and action, imperfect as our effort may be, -does more to explain the time than any descriptions of the orators or of -the crowd. - - * * * * * - -The action of this new executive, as it touches Danton, changes rapidly -during the year. In the first Committee of nine Danton is everything. -He made it and he directs it. Towards the close, however, of its short -existence, he is beginning to feel the pressure of the Jacobins, and of -Robespierre and of St. Just, the victory of the Mountain. This loss of -power on his part ends with the dissolution of the old Committee, and -when the new one is formed—with the 10th of July—another period begins. -The members are increased to twelve; then enter the Robespierrians. -Danton, for motives which we shall discuss later, resigns, and there are -two doubtful summer months when he still maintains, from without, the -power of the Committee, but first begins to check so far as is possible -the tyranny upon which it has embarked. He retires in a kind of despair -to Arcis, and with his return a new phase is entered. The Committee -is striking furiously; the Terror has taken root; and by an action of -generosity, or perhaps of wisdom, Danton sets himself against his own -creation. These few months—the winter of 1793-1794—give us that side of -Danton which at the time was least explicable, but which best defines -him for posterity. He puts his whole weight as an orator, and, through -the genius of his friends, he puts the journals also against the Terror. -Knowing (as he must have known) how strong was the engine he had made, -he yet withstands it, and attempts by a purely personal force, without -an organisation and without executive power, to reduce the action of -the Committee. So great was he that for some weeks his success hung -in the balance. France, we must presume, was with him. Paris doubted, -but might have been won. When the violent and unscrupulous Hébertists -were executed he seemed to have succeeded, and the Terror appeared to -be closed. But the Committee had a deeper policy; in the same week that -saw the fall of Hébert, Danton was himself suddenly arrested with his -friends. How far Robespierre permitted and how far directed the action -will never be fully known. The Committee struck the one great force -opposed to it, and the Dantonists were executed on the anniversary of its -creation. - - * * * * * - -The first part of the story of the Committee in its relation to Danton is -the period between April the 6th and July the 10th 1793. It is the period -of the fall of the Girondins; and to make clear the importance of the new -power I shall adopt this method:— - -To give first in their order the events that led to the attack on the -Parliament and the expulsion of the twenty-two; to show in what confusion -the whole story lies, and how difficult (or impossible) it is to follow -the motives of the deputies, or to say why they acted as they did. Then -to give, as a parallel account, the position and action of the Committee, -and to show how fully (in my opinion) its motive determines the history -of the time; to look at the insurrection of June 2 from the room where -the nine members debated in secret, and to point out how, from that -standpoint (which was Danton’s own), the confusion falls into order. - -First, then, what was the exterior history of the movement that destroyed -the Gironde? It will be remembered that when the Convention first met -in September, the great majority of its numbers inclined to a certain -spirit. That spirit was best represented by a small group of men, -idealists and orators—and of these a number, the most powerful perhaps, -had come from the vineyards of the peaceable southern river. The warmth, -the calm, the fruitfulness of the Valley of the Gironde, appeared in -Vergniaud’s accents. To this devoted band of men, whose whole career was -justice and virtue, no one has dared to be contemptuous, and history on -every side has left them heroes. They were own brothers to the immortal -group that framed the American Constitution, the true heirs of Rousseau, -and worthy to defend and at last to give their lives for the Republican -idea. They hated the shedding of blood; they tested every action by the -purest standard of their creed; and from the first speeches in which -they demanded the war, to the day when they sang the Marseillaise on the -scaffold, they did not swerve an inch from the path which they had set -before themselves. - -What led such men into conflict with Paris, and perhaps with France? This -fault: that the pure theory which they justly maintained to be the one -right government could not meet Europe in arms. What a few millions lost -on the littoral of the American continent could do, without frontiers and -without memories, that France could not do with civil war raging, and -with the world invading her frontiers. A modification was imperative, -a compromise with necessary evil. The men who felt reality knew that -well. Danton had forced on a dictatorship, and gave it the method of -the Terror. But the Girondins, though they had been compelled to give -up so much, yet refused to follow the necessary path. They refused the -conscription; a volunteer army was the only one tolerable to free men. -They refused diplomacy; it involved a secret method, and was of its -nature based on compromise. They refused the requisitions to the armies, -the forced taxes, the hegemony of Paris, the preponderance of talent or -genius in the committees—in a word, they refused to sanction anything, -however necessary, in that crisis, which they would not have sanctioned -in a time of order and of a pure republic. - -The result of this sublime obstinacy was the ruin of France and of -themselves. The Royalists saw it, and called themselves “Girondins;” the -great name became a label for every reaction, and in every new disaster -Paris saw with increasing clearness the restraining hand of the Gironde. -For it was Paris and its Commune that took the leadership in the attempt -to depose or expel the men who led the Parliament. Already before the -Committee had been formed, the Commune on April the 2nd had begun to -correspond with the municipalities of France—the fatal step that had so -often preceded insurrection. To Paris as a centre, to Paris radical, and -especially to Paris violent and unreasoning, the Girondins had grown -detestable. Paris for a thousand years had stood for unity—the Girondins -were autonomist and federal. Paris was passionate—the Girondins as calm -as light. To all this enmity the Gironde answered by no force, but only -by an assertion of their inviolable right. All April and May is consumed -in the tale of great disasters without, and of the acute battle between -the Right and the deputation from Paris within. - -It is when we turn to this struggle within the Convention that the -confusion arises which can only be made clear by considering the -Committee. Especially is this the case with regard to Danton’s action. -Thus, on the 10th of April, he opposes the prosecution of those who sent -a petition from the Halle aux Blés for the resignation of Roland; on the -13th there is the famous speech in favour of diplomatic action as opposed -to the violence of the Mountain. Yet the day before he also opposed in -a formal and well-reasoned speech the arrest and trial of Marat. When -that madman, with whom his name had been so often linked, came back in -triumph from his acquittal, Danton took a yet more inexplicable attitude. -While all the Mountain were shouting for joy, and while Paris welcomed -the verdict as the first wound of the Gironde (which, indeed, it was), -Danton merely said, “Paris, we see, so loves the Convention as to applaud -the acquittal of one of its members”—a very transparent speech. On the -1st of May Danton is the only man to speak with sobriety and good sense -against the petition of the Faubourg St. Antoine, which attacked the -rights of property; yet on the 10th he turns against Isnard, that is, -against the Gironde and the Moderates, and causes the proposal of what -was practically a popular referendum on the constitution to be rejected. -We see, therefore, even when we look at the action of Danton alone, the -apparent confusion that was indicated above. Were we to turn to almost -any other of the Committee the same would be apparent. Barrère, the chief -spokesman, seems to take now one side, now the other. At one moment he -attacks the Girondins purposely; at another the petitions from Paris; at -every point, in the action of every prominent speaker outside the two -opposing groups, there appears this inextricable tangle. - -With the 10th of May the battle between Paris and the Gironde entered -into its last phase. It was upon this date that the Convention began to -sit permanently in the little theatre of the Tuilleries, where they had -first met. The news that met them was the death of Dampierre and the -taking of Thouars by the Vendeans. Every rumour of disaster (and the -rumours were being confirmed with fatal rapidity) was like oil spilt -from the lamp of the Gironde. Their own followers were shaken, the great -mass of the Convention who put their trust in these pure doctrines grew -afraid and doubtful. Within a week (on the 17th) the Commune took a -further step; they made their own law, and put Boulanger at the head -of the armed force of the town—a force that was not theirs to govern. -Later they gave Henriot the place. The Convention answered by electing -Isnard their president; and Guadet, the headstrong, proposed to break the -Commune, and to call the “suppliants” to Bourges. By this proposal a -kind of Parliament in reserve would have existed to take up the work if -the Parliament in Paris should be mutilated. Had the motion passed, the -civil war, which was muttering in Lyons and had broken into open flame in -Vendée, would have embraced all France. - -But at this juncture Danton’s Committee comes in again with its curiously -mixed action. By the mouth of Barrère it pleads against the motion, and -proposes instead the appointment of twelve members, as Girondin as they -pleased, to judge the Commune, to “inquire.” The commission was named, -and acted on thorough principle and with haste, and without judgment, as -any one might have foretold; for such was the Girondin weakness. Against -the army that the Commune was gathering, all it could propose was to -double the sergeant’s guard at the Tuilleries, while it exasperated its -enemy by ordering the arrest of Hébert. - -Hébert was the one man in the Revolution of whom the truth has certainly -been told by enemies. There was something of the pickpocket in Hébert, -but not of the pickpocket only. He was also a blasphemer, an atheist, -a man delighting in the foulest words, and in the most cowardly or -ferocious of actions. His prominence was due to two things. First, he -was the pamphleteer of the time, the “Père Duchesne.” France had not -yet discovered the danger of a free press. Secondly, in the Parisian -exasperation against “the Moderates,” the most extreme and the least -rational became of necessity a kind of symbol, an accentuated type, and -was thrust forward as a defiance. It is not too much to say that the -Girondins themselves, by their lack of all measure, pushed Hébert to the -front. - -Such measures as those which “the twelve” had decreed were but fuel for -the insurrectionary flame. Once more Danton appears, this time against -the Gironde. To the demand for a large guard drawn from the Departments -he said, “You are decreeing that you are afraid!” Whereupon a voice from -the right cried with some humour, “I am.” Danton had his way, the guard -was not formed, and on the following day (the 25th of May) Isnard’s -imprudence brought on the catastrophe. - -It was in the matter of the petition for the release of Hébert. Isnard -rose in the chair, lifted his hand, and pronounced in his hollow voice -the words that have enriched history at the expense of his country: “If -such a thing should happen as an attempt upon the representatives of the -nation, I say to you, in the name of all France, that very soon men would -search upon the banks of the Seine for proofs that Paris had once been -there.” Danton intervened, but he could do nothing. The glove had been -thrown down. He asked for the withdrawal of those words; the Girondin -majority reaffirmed them. Two days later he obtained the freedom of -Hébert; but though for a moment he was promised the dissolution of the -“Commission of the Twelve,” his effort failed, for they were immediately -reinstated. In the night between the 30th and the 31st of May the -Sections named a new and insurrectionary Commune; for one day the danger -was warded off, and you may see Danton, still so difficult to understand, -urging the Committee, while Barrère is proposing the conciliatory message -to France, a document which blamed neither the Girondins nor Paris, and -the twelve were dissolved. But the final blow was not to be avoided. -On the 2nd of June the news of the counter-revolution in Lyons reached -Paris. The Convention was surrounded; Henriot, at the head of the city -militia, guarded its approaches, lined the corridors. Even in that -moment, when Isnard proposed to retire, and made his superb apology, the -Gironde, as a whole, stood firm. The inflexible Jansenist, Lanjuinais, -proposed, with heroic folly, “a decree dissolving the authorities of -Paris,” at a moment when these very authorities were holding the doors -with fixed bayonets; but in spite of Barrère’s demand for Henriot’s -condemnation, in spite of Danton’s demand for “a signal punishment,” the -Convention yielded, voted the arrest not only of the twenty-two, whom -the Commune had demanded, but of twenty-nine, and Vergniaud, Barbaroux, -Guadet; Le Brun, and Clavière (who were nominally ministers); Roland (who -had fled, and whose wife was imprisoned by the Commune)—in fine, the -whole body of those great orators who had made the Republic—were thrust -out of the Assembly, some to be held in the honourable confinement of -their own houses, some to fly and raise civil war in the Departments. -The Commune offered hostages in equal number, but they were refused; and -before the day was over the Parliament was mutilated, and the obstacle to -the dictatorship and to the Terror had been swept away. - -Such is a rapid summary of the fall of the Girondins—a story of -contradictions and of inextricable cross-purposes, in which for two -months men seem (especially the men of the new Committee) to change -sides, to hesitate, and to falter, in which the majority passes over to -the Jacobins with a startling rapidity, and in which (apparently) the -only two fixed points are the immovable figures of the Gironde and their -opponents of the Commune. - -I know that this confusion has commonly led writers to adopt an equal -confusion in their explanation of the insurrection and of its motives. To -disentangle such a skein it was apparently necessary to make Robespierre -a prophet, Isnard for once a coward, Barrère a skilful diplomatist, -Danton a vacillator. Such a method appears to me false. If, to explain -a difficult passage in history, we make men behave in a way which -contradicts all their lives, we must (it seems to me) be in error. These -special theories are mechanical, and do not satisfy the mind. - -The question is this: Somewhere a power existed; why was not that power -in evidence either on one side or on the other? And why do we not see it -acting? I believe the answer is as follows:— - -The power was in the Committee. The Committee believed it necessary to be -rid of the Girondins. But the Committee was part of the Convention—the -existence and the authority of the Convention was necessary to it. It -saw on the one hand a set of Parliamentary leaders who would not permit -it to act with vigour, on the other it noted the angry spirit of Paris. -The Committee permitted that spirit to act, but gave it its measure and -its direction unknown to itself, desiring to eliminate the Moderates, -but anxious to avoid their proscription, exile, or death. With this clue -the maze seems to me resolved. It was the Committee that expelled the -Gironde, using Paris for its arm. - -Now to prove this certain steps are necessary. In the first place, why -can we say that the Committee was the centre of power? Because it alone -had access to a complete knowledge of France, it alone debated in secret, -and it alone existed for the express purpose of dictatorship. When once -the generals, the deputies in mission, and the police became familiar -with the new organ, they referred to the Committee as naturally as the -corresponding men to-day would refer to a cabinet or to a monarch. If -the reader will glance at any portion of the document which is printed -as Appendix XI. of this book, and to which I shall continually refer in -this passage, he will at once perceive that the men who drew it up had -in their hands every lever of public machinery. I would not maintain -that this power sprang at once into existence on the 6th of April, -but the two months that produced such a report was ample time to have -developed a corresponding grasp upon the armies, upon the diplomacy, and -upon the internal resources of Revolutionary France. Where else will -you find such a document in all the offices of the time? Compared with -it the decisions of the ministry are vague abstractions, the reports -of the Commune puerilities or ravings. Revolutionary France, until the -formation of the Committee, may be compared to a marsh in which the water -tends to flow to no one centre; the information, the revenue, the public -forces stood incoherent and stagnant. The creation of this secret body -may be compared to a pit dug in its centre, to which the waters would -immediately flow. It may be objected that they had not the control of -finance. No; but they had Cambon. In an assembly of men new to government -this very difficult province fell of itself into the hands of a man whose -genius all admitted, and whose probity no one of his enemies would deny. -Long before the insurrection took place, any man with information, with -authority, or with a special duty to perform, had learnt to regard the -Committee as his chief, for the simple reason that no other centre of -authority existed. Add to this the incalculable force of secrecy, the -power by which the most glaring failures of our cabinets can be hidden -by merely saying, “We know what all the rest ignore,” and it will appear -reasonable to say that by June the Committee could almost, had it wished, -have summoned an army to Paris. The Committee then held the power. - -In the second place, we must establish, as far as is possible, the aims -of the Committee and their method of guiding the insurrection. As was -said earlier in this chapter, those aims and methods can only be arrived -at by inference; the very nature of a body that deliberates in secret -makes this method of inquiry necessary. There is no direct evidence, -unless the contradictory anecdotes of a much later period can be given -that name. Now we can infer with some accuracy what went on in their -deliberations. There should be noted at the outset the document to which -I have already referred, and which, if I am not mistaken, is printed -for the first time in this book. It was the first of those general -Rapports which were delivered by Barrère to the Convention for the next -sixteen months, and which so profoundly affected the course of the -Revolution. It sums up the result of two months of astonishing labour; -everything—all the weakness of France—has been noted with the accuracy -of a topographical survey. It gives the equipment, the provisioning, -the local difficulties of each army, the detailed condition of the -fleet (a most deplorable picture), the result of what is evidently -an elaborate spy-system in the department of foreign intrigue, and -everywhere the indictment is obvious—“whatever has governed France -hitherto has hopelessly failed.” There are, indeed, polite references to -the ineptitude of the old regime, but side by side with these there is a -direct attack on the Girondin Ministers of War, and on the diplomatic, -or rather non-diplomatic, methods which had been pursued abroad; indeed, -many parts of this report would not be out of place had they appeared -in a Compte Rendu drawn up by the victorious insurrection, instead of -preceding, as they did, the fall of the Gironde. - -Again, there is the date of its appearance. It was not by a coincidence -that Barrère was given it to read on the 29th of May. Note this sequence. -Isnard made his fatal speech on Saturday the 25th. Monday the 27th was -the date of Danton’s attempt to dissolve “the twelve;” and his failure -followed on Tuesday the 28th, when, by the blindness or firmness of the -Gironde, they were reinstated. It is on Wednesday the 29th that Barrère -rises at the end of a long and stormy discussion, and, late in the -afternoon, presents his report. The vague phrases on the importance of -unity which it contains have made some imagine that it was an attempt at -conciliation, rapidly devised and thrown out at that critical moment. -That opinion is surely erroneous. It is long (some 17,000 words) and -carefully prepared; it must have taken some time to draw up, and it has -all the appearance of a weapon framed at leisure and held in reserve; -it comes at that moment with some such force as this, saying from the -Committee, from Danton, to the Gironde—“You have refused to do what -France absolutely needed. You have rejected my attempts to save you, the -avenues which I opened for your escape; you were given the commission of -twelve; you have fatally abused the gift. Will you be convinced at the -last moment by this picture of the terrible straits to which you have -brought the nation?” - -Finally, we can draw a fairly conclusive set of proofs from our knowledge -of the men in the Committee and of the public action they took. Of -all the nine, Danton was the one commanding personality. Cambon was -a specialist, and but for him and Lindet, honest but not an orator, -there were Danton and his men only. Barrère, it may be urged, was not -a Dantonist; but he was pliant to a degree; his pliancy is notorious, -and has ignorantly been given a still worse name. Moreover, Barrère was -closeted with Danton day after day; they undertook the same department in -the Committee (that of foreign affairs), and they follow exactly the same -course in the tribune. In the Department of War was Delacroix, Danton’s -friend and right hand. Of the report itself, all the last part, and -possibly some paragraphs in the middle, were drawn up by Danton. Later we -shall see that his preponderance was notorious and a danger to him. - -Well, Danton and the Committee being so nearly identical, can we make a -description of the motive that urged him? I think we can. Desmoulin’s -“Histoire des Brissottins” was certainly not of Danton’s inspiration. -Camille wrote that deadly pamphlet under the eye of Robespierre. But -Fabre d’Eglantine at the Jacobins, on May the 1st, calling on the -Girondins “to go, and return when all is settled,” is almost using -Danton’s own phrase—“Qu’ils s’en aillent, et qu’ils revennent profiter -de notre victoire.” All that he and Barrère say, from then to the day of -June the 2nd, seems to fall under this formula. He permits the attack of -the Commune, while he does everything to moderate its force. He speaks -continually for the defence, but he and his Committee refuse to act, and -if ever he has spoken a little too strongly, has given the Girondins -a little too much power, he retreats somewhat towards the Commune. He -resembles a man who is opening a sluice in a dyke of the fen country: -behind him is the sea; he admits and plays with its power, but unless his -calculation is just it may rush in and overwhelm him. He permitted Paris -to strike, and he created a tyranny; both the mob of the capital and the -dictatorship were destined to break from his hands. - -These are, as I read them, the causes of the fall of the Girondins. I -have dealt with them at this length because the passage from the 31st of -May to the 2nd of June 1793 is not only one of the most fiercely debated, -but also one of the most important in the history of the Revolution. I -have not given it too much space, for upon the understanding of what led -to and what permitted the insurrection depends, without any question, our -final judgment on Danton’s position. - -Here, then, the Committee, even in its infancy, furnishes the clue to -a difficult passage in the Revolution. It is becoming more and more -necessary as research progresses to refer the mysteries of the period -to that central body; and, as it seems to me, we have in its first -general report the first explanation of that most complex movement, the -insurrection of the 2nd of June. - -The Gironde having disappeared, there was left before Danton a task of -extreme difficulty. He was about to attempt the management of men whom -he deliberately permitted to engage in battle. It is of the very first -importance in our study of his career to appreciate the conditions of -this task. Consider for a moment what he has done. He has by arguments, -by threats, and finally by the use of the mob, made the Revolutionary -Government a reality. It is in this last ally that we find the cause -of his future failure. Hitherto he has been battling with particular -men, preventing a small group of politicians from obstructing the -Revolutionary measures, cajoling on the other hand the extreme members -of the Convention by calculated outbursts of sympathy. Such a task no -one would find impossible, did he possess at once a clear object and the -genius to approach it. But after the 2nd of June it was another matter. -He had let loose the storm, and with the pride of a man who felt his -strength inwards and outwards (for scheming and for haranguing), he had -determined deliberately to ride it. It was a miscalculation. Something -resembling a natural force, something like an earthquake or a lava -stream, opposed itself to his mere individual will; and Danton, who among -the politicians had been like a man among boys, became in the presence of -these new forces like a lonely traveller struggling at evening against -a growing tempest in the mountains. From this moment we shall see him -using in vain against the passions of 1793 the ability, the ruse, the -eloquence, the energy which had so long succeeded among the statesmen. -They will be swept down like driftwood upon the current of popular -madness which he himself has let loose. The Committee will be formed of -new members, the Terror will grow from day to day, the Revolution will -begin to take on that character of fanaticism which was directly opposed -to Danton’s plan, and he will retire disappointed and beaten. He will -return frankly out of sympathy with the excesses, and in expiation of -that fault of sanity he will die. - -The months in which he fights this losing battle are the hot months -of 1793. I will not deny that during this summer his name is more -conspicuous than at any period of his life. I will admit that if we deal -with history as a spectacle, the climax of 1793 should be distinguished -by his voice and presence. But it is this fascination of the picturesque -which has made his life inexplicable, and a biographer dares not leave -it so. Although June, July, and August are full of his speeches, his -warning, and even his energy, yet I say that he was day after day losing -his hold and slipping. He is conspicuous because in the face of such -disaster he redoubled his energy; but even that redoubled energy is -dwarfed in the face of the spirit that animated the Terror. - -First with regard to June: it was still a period of hope, and he still -thought himself the master. He had added to the Committee, not thinking -them dangerous, but as a kind of sop, five members of the Mountain. Among -them were two who were to prove the ruin of his whole system—Couthon and -St. Just. Perhaps to temper their action, perhaps merely because he was a -friend, he included Hérault de Séchelles. The names were typical of what -was to happen in 1794, when, by the power of St. Just, Hérault was to be -thrust out of the Committee and sent to die with Danton himself. - -Unconscious of what this addition would lead to, unconscious also of what -echoes the 2nd of June might arouse in the provinces, Danton pursued -his path as though the insurrection had been but one event of many. The -minister Le Brun was brought by his guards day after day to aid in the -discussions, and taken back to the custody of his own house. One might -have thought that the “moral insurrection” of which Robespierre had -talked had led only to a “moral suppression” of the Girondins. Moreover, -the whole of these days of June are full of Danton’s yet remaining -supremacy. He goes on with his two principal methods, namely, a strong -secret government and moderation in the application of its tyranny, as -though the situation was his to mould at his will. Thus, on the 8th, he -says with regard to the decree against foreigners: “I will show you such -and such an alien established in France who is much more of a patriot -than many Frenchmen. I say to you, therefore, that while the principle -of watching foreigners is good, you should send this proposal to the -Committee and let it be discussed there.” Again, two days later, he -refuses to admit the violent attitude of the Mountain towards Bordeaux. -He even praises that city at a time when it was practically in rebellion, -to defend its proscribed members. Within the same week he continues to -talk of La Vendée as the only centre of insurrection. He continues to -be the Danton of old, although the Girondins are raising the standard -of civil war on every side, and he maintains that continuous effort and -compromise which had saved so much in the autumn of 1792, and which could -do so little now. - -Within the Committee they framed the Constitution of 1793—that great -monument of democracy, which never took its place in history, nor ever -affected the lives of men. It stands like an idol of great beauty which -travellers find in a desert place; its religion has disappeared from -the earth; no ruins surround it; in the day when it was put up the -men who raised it were driven from what should have been the centre -of their adoration. That Danton was still in power when the result -was debated in the Parliament during the third week of the month is -evident from two things: first, that the Constitution, with its broad -guarantees of individual liberty and of local autonomy, with its liberal -spirit, so nearly approaching the great dream of Condorcet, so opposed -to the narrow fanaticism of the Jacobins, was definitely intended to -appease the growing passions of civil war. Two-thirds of France, of the -country-sides at least, was arming because Paris had dared to touch -the representatives of the nation. The Constitution was thrown like a -hostage; the men who saw the necessity for a dictatorship said virtually, -“The violence that offends you is only for a moment. Here is what we -desire with the return of peace.” And the document so responded to the -heart of France that it succeeded. - -The second proof that Danton had still hold of the reins is to be found -in this: that the advice which he gives during the discussions on the -Constitution is not that of violence, nor of flattery, but of moderate -common-sense; and of such advice which the Convention accepts the best -example is to be found in the speech on the power of making war. It was a -difficult thing to convince the Assembly, in those days of abstractions, -that the nation, as a whole, could not exercise such a right without -hopeless confusion. Yet Danton had his way. This month of June, then, -which was so full of terrible internal danger, during which Buzot had -raised a Girondin army sixty miles from Paris, during which Normandy was -in full revolt, during which Lyons had attacked the Republic, and during -which the counter-Revolution seemed on the point of breaking out—this -month was still Danton’s own. He was secure in his public position, for -the very conquerors of the 2nd of June, the violent extremists, could not -prevent him from exercising his diplomacy abroad and his pacificatory -compromise in domestic affairs. - -He was also secure in that which mattered so much more to him—I mean in -his home. His mind had sufficiently steadied after the shock that had -maddened him in February for him to follow the advice which his dead wife -had left him. On the 17th of June he re-married. The woman was not suited -to Danton. She did not love him, nor probably did he love her. There were -two young children, whom, in the winter, his first wife, finding herself -to be dying, felt she was leaving orphans. The eldest was only three -years old. This good woman, Catholic and devout, knowing her husband, and -the sheer necessity for a home which his character had shown, determined -on a religious education for her sons, and determined on a Catholic woman -to be about her husband. She urged him to marry her younger friend, -Mdlle. Gély. An incident, which is doubtful, but which, on the whole, -I accept, does not seem to me to prove the violence of an uncontrolled -affection, but, on the contrary, to show a kind of indifference, as -though Danton said to himself, “The thing must be done, and had better be -done so as to offend the family as little as possible.” I mean the story -of his marriage before a non-juring priest. At any rate, that marriage -shows an element of determination and security. He was still master of -his fortunes and of himself. - -But he had called up a spirit too strong for him. July was to prove it. - -June, which had seen the rise of the Girondin insurrection, had also seen -its partial appeasement and suppression. It was, as we have said, the -Constitution, hurriedly improvised for this purpose, that had been the -main cause of such a success, but there remained for July, more dangerous -than ever, the foreign invasion and the three outstanding strongholds of -the civil war—Lyons, Toulon, and La Vendée. It was against them and their -growing success, against the rebels and the invaders, that the Terror was -serviceable, and it was on account of their continual progress that the -Terror assumed such fearful proportions. - -I said earlier in this chapter that Danton inaugurating and strengthening -the dictatorship of the Revolutionary Government was like a man -deliberately opening a sluice behind which was the whole sea. There -was an element of uncertainty upon the chances of which he had staked -the success of his effort, and, with the reverses, he soon discovered -that the forces which he had let loose were going beyond him. It may be -that he thought the results of the 2nd of June would be more immediate -than they were. As a fact, it took many months to recover the position -which the supineness of the Girondins had lost. In those months the -Revolutionary Government crystallised, as it were, became permanent, and -fell into the hands of the extremists. - -On the very day that the Norman insurrection was crushed at Vernon, a -Norman girl stabbed Marat. It is not within the scope of this book to -deal at any great length with the fate of the man whom Danton had called -“l’individu.” That most striking and picturesque episode concerns us -only in this matter, that it was a powerful impetus to the system of -the Terror, and such an one as Danton, with all his judgment, could not -possibly have foreseen. Moreover, on the very day that Marat was killed, -the allied forces entered Warsaw, and there can be no doubt that the -success of this infamy gave them a freer hand morally, at least upon the -French frontier. Mayence fell, and its fall cost the life of Josephine’s -first husband. The Allies had crossed the Rhine. Five days later, on the -28th of July, Valenciennes fell. At the same moment the Spaniards were -pouring in east and west of the Pyrenees, and the Piedmontese had crossed -the Alps. From a little press in Newcastle (the family of the printer -yet remain to tell the tale), Pitt was drawing the thousands of forged -assignats to ruin the Republic. Five foreign armies were occupying the -territory of France, and late in the following month the Spanish and -English fleets were admitted to the harbour and arsenal of Toulon. Let -it then be granted that, with the possible exception of the Roman power -after Cannæ, no power in history was ever so near destruction as was -Revolutionary France in that summer. - -Let us see how the misfortunes of the country reacted upon the -position of Danton. Already, with early July, he felt himself pressed -and constrained by the growing power of the Jacobin doctrine and of -its high priest. His system of conciliation, his attempts (in large -part successful) to coax rather than to defeat the insurrection, were -violently criticised in the debate of the 4th. The anger against the -Girondins, which the death of Marat was to increase to so violent a -degree, produced the report of St. Just upon the 8th of July, which, -though history has called it moderate, yet mentions the accusation of -Vergniaud and of Gaudet, and to this Danton was forced reluctantly to put -his name. Two days afterwards the old Committee to which he had belonged -was dissolved and a new one was elected. - -It would be an error to regard this as a mere resignation on the part of -Danton; it would be equally an error to regard it as a violent censure -on the part of the Convention. It is certain that he chose to withdraw -because the fatal necessity of things was giving power to men of whom -he had no opinion. Thus Robespierre joined the Committee on the 27th of -July—Robespierre, of whom Danton could say in private, “The man has not -wits enough to cook an egg.” Yet this was the man who was so worshipped -by the crowd, that, once within the Committee, he was destined to become -the master of France. It may be remarked in passing that something fatal -seemed to attach to the date on which a man entered and began to lead -the Committee. On the day that Danton entered in ’93, on that day was he -guillotined in ’94. On the day that Robespierre entered in ’93, on that -day in ’94 he fell. - -Danton remained, for a little longer than a month, more and more separate -from the management of affairs, more and more out of sympathy with the -men who were conducting the government. Nevertheless, he stands almost -as an adviser and certainly with pure disinterestedness throughout the -month of August. He was alone. Desmoulins was more with Robespierre -than with him at that moment. Westermann, his great friend and ally on -the 10th of August 1792, was under censure for his defeat in Vendée. -But standing thus untrammelled, Danton for the moment appears with an -especial brilliancy. Indeed there is no act of his public life so clear, -so typical of his method, or so successful as his great speech on the -1st of August. It was as though, divorced from the pre-occupations -of political intrigue and free from the responsibility of executive -power, he was able for the first time in his whole life to speak his -mind fully and clearly. The speech is a précis, as it were, of all his -pronouncements on the necessity for a dictatorship and the methods it -should employ. It turns round this sentence, “I demand that the Committee -of Public Safety should be erected into a Provisional Government.” He -said openly that while he asked for absolute powers for the Committee, -he refused ever to join it again. He pointed out to them the necessity -of uniting all power in the hands of one body, of making a unique -command for a nation at war. To men who had been lost for so long in the -discussion of constitutional checks and guarantees, he talked of the -necessities as a general would to his staff. If you will read this speech -through, you will find it to be the clearest exposition in existence -of the causes and of the methods of the action of France in all her -dangers from that day to our own. This speech, which is the climax of his -career, and which stands at the fountain-head of so much in the modern -nation, was followed throughout the month by many a piece of practical -and detailed advice. He talks always quietly, and always with a specific -object in view, on the educational proposals, on the great conscription -(14th of August), on the enforcement of an absolute military discipline -(15th of August), and so forth. But while he is still in this position, -of which the brilliancy and success have deceived some into thinking that -it was the centre of his career, two things were at work which were to -lead to the strange crisis in which he lost his life. First, the Terror -was beginning to be used for purposes other than those of the National -Defence. Secondly, there was coming upon him lethargy and illness. He -seems to have remained for a whole month, from the middle of September -till the middle of October, without debating. There had come a sudden -necessity for repose into his life, and until it was satisfied he gave an -impression of weakness and of breaking down. - -This was emphasised by a kind of despair, as he saw the diplomatic -methods abandoned in dealing with foreign nations and the personal -aims of the mystics, the private vengeance of the bloodthirsty, or the -ravings of the rank madmen capturing the absolute system which he had -designed and forged at the expense of his titanic powers. It was during -this period that Garat saw him, and has left us the picture of his great -body bowed by illness, and his small deep eyes filled with tears, as he -spoke of the fate that was following the Girondins, and of how he could -not save them. It was then also that, walking slowly with Desmoulins at -sunset by the Seine, he said with a shudder that had never taken him -before, “The river is running blood.” - -With October the Terror weighed on all France by the decree of the month -before. The suspects were arrested right and left, and the country had -entered into one of those periods which blacken history and leave gaps -which many men dare not bridge by reading. He broke down and fled for -quiet to his native place. From thence the Great Mother, of whom in all -the Revolution he had been the truest son, sent him back to fulfil the -mercy and the sanity of Nature as he had up till then fulfilled her -energies. - -This book is the life of a man, and a man is his mind. Danton, who has -left no memoirs, no letters even—of whose life we know so little outside -the field of politics—can only be interpreted, like any other man, by -the mind. We must seek the origin, though we have but a phrase or two -to guide us. What was that meditation at Arcis out of which proceeded -the forlorn hope of the “Vieux Cordelier” and of the “Committee of -Indulgence”? - -He was ill already; the great energies which had been poured out -recklessly in a torrent had suddenly run dry. Garat saw him weak, -uncertain, refusing to leave his study, troubled in the eyes. The reins -were out of his hands; all that he thought, or rather knew, to be fatal -to the Republic was succeeding, and every just conception, all balance, -was in danger. This, though it was not the cause of his weariness, -coincided with it, and made his sadness take on something of despair. -There had always been in his spirit a recurrent desire for the fields -and rivers; it is common to all those whom Nature has blessed with her -supreme gift of energy. He had at this moment a hunger for his native -place, for the Champagne after the harvest, and for the autumn mists upon -the Aube. It was in this attitude, weary, despairing, ill, and needing -the country as a parched man needs water, that he asked and obtained -permission to leave the Convention. It was upon the 12th of October, just -as the worst phase of the Terror was beginning, that he left the violence -and noise of the city and turned his face eastward to the cool valley of -the Marne. - -Starting from this point, his weariness and his longing for home, we -can trace the movement of his mind during the six weeks of his repose. -He recovered health with the rapidity that so often characterises men -of his stamp; he found about him the peaceable affection, the cessation -of argument and of self-defence which his soul had not known since the -first days of 1789. His old mother was with him, and his children also, -the memories of his own childhood. The place refreshed him like sleep; -he became again the active and merry companion of four years before, -sitting long at his meals, laughing with his friends. The window of the -ground-floor room opened on to the Grande Place, and there are still -stories of him in Arcis making that window a kind of little rendezvous -for men passing and repassing whom he knew, his chatting and his -questions, his interests on every point except that political turmoil -in which the giant had worn himself out. The garden was a great care -of his, and he was concerned for the farm in which he had invested the -reimbursement of his pre-revolutionary office. He delighted to meet -his father’s old friends, the mayor, the functionaries of the place. -This man, whom we find so typical of his fellow-countrymen, is never -more French than in his home. The little provincial town, the _amour -du clocher_, the prospect of retirement in the province where one was -born—the whole scene is one that repeats itself upon every side to-day in -the class from which Danton sprang. - -Moreover, as quiet took back its old place in his soul, he saw, no -longer troubled, but with calmness and certainty, the course that lay -before the Republic. The necessity of restraint, which had irritated and -pursued him in his days of fever in Paris, was growing into a settled -and deliberate policy; he began to study the position of France like a -map; no noise nor calumny was present to confuse him, and his method of -action on his return developed itself with the clearness that had marked -his first attitude in the elections of Paris. How rapidly his mind was -working even his friends could not tell. One of them thought to bring him -good news, and told him of the death of the Girondins. Danton was in his -garden talking of local affairs, and when this was told him, the vague -reputation which he bore, the “terrible Danton,” and the fear he had -inspired, led them to expect some praise. He turned as though he had been -stabbed, and cried sharply, “Say nothing. Do you call that good news? It -is a terrible misfortune.... It menaces us all.” And no one understood -what was passing in his mind. It was the note that Garat had heard, and -later Desmoulins: “I did my best to save them; I wish to God I could have -saved them!” - -Whatever other news reached Arcis in those terrible months served only -to confirm him more strongly in his new attitude. Had he been tinged in -the slightest degree with the mysticism that was common to so many in -that time he would have felt a mission. But he was a Champenois, the very -opposite of a mystic, and he only saw a task, a thing to be planned and -executed by the reason. Perhaps if he had had more of the exaltation of -the men he was about to oppose he might have succeeded. - -It was upon the 21st of November that he returned to Paris. His -health had come back, his full vigour, and with the first days of his -reappearance in politics the demand for which the whole nation was -waiting is heard. And what had not the fanatics done during the weeks -of his silence! Lyons, the Queen, the Girondins, Roland’s wife—the very -terms of politics had run mad, and he returned to wrestle with furies. - -Let me describe the confusion of parties through which Danton had to wade -in his progress towards the re-establishment of liberty and of order. As -for the Convention itself, nominally the master, it was practically of -no power. It chose to follow now one now another tendency or man; to be -influenced by fear at this moment, by policy at that, and continually -by the Revolutionary formulæ. In a word, it was led. Like every large -assembly, it lacked initiative. Above it and struggling for power were -these: First, the committees, that of Public Safety, and its servant, -that of General Security—the Government and the police. It was Danton, -as we know, who desired to make the committees supreme, who had raised -them as the institution, the central government. But by this time they -were a despotism beyond the reach of the checks which Danton had always -desired. To save so mighty an engine from the dangers of ambition, he -had resigned in July. His sacrifice or lethargy did not suffice. The -Committee which had once been Danton was now the Triumvirate—Robespierre, -Couthon, St. Just. It pursued their personal objects, it maintained -by the Terror their personal creed. Still Danton did not desire to -destroy it as a system. He wished to modify its methods and to change -its personnel, to let it merge gradually into the peaceable and orderly -government for which the Revolution and the Republic had been made. By -a strange necessity, the workers, the men who were most like Danton -in spirit, the practical organisers on the Committee, such as Carnot, -Prieur, and Lindet, could not help defending it in every particular. -They knew the necessity of staying at their post, and they feared, with -some justice, that if the Robespierrian faction was eliminated their -work might be suddenly checked. It was because they were practical and -short-sighted that they were opposed to the practical but far-sighted -policy of Danton. They feared that with the cessation of the Terror the -armies would lack recruits, the commissariat provisions, the treasury its -taxes. - -Against the Committee was the Commune. Hébert at its worst; Clootz at -its most ideal; Pache at its most honest. This singular body represented -a spirit very close indeed to anarchy. It preached atheism as a kind -of dogma; it was intolerant of everything; it was as mad as Clootz, as -filthy as Hébert. It possessed a curious mixture of two rages—the rage -for the unity and defence of France, the rage for the autonomy of Paris. -In the apathy that had taken the voters this small and insane group held -command of the city. But the Committees were not what the Girondins had -been. You could not bully or proscribe Carnot, St. Just, Cambon, Jean -Bon. With the fatal pressure of the stronger wrestler the Committee was -pressing the Commune down. The Terror remained in either case. But with -the Committee supreme it was a Terror of system striking to maintain a -tyranny, a pure despotism working for definite ends. Had the Commune -succeeded, it would have meant the Terror run mad, the guillotine killing -for the sake of killing—and for ever. - -The third party in the struggle was Robespierre. He also desired the -Terror, but he intended to use it, as he did every power in France, -towards a definite end—a certain perfect state, of which he had received -a revelation, and of which he was the prophet. Of his aims and character -I shall treat when I come to his action after the fall of Danton. It -suffices to point out here that of the three forces at work Robespierre -alone had personality to aid him. He had a guard, a group of defenders. -They were inside, and led the Committee itself; they were the mystics -in a moment of strong exaltation, and unreal as was the dream of their -chief, the Robespierrians were bound to succeed unless the force of the -real, the “cold water” that came with Danton’s return, should destroy -their hopes. Therefore, as a fact, though no one, though Danton himself, -did not see it, it was between him and Robespierre that the battle would -ultimately be fought out. - -For what was Danton’s plan? He put into his new task the ability, the -ruse, the suppleness that he had only lost for a moment in the summer. -First, Hébert and the “enragés” must go—they were the vilest form of -the spirit that he perceived to be destroying the Republic. Then the -Committee must be very gradually weakened. In that task he hoped, vainly -enough, to make Robespierre his ally. And finally, the end of all his -scheme was the cessation of the Terror. He had created a dictatorship -for a specific purpose; that purpose was attained. Wattignies had been -won, Lyons captured; soon La Vendée was to be destroyed, and even Toulon -to fall. It was intolerable that a system abnormal and extreme, designed -to save the State, should be continued for the profit of a few theorists -or of a few madmen. How much had not his engine already done?—this -machine which, to the horror of its creator, had found a life of its own! -It had killed the Queen after a shocking trial; it had alienated what was -left of European sympathy; it had struck the Girondins, and Danton was -haunted by the inspired voice of Vergniaud singing the “Marseillaise” -upon the scaffold; it had run to massacre in the provinces. He feared -(and later his fears proved true at Nantes) that September might be -repeated with the added horror of legal forms. The Terror finally had -reopened the question that of all others might most easily destroy the -State. A handful of men had pretended to uproot Catholicism for ever, -and what Danton cursed as the “Masque Anti-Religieuse” had defiled Notre -Dame. This flood he was determined to turn back into the channels of -reason; he was going, without government or police or system, merely -by his voice and his ability, to realise the Revolution, to end the -dictatorship, and to begin the era of prosperity and of content. - -The first steps taken were successful. On the very night of his return, -Robespierre was perorating at the Jacobins against atheism and on the -great idea of God, but within twelve hours, on the morrow, Danton’s -voice gave the new note. It was in the discussion upon the pension to be -paid to the priests whom the last decree had thrust out of their regular -office and of its salary. Danton spoke with the greatest decision on this -plain matter, and the Convention heard with delight the fresh phrases -to which it had so long been a stranger. He says virtually, “If you do -not pay this sum you are persecutors.” There are in this speech such -sentences as these: “You must appreciate this, that politics can only -achieve when they are accompanied by some reason.... I insist upon your -sparing the blood of men; and I beg the Convention to be, above all, just -to all men except those who are the declared and open enemies of the -Republic.” Four days later he went a little further, and the Convention -still followed him. On the question which he had most at heart he spoke -plainly. Richard complained of Tours. He said that the municipality of -that town were arresting “suspects” right and left, and had even attacked -himself. Danton said in a speech of ten lines: “It is high time the -Convention should learn the art of government. Send these complaints to -the Committee. It is chosen, or at least supposed to be chosen, from the -élite of the Convention.” Later in the same day he spoke on a ridiculous -procession such as the violence of the time had made fashionable. It was -a deputation of Hébertists bringing from a Parisian church the ornaments -of the altar. Already, it will be remembered, the Commune had ordered the -churches in Paris to be closed, and the attempt to enforce such scenes -were being copied in all the large towns of France. He said: “Let there -be no more of these mascarades in the Convention.... If people here and -there wish to prove their abjuration of Catholicism, we are not here -to prevent them ... neither are we here to defend them.... The Terror -is still necessary, the Revolutionary Government is still necessary, -but the people does not demand this indiscriminate action. We have no -business save with the conspirators and with those who are treating with -the enemy.” There was a protest from Fayan, who cried, “You have talked -of clemency!” for all the world as though such talk was blasphemy. But -Danton was getting back his old position and was leading the Convention. -His success seemed certain. On the 3rd of December (14th Frimaire) he -was violently attacked at the Jacobins, but he managed to hold his own. -Robespierre defended him in a speech which has been interpreted as a -piece of able treachery, but which may with equal justice be regarded as -an attempt to hold himself between the opposing parties; and within a -fortnight after his return Danton, who had in him a directness of purpose -and a rapidity of action that prefigured Napoleon, had gained every -strategic point in his attack. - -Events helped him, or rather he had foreseen them. The Vendeans, moving -more like a mob than an army, were caught at Le Mans on the 13th of -December. On the 7th of December the genius of Bonaparte had driven the -English and Spanish from Toulon. On the 26th the news came to the army -of which Hoche had just been given the command, and, as though the name -Bonaparte brought a fate with it, the lines of Wissembourg were carried, -Landau was relieved, the Austrians passed the Rhine. - -All these victories were the allies of the party of indulgence. The men -who said, “The Terror has no _raison d’être_ save that of the national -defence,” found themselves expressing what all France felt. After such -successes it only remained to add, “The nation is safe; the Terror may -end.” Already Danton had called up a reserve, so to speak, in the shape -of the genius of Desmoulins. The first issue of “Vieux Cordelier” had -appeared, and the journal was read by all Paris. - -That club, in which we saw the origin of Danton’s fame, was now the -Hébertists, and nothing more. The pamphlets which Camille issued under -the leadership of Danton were given a name that might recall its position -and its politics of the old days. And indeed the two men most concerned -in the new policy of clemency had been, from their house in the Cour du -Commerce, the heart of the “République des Cordeliers.” There are not -in the history of the Revolution, in all the passages of its eloquence -and genius, any words that strike us to-day as do the words of these six -pamphlets which spread over the winter of the year II. It is a proof of -Danton’s clear vision, of his strong influence, that a distant posterity, -far removed from the passions of 1793, should find its own expression in -the appeals which his friend wrote, and which form the Testament of the -Indulgents. - -The first two numbers were an attack upon the Hébertists alone. -Robespierre, from his position in the Committee of Public Safety, from -the spur of his own ambition, was willing to agree. He himself corrected -the proofs. But on the 15th of December appeared the famous Numero III., -which ran through Paris like a herald’s message, which did for reaction -something of what the great speeches had done for liberty in clubs during -the early days of the Revolution. Few men cared to vote, but every man -read the “Vieux Cordelier.” To those who had never so much as heard of -Tacitus the pen of Tacitus carried conviction. A crowd of women passed -before the Parliament crying for the brothers and husbands who filled the -prisons; the “Committee of Clemency” was within an ace of being formed; -and, coinciding with the victories and with Danton’s reappearance, the -demand of Desmoulins was dragging after it, not France only (for France -was already convinced), but even the capital. It was then that the -Committee, who alone were the government, grew afraid. Robespierre still -hesitated. He could only succeed through the committees; but Desmoulins -was his friend; there was an appeal to “the old college friend” in the -“Vieux Cordelier” that touched his heart and his vanity; they had sat -together on the benches of the Louis le Grand, and Robespierre seems to -have made an honest attempt to aid him then. A fourth number had appeared -on the 20th, a fifth (written on Christmas Day) appeared on January 8th. - -The Jacobins denounced Camille, and Robespierre, the eyes of whose mind -looked as closely and were as short-sighted as the eyes of his body, grew -afraid. The men determined on rigour had warned him in the Committee; -now when he tried to defend Camille he saw the Jacobins raging: what he -did not see was France. Perhaps, had his sight been longer, he would -not have been dragged six months later to the guillotine. He attempted -a compromise and said: “We will not expel Camille, but we will burn -his journal, punishing his act but not himself.” Camille answered with -Rousseau, “_Brûler n’est pas repondre_.” He would not be defended. - -The battle was closely joined. Desmoulins was pushing forward his attack -with the audacious infantry of pamphlets; Danton, from the Convention, -was giving from time to time the heavy blows of the artillery; the -advance was continuous; when there was felt a check that proved the -prelude to disaster and that showed, behind the opposing lines, the force -of the Committees. In the middle of January, just after Desmoulins’s -defence at the Jacobins, Fabre D’Eglantine, the friend and old secretary -of Danton, was arrested. It was in vain that Danton put into his defence -all the new energy which he had discovered in himself. It was in vain -even that he called for “the right of the deputy to defend himself at the -bar of the house.” Like all organised governments, the Committee could -give reasons of State for this silent action. Danton was overborne, and -the Convention for the first time since his return deserted him. - -He had yet seven weeks to live. Desmoulins still attacked, but Danton -knew that the action was lost. He knew the strength of that powerful -council whose first efforts he himself had moulded, and when he saw -it arise in support of continuing the Terror, when he saw it and -Robespierre allied, he lost hope. The policy of the Committee grew more -and more definite. One member of it, (Hérault de Séchelles) was Danton’s -friend: they expelled him. Silently, but with all their strength, they -disengaged the government from either side. The Committee and Robespierre -determined to strike at once, when the occasion should arise, both those -in the Commune who desired to turn the Terror to their own ends and those -of the Convention—the Dantonists, who desired to end it altogether. - -Danton still speaks in the tribune, but the attack is no longer there. -He defends modestly and well the practical propositions that appear -before the Parliament on education, on the abolition of slavery, on the -provisions for the giving of bail under the new judiciary system, and -so forth. But there is in his attitude something of expectancy. He is -waiting for a sudden attack that must come and that he cannot prevent. -He holds himself ready, but the Committee is working in the dark, and he -does not know on which side to guard himself. A last personal interview -with Robespierre failed, and there was nothing left to do but to wait and -see whether they feared him so much as to dare his arrest. It was with -Ventose, that is, with the first days of March, that the blow fell. - -The Hébertists, chafing under three months of growing insults—insults -which their old ally the Committee refused to avenge—broke out into -open revolt. Carrier was back from his truly Hébertist slaughtering at -Nantes, and it was felt at the Cordeliers that the public execration -would destroy them unless they rose. In the autumn they would have had -the Committees on their side, but the strong action of the Indulgents had -broken the alliance. They determined on insurrection. The Commune this -time was, once and for all, to conquer the government. The decision was -taken at the Cordeliers on the 4th of March—within ten days they were -arrested. The Committee pushed them through the form of a trial. Less -than three weeks after the first talk of revolt, Hébert, Clootz, and the -rest were guillotined. - -There were many among the Dantonists who thought this the triumph of -their policy. “The violent, the enragés are dead. It is we who did it.” -But Danton was wiser than his followers. He knew that the Committee were -waiting for such an opportunity, and that a blow to the right would -follow that blow to the left. Both oppositions were doomed. Only one -chance remained to him—they might not dare. - -On the occasion of the arrest of the Hébertists he made a noble speech on -the great lines of conciliation and unity, which had been his constant -policy—a speech which was all for Paris, in spite of the faction. - -But that week they determined on his arrest and that of his friends. -Panis heard of it, and sent at once to warn him. He found him in the -night of the last day of March 1794 sitting in his study with his young -nephew, moody and silent. His wife was asleep in the next room. On the -flat above him Camille and Lucille were watching late. The house was -silent. Panis entered and told him what the Committee had resolved. -“Well, what then?” said Danton. “You must resist.” “That means the -shedding of blood, and I am sick of it. I would rather be guillotined -than guillotine.” “Then,” said Panis, “you must fly, and at once.” But -Danton shook his head still moodily. “One does not take one’s country -with one on the soles of one’s boots.” But he muttered again to himself, -“They will not dare—they will not dare.” Panis left him, and he sat down -again to wait, for he knew in his heart that the terrible machine which -he himself had made, and which he had fought so heroically, could dare -what it chose. They left him silent in the dark room. From time to time -he stirred the logs of the fire; the sudden flame threw a light on the -ugly strength of his face: he bent over the warmth motionless, and with -the memories of seven years in his heart. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE DEATH OF DANTON - - -In the night the armed police came round to the Passage du Commerce; one -part of the patrol grounded their muskets and halted at the exits of the -street, the other entered the house. - -Desmoulins heard the butts falling together on the flagstones, and the -little clink of metal which announces soldiery; he turned to his wife and -said, “They have come to arrest me.” And she held to him till she fainted -and was carried away. Danton, in his study alone, met the arrest without -words. There is hardly a step in the tragedy that follows which is not -marked by his comment, always just, sometimes violent; but the actual -falling of the blow led to no word. Words were weapons with him, and he -was not one to strike before he had put up his guard. - -They were taken to the Luxembourg, very close by, a little up the -hill. We have the story of how Danton came with his ample, firm -presence into the hall of the prison, and met, almost the first of -his fellow-prisoners, Thomas Paine. The author of “The Rights of Man” -stepped up to him, doubtless to address him in bad French.[140] Danton -forestalled him in the English of which he was a fair master. - -“Mr. Paine,” he said, “you have had the happiness of pleading in your -country a cause which I shall no longer plead in mine.” He remembered -Paine’s sane and moderate view on the occasion of the king’s trial, and -he envied one whose private freedom had remained untrammelled with the -bonds of office; who had never been forced to a 2nd of June, nor had to -keep to an intimate conversation his fears for the Girondins. Then he -added that if they sent him to the scaffold he would go gaily. And he -did. There was the Frenchman contrasted with his English friend. - -Beaulieu, who heard him, tells us that he also turned to the prisoners -about him and said, “Gentlemen, I had hoped to have you out of this, and -here I am myself; I can see no issue.” - -So the prisoners came in, anxiously watched by reactionaries, to whom, -as to many of our modern scribblers, one leader of the Revolution is as -good as another—Lacroix, Westermann (the strong soldier with his huge -frame overtopping even Danton’s), and Desmoulins. As they passed to their -separate cells, for it was determined to prevent their communication, -a little spirit of the old evil[141] used the powerful venom of -aristocracy, the unanswerable repartee of rank, and looking Lacroix up -and down, said, “I could make a fine coachman of that fellow.” He and his -like would have ruined France for the sake of turning those words into -action. - -Till the dawn of the 11th Germinal broke, they were kept in their -separate rooms. But the place was not built for a prison. Lacroix and -Danton in neighbouring rooms could talk by raising their voices, and -we have of their conversation this fragment. Lacroix said, “Had I ever -dreamt of this I could have forestalled it.” And Danton’s reply, with -just that point of fatalism which had forbidden him to be ambitious, -answered, “I knew it;” he had known it all that night. - -There was a force stronger than love—private and public fear. It -is a folly to ridicule, or even to misunderstand that fear. The -possessions, the families of many, the newly-acquired dignity of all, -above everything, the new nation had been jeopardised how many times -by a popular idol turned untrue. The songs of 1790 were all for Louis, -many praised Bailly; what a place once had Lafayette! Who had a word to -say against Dumouriez eighteen months before? The victories had just -begun—barely enough to make men hesitate about the Terror. The “Vieux -Cordelier” had led, not followed opinion, as it was just that the great -centre of energy should lead and not follow the time. And, men would -say, how do we know why he has been arrested, or at whose voice? How can -we tell where the sure compass of right, our Robespierre, stands in the -matter? and so forth. Nothing then was done; but Paris very nearly moved. - -There were thus two gathering forces; one vague and large, one small but -ordered, and on the result of their shock hung the life of Danton—may one -say (knowing the future) the life of the Republic? - -Now the struggle with Europe had taught the Committee a principal lesson. -Perhaps one should add that the exuberant fighting power of the nation -and of the age had forced the Committee to a certain method, apparent -in the armies, in the measures, in the speeches: it was the method -of detecting at once the weakest spot in the opposing line, and of -abandoning everything for the purpose of concentrating all its strength -and charging home. So their descendants to-day in their new army practise -the marvellous massing of artillery which you may watch at autumn in the -manœuvres. - -What was the opposing line? A vague ill-ordered crowd—Paris; the -undisciplined Convention, lacking leaders, ignorant of party rule. Where -was its weakness? In the want of initiative, in the fact that, till -some one spoke, no one could be sure of the strength of the corporate -feeling. Also, on account of the public doubt, during that time men were -grains of dust; but the dust was like powder, and speech was always the -spark which permitted the affinities of that powder to meet in fierce -unity and power. A sudden blow had to be struck and the fire stamped out -before it had gathered power; this is how the check was given. - - * * * * * - -In the morning of the 12th Germinal the Convention met, and each man -looked at his neighbour, and then, as though afraid, let his eyes wander -to see if others thought as he did. At last one man dared to speak. It -was Legendre the butcher;[142] he vacillated later before a mixture of -deceit in others and of doubt in himself, but it should be remembered to -his honour that he nearly saved the Revolution by an honest word. “Let -Danton be heard at the bar of the Convention,” was his frank demand; -common-sense enough, but it fatally opened his guard, and gave an -opportunity to the thrusts most dangerous in the year II.—an accusation -of desiring privilege, and an accusation of weakening that government -which was visibly saving the state on the frontiers. - -Tallien was President that day, and he gave the reply to Robespierre. Now -Robespierre was no good fencer. The supreme feint, the final disarming of -opinion, was left to an abler man. He had gone home from the Committee -to Duplay’s house in the early morning; a monomaniac hardly needing -sleep, he reappeared at the early meeting of the Convention. But, poor -debater as he was, he could take advantage of so easy an opportunity. -In a speech which was twice applauded, he asserted that Legendre had -demanded a privilege. He struck the note which above all others dominated -those minds. “Are we here to defend principles or men? Give the right -of speech to Danton, and you give rein to an extraordinary talent, -you confuse the issue with a hundred memories, you permit the bias of -friendship. Let the man defend himself by proofs and witnesses, not by -eloquence and sentiment.” Yet he did not add—perhaps he hardly knew—that -the memories and friendship would but have balanced a direct enmity, and -that witnesses and proofs would be denied. Again he used that argument -of government—had not they saved France? were they not the head of the -police? did not they know in the past what they were doing? He assured -them that a little waiting would produce conviction in them also. It did -not, but time was gained; already half the Convention doubted. - -Legendre, bewildered, faltered a reply; he admitted error, and begged -Robespierre not to misunderstand. He could have answered for Danton as -for himself, but the tribunal was of course to be trusted. It was almost -an apology. - -On that changing, doubtful opinion came with the force of a steel mould -the hard, high voice of St. Just. - -St. Just spoke rarely. There has been mention in an earlier part of this -book of the speech against the Girondins. There will be mention again of -a vigorous and a nearly successful attempt to save Robespierre. That he -should have been given the task of defending the Committee’s action that -day is a singular proof of the grip which they had of the circumstances. -Barrère could never have convinced an unsympathetic public opinion. -Robespierre could meet a rising enthusiasm with nothing but dry and -accurate phrases. But St. Just had the flame of his youth and of his -energy, and his soul lived in his mouth. - -The report, even as we read it, has eloquence. Coming from him then, -with his extreme beauty, his upright and determined bearing, it turned -the scale. The note of the argument was as ably chosen as could be; -moreover it represented without question the attitude of his own mind: -it was this. “The last of the factions has to be destroyed; only one -obstacle stands between you and the appreciation of the Republic.[143] -Time and again we have acted suddenly, but time and again we have acted -well and on sufficient reasons—so it is now. If you save Danton you save -a personality—something you have known and admired; you pay respect to -individual talent, but you ruin the attempt in which you have so nearly -succeeded. For the sake of a man you will sacrifice all the new liberty -which you are giving to the whole world.” There follows a passionate -apostrophe in which he speaks to Danton as though he stood before him, -as striking as the parallel passage in the fourth Catiline Oration.[144] -Had Danton been present he would have been a man against a boy: a loud -and strong voice, not violent in utterance, but powerful in phrase and -in delivery, a character impressing itself by sheer force of self upon -vacillating opinion. Had Danton spoken in reply, his hearers would have -said with that moral conviction which is stronger than proof, “This man -is the chief lover of France.” - -But such is rhetoric, its falsity and its success—the gaps of silence -grew to a convincing power. The accusations met with no reply; they -remained the echo of a living voice; the answers to them could be framed -only in the silent minds of the audience. The living voice won. - -And there was, as we have said, intense conviction to aid St. Just. He -was a man who would forget and would exaggerate with all the faults -of passion, but he believed the facts he gave. Not so Robespierre. -Robespierre had furnished the notes of St. Just’s report,[145] and -Robespierre must have known that he had twisted all to one end. -Robespierre was a man who was virtuous and true only to his ideal, not -to his fellow-men. Robespierre had not deceived himself as he wrote, but -he had deceived St. Just, and therefore the young “Archangel of Death” -spoke with the added strength of faith, than which nothing leaps more -readily from the lips to the ears. Can we doubt it? There is a phrase -which convinces. When he ends by telling them what it is they save by -sacrificing one idol, when he describes the Republic, he uses the phrase -common to all apostolates, the superb “les mots que nous avons dits ne -seront jamais perdus sur la terre”—the things which they had said would -never be lost on earth. - -It ended. No one voted; the demand of the Committee passed without a -murmur. The Convention was never again its own mistress; it had silenced -and condemned itself.[146] - -Meanwhile at the Luxembourg the magistrate Dénizot was making the -preparations for the trial. Each prisoner was asked the formal question -of his guilt, and each replied in a single negative, but Danton added -that he would die a Republican, and to the question of their defence -replied that he would plead his own cause. Then, at half-past eleven they -were transferred to the Conciergerie. - -From that moment his position becomes the attitude of the man fighting, -as we have known it in the crisis of August 1792 and of the calling up of -the armies. Ready as he had always been to see the real rather than the -imaginary conditions, he recognised death with one chance only of escape. -He knew far better than did poor Desmoulins the power of a State’s -machinery; he felt its grasp and doubted of any issue. The people, for -Desmoulins, were the delegators of power; for Danton the people were -those who should, but who did not rule. To live again and enter the arena -and save the life of the Republic the people must hear his voice, or -else the fact of government would be more strong than all the rights and -written justice in the world. - -He was like a man whose enemy stands before him, and who sees at his own -side, passive and bewildered, a strong but foolish ally. His ally was the -people, his enemy was Death. - -Therefore we have of his words and actions for the next four days two -kinds: those addressed to death and those to his ally. Where he desires -to touch the spirit of the crowd—in what was for their ears—we have the -just, practical, and eloquent man apologising for over-vehemence, saying -what should strike hardest home—an orator, but an orator who certainly -uses legitimate weapons. - -But there is another side. In much that he said in prison, in all that -he said on his way to the scaffold, he is simply speaking to Death and -defying him. The inmost thing in a man, the stock of the race, appears -without restraint; he becomes the Gaul. That most un-northern habit of -defiance, especially of defiance to the inevitable and to the strongest, -the custom of his race and their salvation, grows on his lips. - -He insults Death, he jests; his language, never chaste or self-conscious, -takes on the laughter of the Rabelaisian, and (true Rabelaisian again) he -wraps up in half-a-dozen words the whole of a situation. - -Thus we see him leaning against the window of his prison and calling -to Westermann in the next cell, “Oh! if I could leave my legs to -Couthon[147] and my virility to Robespierre, things might still go on.” -And again when Lacroix said, “I will cut my own hair at the neck, so that -Sanson the executioner shall not meddle with it,” Danton replied, “Yet -will Sanson intermeddle with the vertebræ of your neck.” So he meets -death with a broad torrent of words; and that a civilisation accustomed -rather to reticence should know what this meant in him, my readers must -note his powerful asides to Desmoulins and to Hérault, coinciding with -the fearful pun in which he tried to raise the drooping courage of -D’Eglantine. - -Also in his prison this direct growth of the soil of France “talked often -of the fields and of rivers.” Shakespeare should have given us the death -scenes of so much energy, defiance, coarseness, affection, and great -courage. - -In the Conciergerie they spent the rest of the day waiting for the trial, -and this time Danton was next to Westermann, to whom and to Desmoulins he -said, “We must say nothing save before the Committees or at the trial.” -It was his plan to move the people by a public defence, but his enemies -in power had formed a counter-plan, and, as we shall see, forestalled -him. - -Desmoulins, “the flower that grew on Danton,” was still bewildered. -So he remained to the end; at the foot of the scaffold he could not -understand. “If I could only have written a No. VII. I would have turned -the tables.”[148] “It is a duel of Commodus; they have the lance and I -have not even a reed.” To that man, his equal in years,[149] but a boy -compared with him in spirit, Danton had always shown, and now continued -to show, a peculiar affection. He treated him like a younger brother, -and never made him suffer those violent truths with which all France and -most of his friends were familiar in his mouth. So now, and in the trial, -and on the way to the scaffold, his one attempt was to calm the bitter -violence and outburst of Camille. - -There are two phrases of Danton’s which have been noted on this first -day passed at the Conciergerie, and which cannot be omitted, though in -form they have not his diction, yet in spirit they might be his; they -are recollections presumably of something of greater length called to -Westermann. - -The first: “On such a day[150] I demanded the institution of the -Revolutionary tribunal. I ask pardon of God and of man.” - -The second: “I am leaving everything at sixes and sevens; one had better -be a poor fisherman than meddle with the art of governing men.” There -you have the real Danton—a reminiscence of some strong and passionate -utterance put into this undantonesque and proverbial form. A real -sentiment of his—all of him; careless of life, intense upon the interests -of life, above all upon the future of the Revolution and of France, -knowing the helpless inferiority of the men he left behind. And in the -close of the phrase it is also he; it is the spirit of great weariness -which had twice touched him, as sleep an athlete after a day of games. -It was soon to take the form of a noble sentence: “Nous avons assez -servi—allons dormir.” - -On the 13th (April 2, 1794), about ten in the morning, they were led -before the tribunal. - -The trial began. - -It must not be imagined that the Dantonists alone came before the -tribunal to answer for their particular policy. There had originated -under Robespierre (and later when he alone was the master it was to be -terribly abused) the practice of confusing the issues. Three groups at -least were tried together, and the Moderates sat between two thieves—for -D’Eglantine on a charge of embezzlement alone, Guzman, the Freys as -common thieves and spies to the Republic, were associated on the same -bench. Fourteen in all, they sat in the following order:—Chabot, -Bazire, Fabre, Lacroix, Danton, Delaunay, Hérault, Desmoulins, Guzman, -Diederichsen, Phillippeaux, D’Espagnac, and the two Freys. D’Eglantine -occupied “the armchair,” and it will be seen that the _five_—the -Moderates—were carefully scattered. - -The policy was a deliberate one; it was undertaken with the object of -prejudicing public opinion against the accused. Nor was it permitted to -each group to be separate in accusation and in its method of defence. -They were carefully linked to each other by men accused of two out of the -three crimes. - -Herman was president of the tribunal, and sat facing the prisoners; -on either side of him were Masson-Denizot, Foucault and Bravé, the -assistant-judges. They say that Voullaud and Vadier, of the lower -committee, appeared behind the bench to watch the enemies whom they had -caught in the net. Seven jurors were in the box to the judges’ left, -by name Renaudin (whom Desmoulins challenged in vain), Desboisseaux, -Trinchard, Dix-Aout, Lumière, Ganney, Souberbielle,[151] and to these -we must add Topino-Lebrun, whose notes form by far the most vivid -fragment by which we may reconstruct the scene. The jury of course was -packed.[152] It was part of the theory of the Revolutionary Government -that no chance element should mar its absolute dictatorship. It was -practically a court of judges, absolute, and without division of powers. - -At a table between the President and the prisoners sat Fouquier-Tinville, -the public prosecutor; and finally, on the judges’ right was the open -part of the court and the door to the witnesses’ room. - -Here was a new trial with a great and definite chance of acquittal, a -scene the like of which had not been seen for a year, nor would be seen -again in that room. The men on the prisoners’ bench had been the masters, -one of them the creator, of the court which tried them; they were -evidently greater and more powerful than their judges, and had behind -them an immense though informal weight of popularity. They were public -men of the first rank; their judges and the public prosecutor were known -to be merely the creatures of a small committee. More than this, it was -common talk that the Convention might yet change its mind, and even among -the jury it was certain that discussion would arise. - -By the evidence of a curious relic we know that the Committee actually -feared a decree or a coup-de-main which would have destroyed their power. -This note remains in the archives, a memorandum of a decision arrived at -in the Committee on the early morning of the 13th or late in the night of -the 12th. - -“_Henriot to be written to, to tell him to issue an order that the -President and the Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal are not -to be arrested._” - -Then in another hand: - -“_Get four members to sign this._” - -Finally, the memorandum is endorsed in yet another hand: - -“_13th Germinal.—A policeman took this the same day._”[153] - -It will thus be seen that the Committee was by no means sure of its -ground. It had indeed procured through St. Just the decree preventing -Danton from pleading at the bar of the Convention and permitting his -trial, but it would require the most careful manœuvring upon their part -to carry through such an affair. As we shall see, they just—and only -just—succeeded. - -The whole of the first day (the 13th Germinal, 2nd of April 1794) was -passed in the formal questions and in the reading of accusations. -Camille, on being asked his age and dwelling, made the blasphemous and -striking answer which satisfied the dramatic sense, but was not a true -reply to the main question. - -Danton gave the reply so often quoted: “I am Danton, not unknown among -the revolutionaries. I shall be living nowhere soon, but you will find my -name in Walhalla.” The other answers, save that of Hérault, attempted no -phrases. - -Yet Guzman would have made more point of his assertion if he had chosen -that moment to say, “I am Guzman, a grandee of Spain, who came to France -to taste liberty, but was arrested for theft;” while the two Freys -missed an historic occasion in not replying, “We are Julius and Emanuel -Frey, sometime nobles of the Empire under the title of Von Schönfeld, now -plain Jews employed by the Emperor as spies.” - -The public prosecutor read the indictment. First at great length Amar’s -report on the India Company. The details of the accusations which cost -Fabre his life need not be entered into here. Suffice it to say that -it was an indictment for corruption, for having suppressed or altered -for money the decree of the Convention in the autumn before, and being -accomplice in the extra gains which this had made possible—one of those -wretched businesses with which Panama and South Africa have deluged -modern France and England. It is an example of the methods of the -tribunal that Fouquier managed to drag in Desmoulins’s name because he -had once said, “People complain of not being able to make money now, yet -I make it easily enough.” - -The second group, the Freys, Guzman, the unfrocked priest D’Espagnac, and -Diederichsen the Dane, were accused of being foreigners working against -the success of the French armies, and at the same time lining their -pockets. In the case of three of them the accusation was probably true. -It was the more readily believed from the foreign origins of the accused, -for France was full of spies, while the name of a certain contumacious -Baron de Bartz made this list sound the more probable. - -Finally, the small group at which they were really aiming (whose members -they had already mixed up with the thieves) was indicted on nothing -more particular than the report of St. Just—virtually, that is, on -Robespierre’s notes. Danton had served the King, had drawn the people -into the place where they were massacred in July 1791, did not do his -duty on the 10th of August, and so forth—a vapid useless summary of -impossible things in which no one but perhaps St. Just and a group of -fanatics believed. With that the day ended, and they were taken back to -prison. - -On the next day, the 14th Germinal (3rd of April 1794), Westermann, who, -though already arrested, had only been voted upon in Parliament the -day before, appeared on the prisoners’ bench, and sat at the end after -Emanuel Frey. He was the last and not the least noble of the Dantonists, -with his great stature, his clumsy intellect, and his loyal Teutonic -blood. - -“Who are you?” they said. “I am Westermann. Show me to the people. I was -a soldier at sixteen, and have been a councillor of Strasbourg. I have -seven wounds in front, and I was never stabbed in the back till now.” - -This was the man who had led the 10th of August, and who had dared, in -his bluff nature, to parley with the Swiss who spoke his language. - -It was after some little time passed in the interrogation of the -prisoners who had been arrested for fraud, especially of D’Espagnac, that -the judge turned to Danton. - -In the debate and cross-questioning that followed we must depend mainly -upon the notes of Lebrun,[154] for they are more living, although they -are more disconnected, than the official report. We discover in them the -passionate series of outbursts, but a series which one must believe to -have had a definite purpose. There was neither hope of convincing the -tribunal nor of presenting a legal argument with effect. What Danton -was trying to do in this court, which was not occupied with a trial, -but merely in a process of condemnation, was to use it as a rostrum -from which he could address the people, the general public, upon whose -insurrection he depended. He perhaps depended also on the jury, for, -carefully chosen as they were, they yet might be moved by a man who -had never failed to convince by his extraordinary power of language. -He carries himself exactly as though he were technically what he is in -fact—a prisoner before an informal group of executioners, who appeals for -justice to the crowd. - -He pointed at Cambon, who had sat by him on the Committee, and said, -“Come now, Cambon, do you think we are conspirators? Look, he is -laughing; he believes no such thing.” Then he turned, laughing himself, -to the jury and said, “Write down in your notes that he laughed.” - -Again, he uses phrases like these: “We are here for a form, but if we are -to have full liberty to speak, and if the French people is what it should -be, it will be my business later to ask their pardon for my accusers.” To -which Camille answered, “Oh, we shall be allowed to speak, and that is -all we want,” and the group of Indulgents laughed heartily. - -It was just after this that he began that great harangue in answer to -the questions of the judge, an effort whose tone reaches to this day. -It is, perhaps, the most striking example of a personal appeal that can -be discovered. The opportunities for such are rare, for in the vast -majority of historical cases where a man has pleaded for his life, it has -either been before a well-organised court, or before a small number of -determined enemies, or by the lips of one who was paid for his work and -who ignored the art of political oratory. The unique conditions of the -French Revolution made such a scene possible, perhaps for the only time -in history. - -The day, early as was the season, was warm, the windows of the court, -that looked upon the Seine, were open, and through the wide doors pressed -the head of a great crowd. This crowd stretched out along the corridor, -along the quays, across the Pont Neuf, and even to the other side of the -river. Every sentence that told was repeated from mouth to mouth, and the -murmurs of the crowd proved how closely the great tribune was followed. -In the attitude which had commanded the attention of his opponents when -he presented the first deputation from Paris three years before, and that -had made him so striking a figure during the stormy months of 1793, he -launched the phrases that were destined for Paris and not for his judges. -His loud voice (the thing appears incredible, but it is true) vibrating -through the hall and lifted to the tones that had made him the orator of -the open spaces, rang out and was heard beyond the river. - -“You say that I have been paid, but I tell you that men made as I am -cannot be paid. And I put against your accusation—of which you cannot -furnish a proof nor the hint of a proof, nor the shadow nor the beginning -of a witness—the whole of my revolutionary career. It was I who from the -Jacobins kept Mirabeau at Paris. I have served long enough, and my life -is a burden to me, but I will defend myself by telling you what I have -done. It was I who made the pikes rise suddenly on the 20th of June and -prevented the King’s voyage to St. Cloud. The day after the massacre of -the Champ de Mars a warrant was out for my arrest. Men were sent to kill -me at Arcis, but my people came and defended me. I had to fly to London, -and I came back, as you all know, the moment Garran was elected. Do you -not remember me at the Jacobins, and how I asked for the Republic? It was -I who knew that the court was eager for war. It was I, among others, who -denounced the policy of the war.” - -Here a sentence was heard: “What did you do against the Brissotins?” - -Now Danton had, as we know, done all in his power to save the men -who hated him, but whom he admired. It was no time for him to defend -himself by an explanation of this in the ears of the people who had never -understood, as he had, the height of the men who followed Vergnaud; but -he said what was quite true: “I told them that they were going to the -scaffold. When I was a minister I said it to Brissot before the whole -cabinet.” - -He might have added that he had said to Guadet in the November woods on -the night before he left for the army, “You are headstrong, and it will -be your doom.”[155] - -Then he went back again to the list of his services. “It was I who -prepared the 10th of August. You say I went to Arcis. I admit it, and I -am proud of it. I went there to pass three days, to say good-bye to my -mother, and to arrange my affairs, because I was shortly to be in peril. -I hardly slept that night. It was I that had Mandat killed, because he -had given the order to fire on the people.... You are reproaching me -with the friendship of Fabre D’Eglantine. He is still my friend, and I -still say that he is a good citizen as he sits here with me. You have -told me that my defence has been too violent, you have recalled to me the -revolutionary names, and you have told me that Marat when he appeared -before the tribunal might have served as my model. Well, with regard to -those names who were once my friends, I will tell you this: Marat had -a character on fire and unstable; Robespierre I have known as a man, -above all, tenacious; but I—I have served in my own fashion, and I would -embrace my worst enemy for the sake of the country, and I will give her -my body if she needs the sacrifice.” - -This short and violent speech, which I have attempted to reproduce -from the short, disjointed, ill-spelt notes of Lebrun, hit the mark. -The crowd, the unstable crowd, which he contemned as he passed to the -guillotine, moved like water under a strong wind; and his second object -also was reached, for the tribunal grew afraid. These phrases would soon -be repeated in the Convention, and no means had been taken to silence -that terrible voice. The President of the court said to him that it was -the part of an accused man to defend himself with proofs and not with -rhetoric. He parried that also with remarkable skill, saying in a much -quieter tone which all his friends (they were now growing in number) -immediately noted: “That a man should be violent is wrong in him I know, -unless it is for the public good, and such a violence has often been -mine. If I exceeded now, it was because I found myself accused with such -intolerable injustice.” He raised his voice somewhat again with the -words, “But as for you, St. Just, you will have to answer to posterity,” -and then was silent. - -When the unhappy man who had taken upon his shoulders the vile duty of -the political work that day, when Herman was himself upon his trial, -he said, “Remember that this affair was out of the ordinary, and was -a political trial,” when a voice rose from the court, “There are no -political trials under a Republic.” He would have done well, obscure as -he is before history, to have saved his own soul by refusing a task which -he knew to involve injustice from beginning to end. - -It was at the close of that day that three short notes passed between -Herman and the public prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville. Herman wrote, “In -half an hour I shall stop Danton’s defence. You must spin out some of -the rest in detail.” Tinville answered, “I have something more to say -to Danton about Belgium;” and Herman replied, “Do not bring it in with -regard to any of the others.” This little proof of villany, which has -survived by so curious an accident (it is in the Archives to-day),[156] -closed the proceedings of that hearing. - -The next day, the 15th of Germinal (4th April), Danton himself said -little. It was given over mainly to the examination of Desmoulins; and as -with Danton it had been rumours or opinions, so with Desmoulins only the -vague sense of things he had written were brought in to serve as evidence -in this tragic farce. - -Fouquier, the distant cousin of Camille, to whom he owed the post in -which he was earning his bread by crime,[157] tried to put something -of complaint against the nation and of hatred to the Republic into his -reading of the Old Cordelier. Even in his thin unpleasant voice there -was only heard the noble phrase of Tacitus, and—it is a singular example -of what the tribunal had become—they dared not continue the quotation -because every word roused the people in the court. But Camille, so great -with the pen, had nothing of the majesty or the strength of Danton. -His defence was a weak, disconnected excuse, and, like all men who are -insufficient to themselves, he was inconsistent. - -Hérault made on that same day a far finer reply. Noble by birth, holding -by his traditions and memories to that society which he himself had -helped to destroy, and of which Talleyrand has said, “Those who have -not known it have not lived;” accustomed from his very first youth to -prominence in his profession and to the favour of the court, he remained -to the last full of contempt for so much squalor, and he veiled his eyes -with pride. - -“I understand nothing of this topsy-turvydom. I was a diplomat, and I -made the neutrality of Switzerland, so saving 60,000 men to the Republic. -As for the priest you talk about, who was guillotined in my absence at -Troyes, I knew him well. He was a Canon, if I remember, and by no means -a reactionary. You are probably joking about it. It is true he had not -taken the oath, but he was a good man; he helped me, and I am not ashamed -of my friendship. I will tell you something more. On the 14th of July two -men were killed, one on either side of me.” He might have added, “I was -the second man to scale the Towers.” - -It was not until the day’s proceedings had been drawn out for a -considerable time that a sentence was spoken, the full import of which -was not understood at the time, but which was, as a fact, the first step -in those four months of irresponsibility and crime which are associated -with the name of Robespierre, and which hang like a weight around the -neck of the French nation. Lacroix had just said with a touch of legal -phraseology, “I must insist that the witnesses whom I have demanded -should be subpœnaed, and if there is any difficulty about this, I -formally demand that the Convention shall be consulted in the matter;” -when the public prosecutor answered, “It is high time that this part -of the trial, which has become a mere struggle, and which is a public -scandal, should cease. I am about to write to the Convention to hear what -it has to say, and its advice shall be exactly followed.” - -Both the public prosecutor and the judge signed the letter. The first -draft which Fouquier had drawn up was thought too strong, and it appears -that Herman revised it.[158] “Citoyens Représentants,—There has been a -storm in the hall since this day’s proceedings began. The accused are -calling for witnesses who are among your deputies.... They are appealing -to the people, saying that they will be refused. In spite of the firmness -of the president and of all the tribunal, they continue to protest that -they will not be silent until their witnesses are heard, unless by your -passing a special decree.” [This was false, and was the only part of -the letter calculated to impress the Parliament.] “We wish to hear your -orders as to what we shall do in the face of this demand; the procedure -gives us no way by which we can refuse them.” - -But note the way in which the letter was presented to a Parliament in -which there yet remained so much sympathy for the accused, and the way in -which it was received. St. Just appeared in the tribune with the letter -in his hands, and, instead of reading it, held it up before them and made -this speech:— - -“The public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal has sent to tell -you that the prisoners are in full revolt, and have interrupted the -hearing, saying they will not allow it to continue until the Convention -has taken measures. You have barely escaped from the greatest danger -which has yet menaced our new liberty, and this revolt in the very seat -of justice, of men panic-stricken by the law, shows what is in their -minds. Their despair and their fury are a plain proof of the hypocrisy -which they showed in keeping a good face before you. Innocent men do not -revolt. Dillon, who ordered his army to march on Paris, has told us that -Desmoulins’s wife received money to help the plot. Our thanks are due to -you for having put us in the difficult and dangerous post that we occupy. -Your Committees will answer you by the most careful watching,” and so -forth. When the Convention had had laid before them every argument and -every flattery which could falsify their point of view, he proposed the -decree that any prisoner who should attempt to interrupt the course of -justice by threats or revolt should be outlawed. - -As they were about to vote, Billaud Varennes added his word, “I beg the -Convention to listen to a letter which the Committees have received -from the police concerning the conspirators, and their connection with -the prisoners.” The letter is not genuine. Even if it were, it depends -entirely upon the word of one obscure and untrustworthy man (Laflotte), -but it did the work. The Committees, as we know, were names to conjure -with. Their secret debates, their evident success, the fact that their -members had been chosen for the very purpose of guarding the interests -of the Republic, all fatally told against the prisoners. The decree -passed without a vote. Robespierre asked that the letter might be read -in full court, and his demand was granted. It was from that letter, -from this obscure and uncertain origin, that there dated the legend of -the “conspiracy in the prisons” which was to cost the lives of so many -hundreds. - -It was at the very close of this day, the 4th of April, that the decree -of the Convention was brought back to the tribunal. Amar brought it and -gave it to Fouquier, saying, “Here is what you wanted.” Fouquier smiled -and said, “We were in great need of it.” It was read in the tribunal. -When Camille heard the name of his wife mentioned in connection with St. -Just’s demand he cried out, “Will they kill her too?” and David, who was -sitting behind the judges, said, “We hold them at last.”[159] - -The fourth day, the 16th Germinal (5th April), the court met at half-past -eight in the morning, instead of at the ordinary hour of ten. Almost -at once, before the accused had time to begin their tactics of the day -before, the decree was read. The judge, relying on the law which had -already been in operation against others, and which gave the jury the -right to say after three days whether they were satisfied, turned to -them, and they asked leave to deliberate. - -Before the prisoners had passed into the prison Desmoulins had found -time to tear the defence which he had written into small pieces, and -to throw them at the feet of the judge. Danton cried out, and checked -himself in the middle of his sentence. All save poor Camille had kept -their self-control. He, however, clung to the dock, determined on making -some appeal to the people, or to the judges, or to posterity. Danton, -who calmed him a few hours later at the foot of the scaffold, could do -nothing with him then, and it was in the midst of a terrible violence -that the fifteen disappeared. - -The prisoners were taken back to the Conciergerie, but in their absence -occurred a scene which is among the most instructive of the close of the -Revolution. One of the jury could not bring himself to declare the guilt -of men whom he knew to be innocent. Another said to him, “This is not a -trial; it is a sacrifice. Danton and Robespierre cannot exist together; -which do you think most necessary to the Republic?” The unhappy man, -full of the infatuation of the time, stammered out, “Why, Robespierre -is necessary, of course, but——” “It is enough; in saying that you have -passed judgment.” And it came about in this way that the unanimous -verdict condemned the Indulgents. Lhuillier alone was acquitted. - -Of what passed in the prison we only know from the lips of an enemy,[160] -but I can see Danton talking still courageously of a thousand things; -sitting in his chair of green damask and drinking his bottle of Burgundy -opposite the silver and the traps of D’Eglantine.[161] They were not -taken back to hear their sentence; it was read to them, as a matter of -form, in the Conciergerie itself. Ducray read it to them one by one as -they were brought into his office. Danton refused to hear it in patience; -he hated the technicality and the form, and he knew that he was condemned -long ago. He committed himself to a last burst of passion before -summoning his strength to meet the ordeal of the streets, and followed -his anger by the insults which for days he had levelled at death. Then -for a few hours they kept a silence not undignified, save only Camille, -unfitted for such trials, and moaning to himself in a corner of the room, -whom Danton continually tried to console, a task in which at the very -end of their sad journey he succeeded. It was part of his broad mind to -understand even a writer and an artist, he who had never written and had -only done. - -It was between half-past four and five o’clock in the evening of the same -day, the 5th of April 1794, that the prisoners reappeared. Two carts -were waiting for them at the great gate in the court of the Palais—the -gate which is the inner entrance to the Conciergerie to-day.[162] About -the carts were a numerous escort mounted and with drawn swords, but the -victims took their seats as they chose, and of the fifteen the Dantonists -remained together. Hérault, Camille, Lacroix, Westermann, Fabre, Danton -went up the last into the second cart, and the procession moved out of -the courtyard and turned to the left under the shadow of the Palais, -and then to the left again round the Tour de l’Horloge, and so on to -the quay. They passed the window of the tribunal, the window from which -Danton’s loud voice had been heard across the river; they went creaking -slowly past the old Mairie, past the rooms that had been Roland’s -lodgings, till they came to the corner of the Pont Neuf; and as the carts -turned from the trees of the Place Dauphine on to the open bridge, they -left the shade and passed into the full blaze of the westering sun within -an hour of its setting. - -Early as was the season, the air was warm and pleasant, the leaves and -the buds were out on the few trees, the sky was unclouded. All that fatal -spring was summerlike, and this day was the calmest and most beautiful -that it had known. The light, already tinged with evening, came flooding -the houses of the north bank till their glass shone in the eyes. There -it caught the Café de l’École where Danton had sat a young lawyer seven -years before, and had seen the beauty of his first wife in her father’s -house; to the right the corner of the old Hotel de Ville caught the glow, -to the left the Louvre flamed with a hundred windows. - -Where the light poured up the river and came reflected from the Seine -on to the bridge, it marked out the terrible column that was moving -ponderously forward to death. A great crowd, foolish, unstable, varied, -of whom some sang, some ran to catch a near sight of the “Indulgents,” -some pitied, and a few understood and despaired of the Republic—all these -surging and jostling as a crowd will that is forced to a slow pace and -confined by the narrowness of an old thoroughfare, stretched from one end -of the bridge to the other, and you would have seen them in the sunlight, -brilliant in the colours that men wore in those days, while here and -there a red cap of liberty marked the line of heads. - -But in the centre of this crowd and showing above it, could be seen the -group of men who were about to die. The carts hidden by the people, -the horses’ heads just showing above the mob, surrounded by the sharp -gleams that only come from swords, there rose distinguished the figures -of the Dantonists. There stood Hérault de Séchelles upright, his face -contemptuous, his colour high, “as though he had just risen from a -feast.” There on the far side of the cart sat Fabre D’Eglantine, bound, -ill, collapsed, his head resting on his chest, muttering and complaining. -There on the left side, opposite Fabre, is Camille, bound but still -frenzied, calling loudly to the people, raving, “Peuple, pauvre Peuple!” -He still kept in his poet’s head the dream of the People! They had been -deceived, but they were just, they would save him. He wrestled with -his ropes and tore his shirt open at the bosom, clenching his bound -hands—clutched in his fingers through all the struggle shone the bright -hair of Lucille. Danton stood up immense and quiet between them. One of -those broad shoulders touched D’Eglantine, the other Desmoulins; their -souls leant upon his body. And such comfort as there was or control in -the central group came out like warmth from the chief of these friends. - -He had been their leader and their strength for five years; they were -round him now like younger brothers orphaned. The weakness of one, the -vices of another, came leaning for support on the great rock of his form. -For these were not the Girondins, the admirable stoics, of whom each was -a sufficient strength to his own soul: they were the Dantonists, who had -been moulded and framed by the strength and genius of one man. He did not -fail them a moment in the journey, and he died last to give them courage. - -As they passed on and left the river, they lost the light again and -plunged into shadow; the cool air was about them in the deep narrow -streets. They could see the light far above them only, as they turned -into the gulf of the Rue St. Honoré, down which the lives of men poured -like a stream to be lost and wasted in the Place de la Revolution. Up its -steep sides echoed and re-echoed the noise of the mob like waves. They -could see as they rolled slowly along the people at the windows, the men -sitting in the cafés or standing up to watch them go by. One especially -Danton saw suddenly and for a moment. He was standing with a drawing-book -in his hand and sketching rapidly with short interrupted glances. It was -David, an enemy. - -Then there appeared upon their left another sight; it was the only one -in that long hour which drove Danton out of his control: it was the -house of Duplay. There, hidden somewhere behind the close shutters, -was Robespierre. They all turned to it loudly, and the sentence was -pronounced which some say God has executed—that it should disappear and -not be known again, and be hidden by high walls and destroyed. - -The house was silent, shut, blockaded. It was like a thing which is -besieged and which turns its least sentient outer part to its enemies. It -was beleaguered by the silent and unseen forces which we feel pressing -everywhere upon the living. For it contained the man who had sent that -cartload of his friends to death. Their fault had been to preach the -permanent sentiments of mankind, to talk of mercy, and to recall in -1794 the great emotions of the early Revolution—the desire for the -Republic where every kind of man could sit and laugh at the same table, -the Republic of the Commensales. They were the true heirs of the spirit -of the Federations, and it was for this that they were condemned. Even -at this last moment there radiated from them the warmth of heart that -proceeds from a group of friends and lovers till it blesses the whole of -a nation with an equal affection. Theirs had been the instinct of and the -faith in the happy life of the world. It was for this that the Puritan -had struck them down; and yet it is the one spirit that runs through any -enduring reform, the only spirit that can lead us at last to the Republic. - -In a remote room, where the noise of the wheels could not reach him, -sat the man who, by some fatal natural lack or some sin of ambition -unrepented, had become the Inquisitor—the mad, narrow enemy of mercy and -of all good things. - -For a moment he and his error had the power to condemn, repeating a -tragedy of which the world is never weary—the mean thing was killing the -great. - -Nevertheless, if you will consider the men in the tumbril, you will find -them not to be pitied except for two things, that they were loved by -women whom they could not see, and that they were dying in the best and -latest time of their powerful youth. All these young men were loved, and -in other things they should be counted fortunate. They had with their -own persons already transformed the world. Here the writer knew that his -talent, the words he had so carefully chosen and with such delight in his -power, had not been wasted upon praise or fortune, but had achieved the -very object. There the orator knew and could remember how his great voice -had called up the armies and thrown back the kings. - -But if the scene was a tragedy, it was a tragedy of the real that -refused to follow the unities. All nature was at work, crowded into the -Revolutionary time, and the element that Shakespeare knew came in of -itself—the eternal comedy that seems to us, according to our mood, the -irony, the madness, or the cruelty of things, was fatally present to make -the day complete; and the grotesque, like a discordant note, contrasted -with and emphasised the terrible. - -Fabre, who had best known how omnipresent is this complexity—Fabre, -who had said, “Between the giving and taking of snuff there is a -comedy”—furnished the example now. Danton hearing so much weakness and -so many groans from the sick man said, “What is your complaint?” He -answered, “I have written a play called ‘The Maltese Orange,’ and I -fear the police have taken it, and that some one will steal it and get -the fame.” Poor Fabre! It is lost, and no one has the ridicule of his -little folly. Danton answered him with a phrase to turn the blood: “Tais -toi! Dans une semaine tu feras assez de vers,” and imposed silence. Nor -did this satisfy Fate; there were other points in the framework of the -incongruous which she loves to throw round terror. A play was running -in the opera called the “10th of August;” in this the Dantonists were -represented on the stage. When the Dantonists were hardly buried it -was played again that very night, and actors made up for Hérault and -the rest passed before a public that ignored or had forgotten what the -afternoon had seen. More than this, there was already set in type a verse -which the street-hawkers cried and sold that very night. For the sake of -its coincidence I will take the liberty of translating it into rhymed -heroics:— - - “When Danton, Desmoulins, and D’Eglantine - Were ferried over to the world unseen, - Charon, that equitable citizen, - Handed their change to these distinguished men. - ‘Pray keep the change,’ they cried; ‘we pay the fare - For Couthon, and St. Just, and Robespierre.’”[163] - -Danton spared only Camille, and as he did not stop appealing to the -people, told him gently to cease. “Leave the rabble there,” he said, -“leave them alone.” But for himself he kept on throwing angry jests at -death. “May I sing?” he said to the executioner. Sanson thought he might, -for all he knew. Then Danton said to him, “I have made some verses, and I -will sing them.” He sang loudly a verse of the fall of Robespierre, and -then laughed as though he had been at the old café with his friends. - -There was a man (Arnault of the Academy) who lived afterwards to a great -age, and who happened to be crossing the Rue St. Honoré as the carts -went past. In a Paris that had all its business to do, many such men -came and went, almost forgetting that politics existed even then. But -this batch of prisoners haunted him. He had seen Danton standing singing -with laughter, he hurried on to the Rue de la Monnaie, had his say with -Michael, who was awaiting him, and then, full of the scene, ran back -across the Tuilleries gardens, and pressing his face to the railings -looked over the great Place de la Révolution. The convoy had arrived, the -carts stood at the foot of the guillotine, and his memory of the scene is -the basis of its history. - -It was close on six, and the sun was nearly set behind the trees of the -Étoile; it reddened the great plaster statue of Liberty which stood in -the middle of the Place, where the obelisk is now, and to which Madame -Roland delivered her last phrase. It sent a level beam upon the vast -crowd that filled the square, and cast long shadows, sending behind the -guillotine a dark lane over the people. The day had remained serene and -beautiful to the last, the sky was stainless, and the west shone like a -forge. Against it, one by one, appeared the figures of the condemned. -Hérault de Séchelles, straight and generous in his bearing, first showed -against the light, standing on the high scaffold conspicuous. He looked -at the Garde Meuble, and from one of its high windows a woman’s hand -found it possible to wave a farewell. Lacroix next, equally alone; -Camille, grown easy and self-controlled, was the third. One by one they -came up the few steps, stood clearly for a moment in the fierce light, -black or framed in scarlet, and went down. - -Danton was the last. He had stood unmoved at the foot of the steps as -his friends died. Trying to embrace Hérault before he went up, roughly -rebuking the executioner who tore them asunder, waiting his turn without -passion, he heard the repeated fall of the knife in the silence of the -crowd. His great figure, more majestic than in the days of his triumph, -came against the sunset. The man who watched it from the Tuilleries gate -grew half afraid, and tells us that he understood for a moment what kind -of things Dante himself had seen. By an accident he had to wait some -seconds longer than the rest; the executioner heard him muttering, “I -shall never see her again ... no weakness,” but his only movement was to -gaze over the crowd. They say that a face met his, and that a sacramental -hand was raised in absolution.[164] - -He stood thus conspicuous for a moment over the people whom he had -so often swayed. In that attitude he remains for history. When death -suddenly strikes a friend, the picture which we carry of him in our minds -is that of vigorous life. His last laughter, his last tones of health, -his rapid step, or his animated gesture reproduce his image for ever. So -it is with Danton; there is no mask of Danton dead, nor can you complete -his story with the sense of repose. We cannot see his face in the calm -either of triumph or of sleep—the brows grown level, the lips satisfied, -the eyelids closed. He will stand through whatever centuries the story of -the Revolution may be told as he stood on the scaffold looking westward -and transfigured by the red sun, still courageous, still powerful in -his words, and still instinct with that peculiar energy, self-forming, -self-governing, and whole. He has in his final moment the bearing of the -tribune, the glance that had mastered the danger in Belgium, the force -that had nailed Roland to his post in September, and that had commanded -the first Committee. The Republic that he desired, and that will come, -was proved in his carriage, and passed from him into the crowd. - -When Sanson put a hand upon his shoulder the ghost of Mirabeau stood -by his side and inspired him with the pride that had brightened the -death-chamber of three years before. He said, “Show my head to the -people; it is well worth the while.” Then they did what they had to do, -and without any kind of fear, his great soul went down the turning in the -road. - -They showed his head to the people, and the sun set. There rose at once -the confused noise of a thousand voices that rejoiced, or questioned, or -despaired, and in the gathering darkness the Parisians returned through -the narrow streets eastward to their homes. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -ROBESPIERRE - - -I desire in this additional chapter to show what place Danton filled in -the Revolution by describing the madness and the reaction that followed -his loss; and the extent to which his influence, in spite of these, was -permanent. - -When Danton disappeared, one man remained the master of the terrible -machine which he had created. It remains to show what were the fortunes -of his work when death had come to complete the results of his abdication. - -The genius of the dead man had foreseen a necessity, had met it with an -institution, and that institution had proved his wisdom by its immense -success. France was one within, and was beginning on her frontiers the -war whose success was not to end until it had rebuilt all Europe. This -unprecedented power dominated a country long used to centralisation, and -was strengthened by the accidents of the time, by the even play of the -government over a surface where all local obstacles had broken down, by -the tacit acquiescence of every patriotic man (for it was the thing that -saved the nation), by the very abuse of punitive measures. This power was -destined to change from a machine to a toy. - -They say the children of that time had little models of the guillotine to -play with. The statement is picturesque and presumably false, but it will -serve well for a simile. A man unused to action, dreaming of a perfect -state which was but a reflection of his own intensely concentrated mind, -acquired the control of the guillotine. Unfortunately the model was of -full size. - -The punishment of death had hitherto been inflicted, for the most part, -with a clear and definite, though often with an immoral, object. In the -hands of Robespierre it was used to defend a theory and a whim. The men -of the time loved their country ardently, and believed with the firmness -of a large and generous faith in those principles upon which all our -civilisation is at present based. France and the Republic were, in their -minds, one thing, and a thing which they spared no means to make survive -the most terrible struggle into which any nation has ever dared to enter. -They killed that they might be obeyed in a time which verged on anarchy, -and they desired to be obeyed because, but for obedience to government, -France and all her liberties would have perished. Such a motive for -punishment is just, and its execution is honest. - -By the side of this and beyond it were the excesses, those excesses in -protest against which Danton himself had died. Execrable as were these, -infamous as will ever remain their most conspicuous actors, Hébert and -Carrier, they were prompted by a motive which is of the commonest and the -most easily understood in human affairs. They were actions of revenge. -Danton had said once and sincerely, “I can find no use for hate.” It was -the key to his successful effort, by far the most creative in a time -when all was energy, that no part of his strength was lost in personal -attack, hardly any in personal defence. This could no more be said of -his contemporaries than it can be said of the bulk of men in any nation, -even in times of order and of peace. And everywhere, in Nantes, in Lyons, -in the Vendée, in the accusation of Marie Antoinette, from the very -beginning of the Terror, this hate had surged and broken. The Girondins -were put to death on a charge full of the spirit of revenge; and as the -autumn grew into winter, in the very crisis of that oppression by which -the nation had been saved, the accusations became trivial, the process -of justice more and more of a personal act, depending in the provinces -on the temper of an emissary, in Paris upon the summary judgment of the -Committee and the Tribunal. - -But all this had so far been comprehensible. With the advent of -Robespierre to full power we have to deal with a phase of history which -will hardly be understood in happier times. Danton, who saw straight, who -understood, and who, when the victories began, found leisure to pity, is -a type whose extremes are the romance, whose moderation is the groundwork -of history. We have to deal in him with an enthusiast who is also a -statesman, in whom the mind has sufficient power to know itself even in -its violence, and to return deliberately within its usual boundaries -after never so fantastic an excursion. With Hébert again we know the -type. Those are not rare in whom passions purely personal dominate all -abstract conceptions, and whose natures desire the horrible in literature -during times of peace, and satisfy their desire by action during their -moments of power. - -But with Robespierre an absolutely different feature is presented: the -man who could laugh and the man who could hate, the right and the left -wing have disappeared, and there is left standing alone a personality -which had gradually become the idol of the city. He could neither laugh -nor hate; the love of country itself, which illuminates so much in the -Revolution, and which explains so many follies in the smaller men, even -that was practically absent in the mind of Robespierre. His character -would have fitted well with the absence of the human senses, and should -some further document discover to historians that he lacked the sense of -taste, that he was colour-blind, or that he could not distinguish the -notes of music, these details would do much to complete the imperfect -and troubling picture. For in the sphere that is above, but co-ordinate -with, physical life, all those avenues by which our fellow-beings touch -us more nearly than ideas were closed to him. - -It is possible that he may take, centuries hence, the appearance of -majesty. He had the reserve, the dignity, the intense idealism, the -perfect belief in himself, the certitude that others were in sympathy—all -the characteristics, in fine, which distinguish the Absolutists and the -great Reformers. In his iron code of theory we seem to hear the ghost of -a Calvin, in his reiterated morals and his perpetual application of them -there is the occasional sharp reminiscence of a Hildebrand. The famous -death cry, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in -exile,” is not so far distant from “... _de mourir pour le peuple et d’en -être abhorré_.” - -We are accustomed to clothe such figures with a solemn drapery, and to -lend them, at great distances of time, a certain terrible grandeur. -Robespierre is too near us, he is too well known, and his reforms failed -too utterly, for this to be now the case with him. Yet it may well happen -that some one else treading in the same path, and succeeding, will see -fit to build a legend round his name. - -What then was the ideal which he pursued—this “one idea,” which stood so -perpetually before him as to exclude the sight of all human things, of -sufferings, of memories, of patriotism itself? It was the civic ideal of -Rousseau, in so far as he conformed to it, and nothing more. - -The ideas of the great reformers must of their nature be -simple—unworkably simple. But Robespierre’s idea was less than simple—it -was thin. Now and again in the history of upheavals a type has been -defined with special formulæ, which in its original shape could never -have survived the conditions of active existence, but which was real -enough to receive accretions, and robust enough to bear moulding until -at length it became the living nucleus of a new society, changed, -transformed in a thousand details, yet in its main lines the ideal of the -founder. With all the great reforms of the world some such type has been -present; the Puritan, the knight of chivalry, were at first but a faint -figure realised in a few phrases. - -Rousseau himself had created such a type, and it has survived; for what -permanent fortunes a century is insufficient to show. The Republican -citizen of Jean-Jacques stood in the generation which succeeded him the -centre of a new society; in a thousand shapes he really lived. Thomas -Jefferson, William Cobbett, were living men to whom this ideal stood for -model; not in its details, but in its main lines. Such noble men are to -be met to-day on every side. - -But Robespierre saw reflected in his mind a figure at once more detailed -and less human, and one too sharply defined to be capable of any moulding -or of any transference into the real world. For him this ideal citizen -was nevertheless the one good thing, the one sound basis of a State. This -ideal citizen existed (did men only know it) in each individual; all men -could be made to approach the type; only a very few were opposed to its -success, and it was a sacred duty to break their criminal effort. The -figure stood ever before him, it dominated his every thought, it was the -sacred thing before which his essentially mystical mind was perpetually -at worship. But he could see nothing beyond or on either side of it; -concrete impressions faded on the unhealthy retina of his mind. For there -was a mirror held up before his eyes, and the figure on which he dwelt -was himself. - -Thus intensely concentrated upon a certain individual type, it was in his -nature to forget the reactions of a community. He saw in society a few -evils prominent, authority without warrant, arbitrary rule (that hateful -thing), servility in the oppressed (the main impediment to any reform). -He was blind to the interplay, the organic quality in a State, which our -own time so ridiculously exaggerates, but which the eighteenth century as -a whole neglected. Rousseau had put admirably the metaphor of contract as -explaining the bond of society. Robespierre, interpreting him, conceived -of contract as the simple and all-sufficient machinery of a State. The -error gave his attempt a mechanical and an inhuman appearance over and -above its rigidity of dogma. Rousseau, like all the great writers, gave -continual glimpses of the insufficiency of language; he let his audience -see in a hundred phrases, in a recurrence of qualifications, that his -words were no more than the words of others, hints at realities, at the -best metaphors brought as near as possible to be the true reflection of -ideas. Robespierre read him, and has remained among the words entangled -and satisfied. Rousseau was perpetually insisting upon a point of view, -calling out, “Come and see.” He had discovered a position from which (as -he thought) the bewildering complexity of human affairs appeared in a -just and simple perspective. But Rousseau never asserts that such a view -will have the same colouring to all men; on the contrary, at his best he -denies it. He trusts to the main aspect of his theory for a main result -in the State, to an agreement among men of good-will for the harmonising -of conflicting details. Robespierre, as the high-priest of that gospel, -had come and had seen, but the perfect citizen and the perfect state of -his vision must be realised in every tittle as he had observed them. -Once again a great message was destined to be sterilised and almost lost -through the functionary of its creed. - -Such was the man who had slowly supplanted Danton. A mind whose type of -aberration is common to all nations had supplanted the typical Frenchman -who had organised the defence of France, and in the place of one whom -his enemies perpetually reproach with an excess of vigour and manhood, a -theorist of hardly any but intellectual emotions was master. - -What gave him his great ascendancy, his practically absolute power? -It was due, in the first place, to the popularity whose growth was -the feature of the later Revolution. That popularity was real in the -number of his followers and in the sincerity of their profession. It -must be remembered that hitherto he had stood on the side of leniency -in public action, while in words he had expressed always accurately, -sometimes nobly, the ideals upon which the nation was bent. He had, from -a constitutional incapacity for real work, been only in the background -of those crises which had left behind them an increasing crowd of -malcontents. Not he, but Danton, had made the 10th of August. No one had -connected his name with the massacres of September. The necessity of -government was not _his_ interpretation of the defeats in Belgium; the -creation of that government was another’s; its latent benefits reflect -no merit upon him now; its immediate rigours exposed him to no special -vengeance at the time. Not he, but Marat, is the obvious demagogue whom -the visionary Girondin girl marks out as the enemy. To Carnot would turn -the hatred of those whom the great conscription oppressed. The Christian -foundation of France had others than Robespierre to curse for the Masque -of Reason and for the suppression of public worship. He had stood behind -Desmoulins when the reaction of Nivose and Frimaire was at work; he had -approved and was thought the author of that trial and execution in which -Hébert had suffered the sentence already pronounced upon him by the best -of France. In fact, he had stood in nothing as the extremist or as the -tyrant till the day when he permitted the arrest of Danton. He had been -rather the voice of a strong public opinion than the arm which, when it -acts at the orders of unreason, becomes hated by its own furious master. -Thus upon the negative side there was nothing to prevent his sudden -attainment of power. - -In the second place, his name had been the most present and the most -familiar from the earliest days of the Revolution. He had sat in the -Assembly of the Commons five years before, a notable though hardly a -noted figure, with some stories surrounding him, with quite a reputation -in his provincial centre; he had been, since first the Jacobin Club -became the mouthpiece of the pure Republicans, the conspicuous leader of -the Society. The force of continuity and tradition counts for little in -the history of this whirlwind, but such as it is it explains to a great -degree the ascendancy of Robespierre. He alone was never absent, he -alone remained to chant a ceaseless chorus to the action of the drama. -His name was familiar to excess; but it was hardly an epoch at which -men grew weary of hearing a politician called “the just.” Besides this -familiarity with his name, certain virtues—and those the most cherished -of the time—were in fact or by reputation his. None could accuse him of -venality; his sincerity was obvious—indeed, it was the necessary fruit of -his narrow mind. The ambition from which we cannot divorce his name was -apparent to but few of his contemporaries, and was not fully seized even -by his enemies till he had started on that short career of absolute power -which has stamped itself for ever upon the fortunes of his country. Thus -habit, the strongest of forces, was his ally. - -In the third place, circumstances quite as much as his own action had -left him (as far as one can follow the mysteries of the Committee) sole -director of an exceptional executive. On account of the illusions and -necessities of the people such a position was not immediately recognised -as tyrannical. The machine was theirs, working for them and made by -them; all the better if an idol of theirs held the levers; he would -make the most trusty of servants. Robespierre was not master in theory. -Even committees were not the masters in theory. Theory was everything -to France in the year II., and in theory the Convention was master. -Nay, even the Convention was only master because—in theory again—the -sovereign, the nation, was behind it. The majority of the Convention, -and it alone, is the technical authority. Robespierre’s name was not -to be discovered at the foot of those lists of the condemned which his -monstrous policy constructed, and at the end of his four months he fell -because the theoretical master, the Convention, acted as it chose, and no -sufficient force dared to deny its right. - -He starts then upon the closing act of the play, the one figure whom all -regard, and into whose hands the police, the committees, the juries, and -(by their own disorder) the majority of the Convention itself have fallen. - -The new reign began on the 6th of April, exactly a year to a day since -the Committee of Public Safety had been established. It was Germinal, the -month of seeds that grow under ground, the most significant and the most -terrible of the new names. M. Zola has chosen it for the title of his -greatest work; it was the other day on the dying lips of a poor wretch in -Spain whose madness also turned upon social injustice. - -The following of Robespierre did not hesitate to show at once its -tendencies and even its dogmas—for it held a religion. That same day, -the 6th of April—17th Germinal of the year II.—Couthon came from -the Committee with a proposition for the Parliament to discuss the -establishment of a national worship of God. A new note had been heard in -the clamour; soon in the clear silence of suspense it is to be the only -sound, saving the dull accompaniment of the two guillotines. This or that -occasional freak of theory or dramatised ribaldry the Terror had already -known; unlimited power defended by inexorable severity had developed many -strange decrees, dissociated from the general life and dying as they -rose—absurdities whose chief purpose would seem to be the interest they -have afforded to foreigners. But in these there had been no system. The -Mass was being said on all sides when the churches were supposed to be -closed. Even as the Feast of Reason was being held at Notre Dame, vespers -were chanted at St. Germains. One thing alone had been the purpose and -had given the motive force to nine months of agony endured—the salvation -of Revolutionary France. But when Couthon spoke it was not France, nor -common rights and liberties which were proposed as the object of the -defence—it was Robespierrian Rousseau. In two months we shall have the -worship of the Supreme Being, in three the reaction; in less than four -the high-priest of this impossible system is to fall; yet his dream and -his power will be almost enough in their fall to drag down the Republic. - -Five days more saw “the rest of the factions” sacrificed to this new -personal terror. Gobel, who had always been afraid, and whose conscience -had been turned like a weathercock away from the nearest pike; the wives -of Desmoulins and of Hébert (for women, as the Terror increased, were -suspected, sometimes rightly, of being the best at plotting); Chaumette, -who had helped Hébert to put up his theatricals in Notre Dame—they -were all tried, and in this trial it is again not the Revolution, but -Robespierre pure and simple whom we hear arguing and condemning through -the mouths of the court. - -One of the accused “has wished to efface the idea of the divinity.” -Another has “interfered with the worship of his fellow-citizens” (this -was said to Chaumette, who must have thought it even at that moment -something of a platitude). To a third the reproach is made of “changing -the mode of worship without authority.” We are on the highroad to those -last six weeks in which trial of any kind and definite accusation itself -was absent. The details of one man’s opinion are become the numberless -dogmas of a creed, and of a creed that kills unmercifully. And yet even -as he asserted his creed its mechanical impotence appeared in violent -contrast with the humanity that the Puritan was persecuting. For Lucille -lighted her face radiantly when she was condemned, and said, “I shall see -him in a few hours.” - -Three days more—the 17th of April—and the machinery was further -centralised. St. Just demanded that the political prisoners should be -taken from every part of France to be judged in Paris. The popular -commissions—mere gatherings to denounce without proofs and without -forms—were actively used all over the Republic. In Paris the commission -was to be the feeler for the central machine. And such was the incapacity -of the Dreamer, “who had not wits enough to cook an egg,” that this new -feature in the machinery was not even organised: it was a government -of mere rigid absolutism resting on bases that were rapidly becoming -mere anarchy. But even as the system, such as it was, developed, as the -central power grew more rigid, and the thing to be governed more decayed, -Danton, who had been killed that it might exist, pursued it. It was due -to his work that the wrestling on the frontier was showing a definite -issue. The advance had begun. - -With his death the diplomacy of France had ceased. The phrase of -Robespierre’s, which he had so successfully combated, had reappeared -in vigour: the “nation would not treat with her enemies.” But the -organisation of her armies, the levies, the rigid discipline, the -arms were telling. That aspect of the national energy had grown more -healthy as the central brain grew more diseased and vain. Robespierre -was threatening Carnot vaguely in the Committee, but Carnot was at work -and was saving France. St. Just himself, when he is upon the frontier, -appears in a capacity worthy of admiration, for he has there to deal with -a thing in action. His energy is as fierce as ever, but its object is -victory over a national enemy, and not the triumph of a jejune idea. He -had better have remained with the soldiers. - -In Paris the Commune had been seized. The enemy whom all had feared, -whom even Danton had to the last conciliated, was fearlessly grasped. -The mayor was broken simply, and replaced by a servant of the rulers; -the Sections protested with the last of their vitality, but the Club -denounced them, and they disappeared—even an attempt at martyrdom is to -give the idol yet more gilt. Then the news of Turcoing came to Paris. -It was little more than a happy rumour, a battle whose importance -seems greater to us now than it did to contemporaries. But Pichegru, -the peasant, had prepared a good road for Jourdan, and Fleurus was the -direct result of Turcoing. Barrère long after called these victories “the -Furies,” which swept upon and destroyed the fanatic in power. - -With every point of good news the Terror was less necessary, yet -Robespierre’s action grew as the national danger disappeared. Even Lord -Howe’s great victory of the 1st of June did little to check the sentiment -of relief. The _Vengeur_ went down and left a force of many ships to the -French navy for ever. The food reached port, and the eyes of Frenchmen -were not directed to the sea, whose command they knew themselves to -have gained and lost before then with but little resulting change; they -turned, as they have always and will ever turn, to the frontier of the -north-east, the wrestling-ring upon whose fair level was to be decided -the fate of all their sacrifice and of all their ideals, and Paris every -day grew more hopeful of the result, Robespierre more blind to everything -except his vision. On the 8th of June—the 20th Prairial—he capped the -edifice of his national religion with the Feast of the Supreme Being; on -the 10th he forged the last piece of the machinery which was to make that -religion the moral order of the new era by force. - -In the connection of these dates we see the whole man and the time. -Three weeks pass from the first definite victory against the allies to -the law of the 22nd Prairial. That short time widened the breach between -the armies and the government till it became an impassable gulf. The -fruit of that schism was to appear much later, but already its elements -were clear. Of the two parts of Danton’s work one had become national, -healthy, representative; the other, which had been designed for similar -action, had finally become a thing of personalities and of theories. The -armies were in full success, the Terror was menaced, and was doomed. - -In this feast of the Almighty, Robespierre was insanely himself. He wore -his bright-blue coat, perhaps to typify the bright sky which we have all -worshipped for so many thousand years. In his little white hand, that -never had been nor could be put to a man’s work, he held the typical -offerings of fruit and corn. His head was bent forward a little, and he -looked at the ground. The men who stood up boldly in the attitudes of -Mirabeau and of the Tribunes were dead or in the armies. - -Remove the scene by hundreds of years, and tell it of a primitive people -in some mountain valley, it assumes a simplicity and a grandeur as -legend. Their old traditions (let us say) have been lost or stolen from -them. They are casting about for a lawgiver and for a starting-point. A -pure idealist is found, draconian in his method, but ascetic and sincere -in his life, laying down as necessary for the state a clear and simple -morality, basing all ethics on the recognition and the worship of God. If -we make that picture we have some idea of what passed through the mind -of the little clique which still surrounded Robespierre, some conception -of the picture which still half-fascinated the crowd. For Robespierre -himself it was intensely true; he lived æons and myriads of leagues away -in time and space from humanity, intent upon his dream. - -But in sight of the mummery stood Notre Dame. Not a man there but had -been baptized in the Christian faith; a history more complex and more -eventful than that of perhaps any other nation was the inheritance and -the future of that crowd. And even as the game was being played, the real -France on the Sambre and in the plains of Valenciennes was carrying out -the oldest of struggles in defence of the first of rights. The scene has -been laughed at and despised sufficiently by aliens within and without -the French nation; let it suffice for this book to insist upon its -unreality, and to assert that its principal actor was genuine because he -lived in the unreal. - -The law of the 22nd of Prairial followed this feast. It was the -establishment of a pure despotism, arbitrary, absolute, personal. Already -the trials were centralised in Paris since the demand of St. Just had -been made. The Commune had been captured, the popular commissions used, -even the Presidency of the Convention had become the appanage of one -man and his associates. This new law proposed the final step. After it -was passed the trials were to be conducted without proofs, and without -witness or pleading, for they were to be nothing more than a formal -process. The Committee once satisfied of guilt, the tribunal was merely -to condemn. To be upon the lists was virtually to be dead. It was the -end of civil government, the declaration of a state of siege. And that -at the moment when the armies sent every day better and better news. The -Convention debated with Robespierre in the chair; it hesitated and it -nearly condemned the proposal. There was a conflict in the minds of some -between the admiration—almost the adoration—of a man; in the minds of -others, between fear and the necessity apparent to all of relaxing the -machinery which only the national danger had called into being. - -Robespierre came down from the chair and spoke. The even, certain -voice which carried away his admirers, which terrified his opponents, -succeeded, and the law was passed. Those who find it easy to judge -the time, who think it may all be explained by the baseness or the -pusillanimity of the Parliament, should note the appeal which he made to -the _Moderates_ even then—an appeal which had always been successful, -which, when his death drew near, he made at last (and for the first time) -in vain. - -For the Moderates, the Plain, the “Marsh,” saw in him a kind of saviour, -the just man, the slayer of the Mountain, the master who would be -terrible only for a little time, and would soon restore peace when he had -established a dogma of moral order. Were Moderates ever slow to give full -power for the sake of order? - -The next day some one saw that the new law touched the Parliament itself. -Self-defence, the most sacred, perhaps the only, right of a prince, -occurred to them, and they protested. They passed a resolution that no -member could be taken before the Revolutionary Tribunal without their -consent. The following day Robespierre again appears, again appeals to -the “Marsh.” The men of order saw at once that no danger applied to them, -that the disorderly fellows up on the benches of the Left alone were in -danger. The resolution was repealed. On that day, the 24th of Prairial of -the year II.—12th of June 1794—the whole of France was at his feet, save -the armies. - -The France which had made the Revolution, and which Danton had loved, -defended, and saved, was in the Ardennes and before Ypres. There were -two main bodies. One, on the left, in the plains by the frontier towns, -was opposed to a united force of English and Austrians; the other, on -the right, in the woods and deep ravines of the Ardennes, was opposed -to a strong series of Austrian posts. These armies were not separated, -but the enemy held the angle between them. Away on the extreme right -Jourdan held the Moselle valley. Pichegru had come back to the army -of the left, which in his absence had won Turcoing, and at whose head -Soudham, Moreau, and Macdonald had fought and succeeded. On the right St. -Just was throwing into the attack upon the Sambre all the energy which -had saved, before this, the army of Alsace. Five times the attempt had -been made to pierce the Austrian lines, and five times it had failed. -Coburg lay on both sides of the river; Charleroy, on the right bank, was -his strong place. The Deputies on mission, St. Just and Lebas, the same -whom we shall see standing by Robespierre at the end, were present at -the last decisive check before Charleroy itself. With the Sambre thus -held, the southern army was immobilised; the successes of the army of the -north seemed almost valueless, for Coburg held the angle between the two. -Nevertheless, Turcoing bore great fruit, for it convinced the Austrians -that reinforcements were needed to meet the French advance in the north. -The allies were like a man fighting with a sword in each hand against -two opponents. Wounded in the right hand, he must cross rapidly with the -sword in his left, and so expose his left side. Thus Coburg left the -Sambre a little more exposed in order to provide temporary reinforcements -against the army that had just won Turcoing. St. Just and Carnot were -enemies; the young Robespierrian was planned to replace the organiser -whom Danton had recognised; nevertheless, they agreed at this supreme -moment upon the necessary action. St. Just from the army, Carnot from the -Ministry of War at Paris, called up Jourdan from the Moselle with over -forty thousand men. - -They are wrong who imagine that Napoleon invented the attack by -concentration on the weakest point; so far as the large lines of a -campaign go he inherited it from the early Republican generals. Leaving -strong places unoccupied, careless of holding (for example) this position -on the Moselle, the hurried march northward was determined on, and a -supreme effort against the Austrian lines. - -By this junction was formed that “Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse” which -to this day gives a theme for one of the noblest marching-songs of the -French soldiery. Under Jourdan were men whose names alone have something -of the quality of bugle-calls. Ney, and Kleber, and Marceau were -leading them. There ran through this new army a kind of prescience, the -foreknowledge of victory, an unaccustomed feeling of expansion and of -hope. Soult speaks of it as his awakening; and there is a fine phrase in -the memoir of a contemporary which gives us some echo of its enthusiasm: -“We always seemed to be marching into the dawn;” they felt in every rank -that the balance was turning, and that France was to be saved. - -A sixth attempt was for a sixth time foiled. The seventh succeeded. The -Austrian line was broken and Charleroy surrounded; in a week it fell. The -capitulation was hardly achieved when the army of Coburg appeared to the -north-east upon the heights that command the left bank of the river, a -plateau called that of Fleurus. - -It was upon the 25th of June that the armies met and fought with blazing -hay about them and ripe harvest that had caught fire. Kleber recovered -the left wing, as Cromwell at Naseby, after it had given way. Marceau -obstinately held the right in front of Fleurus, as Davoust did at -Austerlitz ten years later. And towards evening the watchers in the -balloon above the French ranks saw in regular and stiff retreat the -last army of the old world. By the end of Messidor the English were in -Holland, the Austrians upon the Rhine, the whole of Belgium was in the -hands of the Republic. - -The sun which set upon the death of Danton had risen again. - -So in Robespierre’s own country his fall was prepared by circumstances. -At Arras, his birthplace, one could almost hear the guns of Fleurus; -he and his thin soul belonged to those plains of the north where the -Norman and the Burgundian, and the Provençal and the Gascon, born in more -generous places, were driving the enemy before them. - -St. Just came back from the front. He at least had seen on what -Revolutionary France was really bent, and in what she was vigorous. With -the superb courage that belonged to his energy and his youth he had led -the charges. Living with the soldiers, he had seen more closely, and with -more accuracy than is common in visionaries, the needs of an army. Why -did he come back to continue the insane drama whose seven weeks of action -count more with the enemies of France than all her centuries? - -Because the armies and their victories, though affording proof of what -the nation was and of what it required, could afford that proof only to a -just and even mind. The soldiers themselves did not express a political -opinion; their whole mind was bent upon the breaking of the line, the -attempt in which they had succeeded. Of Paris, Revolutionary in the -last few months, they knew little. They judged it as our contemporaries -do—on hearsay; and it seemed to them that there stood in the capital a -powerful Committee full of patriots, who had by an intense, an almost -furious energy, saved them—the soldiers. Men who risk their lives every -day and see death constantly are not likely to be horror-stricken at an -excess of rigour in government. In their eyes a number of men had fallen, -places had changed, the central power was surrounded by a tumult, but -_they_ had been clothed and fed almost by a miracle—their battles had -been made possible. The year since the great conscription had drawn them -from their homes had been for them a struggle of continual promise, -ending in a great achievement. Already the soldier was half-professional; -the eager volunteer of 1792, full of his politics, had given place to a -type which the wanton policy of the old regime was forging to its own -destruction. For it was forging the veterans who cared more and more for -the Revolutionary thing, and less and less for the discussions and the -theories, till at last they produced the Empire. - -St. Just therefore could not warn Robespierre. St. Just himself had -learnt no lesson. His ideal was still in his eyes the salvation of -France, and even of the world; the victory of Fleurus only made it the -more possible to carry his ideal out in action. He had seen the emigrants -who were taken in that battle spared for the first time by the French -soldiery, but he did not recognise the tremendous import of this, nor -appreciate what our own time has thoroughly learnt, that it is the -success or the failure of the national defence which rules the temper of -a nation. - -When the news of Fleurus became known in Paris the law of Prairial had -been in action for nearly three weeks. By the time the victory and its -meaning had fully sunk into the mind of the capital half the short period -of Robespierre had expired. How much was due to fear upon his part, how -much to mere blindness, we cannot tell, but the very moment when the -necessity for the Terror patently disappeared was the moment chosen by -him for the aggravation of his system. - -He attacked the Mountain. - -It will be remembered that the Convention had feared for itself when it -gave the full power into his hands. On the 11th of June Bourdon from the -Oise had carried a motion which would have defended the deputies, but -which Robespierre had caused to be cancelled upon the following day. - -With an attack, however, appearing as a reality instead of remaining as a -threat, even the “Marsh” grew afraid. He put into his speech an excellent -maxim, that “not success of armies abroad or on the frontier are the -greatness of a nation, but the virtue of its private citizens within” -(21st Messidor)—a truth appearing perhaps at the very worst moment, for -it translated itself at once in the minds of his audience into “the -victories mean nothing to me; the guillotine is for the defence not of -the nation but of my dogmas.” And his faith went on sacrificing its -innumerable victims. - -Another and a final element was added to the forces against him. The -Committee began to refuse his leadership. It must be remembered that -Robespierre was not absolute master in the sense in which (for example) -an English general would be master of an Indian province after the -suppression of a mutiny. Circumstances, immense popularity, above all -the kind of men who composed the great Committee, are the explanation -of his power. His power was a fact, but a fact based on no theoretical -right, and therefore possessed of no elements of endurance. Even the -Committee was in the eyes of all the governed, and of some of its -own members, only the servant of the national welfare. Two men upon -it were Robespierrians—Couthon and St. Just; one was a turncoat by -nature—Barrère; two more were men of the Hébertian type, most unreliable -for an idealist to deal with—Billaud and Collot. Finally there remains -Carnot, the worker, and four others—the two Prieurs, Lindet and St. André. - -Robespierre could be virtually a master, but a master only on the -tolerance of superior though latent force. He could inspire terror by the -common knowledge that the machinery was in his hands, that its terrible -punishment was practically his to inflict at pleasure. But something put -it into his hand, and something could take it away. It cannot be too -often repeated, if we wish to understand the Revolution, that from the -fall of Lafayette to the 13th of October 1795 there was no disciplined -armed force at the service of the Government, there was nobody better -armed or better drilled than the man in the street—not even gunners, the -first necessity of modern masters, for the very artillery was amateur; -above all, there was no armed body whose members obeyed without question, -who were, as a good army must be, a rigid instrument of government framed -upon a device which multiplies a hundredfold the strength of each man in -the public service. The “strong men” of history, whom our reactionaries -delight to honour, have always had such an instrument at their -disposition, but when there is no one to fire at a command, your strong -man is like any other, save that he is a little weaker for shouting. - -What then was the ultimate master which permitted Robespierre to rule? It -was composed of several forces, and in its division is to be found the -secret of its inertia. - -Firstly, the Convention, mutilated as it was, was granted by all to be -the nearest representative of the nation. What the majority voted was -done. It exercised a very great moral influence, and if it had shown that -influence so slightly, it was because its organisation was contemptible—a -mass of individuals, with no traditions of action or of grouping, a crowd -in which the fear of each that another might be his enemy caused the -sum of its individual cries to be anything but the integrate expression -of its corporate will. Well, this crowd had had one formidable enemy. -The _right_ of the Convention had been combated by the _force_ of the -well-organised Commune. The Commune used to be a mirror of at least half -of Paris; it had lost this character. It was nothing now but a group of -Robespierrians, and the Convention was the stronger for the change. - -Secondly, there was the material force—the populace of Paris. They had -not risen hitherto save for one or two motives—the establishment of the -national defence, the prevention of a political reaction; and they had -been more turbulent and more dangerous where the first than where the -second was their cause for action. - -Thirdly, the regular initiative was in the hands of a majority of the -Committee of Public Safety. - -The moment therefore that the majority of the Committee refused to -follow Robespierre’s lead, he would have had to ascend the tribune of -the Convention, and in one of those speeches which carried to some such -genuine conviction, but to many others such still more genuine fear, he -would have had to obtain a majority for the reconstruction of the great -Committee. - -Now a deliberative Assembly which is not strictly organised upon -party lines, which has no aristocratic quality and no great (because -traditional) corporate pride, is very strongly influenced by what we call -“Public Opinion.” It hears reports from the whole nation, is composed of -every kind of man, regards itself moreover as in duty bound to listen to -the voices outside, meets in its lobbies and during its recesses every -species of expression. - -Such a jury is therefore the very worst before which a popular idol -could present itself when some strong adverse action had just shown his -reputation to be falling. Outvoted in Committee, condemned in Parliament, -the man who had but just now been supreme would have to turn to whatever -he could find of physical force to support him. - -But that physical force in the case of Robespierre was only the populace -of Paris, and a populace moreover whose one organising centre—the -Commune—had been weakened by himself. Once suppose him forced to depend -upon a rising of the people, and the weakness of his position is -apparent; even were he still the politician of the majority, it would -be a long step from approving of his policy to risking one’s life in a -civil tumult, conscious that one was attacking every form of constituted -authority, and presumably the opinion of the whole nation, for no -principle, from no necessity, but to save a man. As we shall see, the -rising to defend him comprised but a small knot of men, and totally -failed. - -The man who had not the wits to cook an egg prepared his own ruin. -Carnot, whose one idea was to work and save the frontier, he openly -menaced. Robespierre meditated the inconceivable folly of replacing -Carnot’s science by the blind activity of St. Just. In alienating Carnot -and losing that possible ally, Robespierre lost five of his colleagues -on the Committee. The end of Messidor saw him in a kind of voluntary -isolation, letting the fatal machine work on, while he stood off from the -levers. - -He seems to have just felt two doubts disturbing the serenity of his -fanatical complacency. First, whether after all he was going down to -posterity as he saw himself to be—the maker of a new France, “the -terror of oppressors and the refuge of the oppressed.” (One day his -eyes filled when the noise of the tumbrils reached him, and he said, “I -shall be remembered only as a slayer of men.” So wrapped up in himself, -he had not yet heard an echo of what all men were saying.) Secondly, -he wondered whether his perfect state was so near as he had thought. -The killing went on, and he got no nearer. The “anti-patriots,” the -“anti-revolutionaries,” the “anti-Robespierres” (though he did not think -of them so) passed perpetually eastward and westward daily from the -prisons to the two guillotines. - -By the irony of whatever rules and laughs at men, events caused the -first mutterings to rise among the Extremists. The Terror was too -mild, and above all the men with hearts of beasts—the remainder of the -Hébertists—hated a policy which included, however fantastically, the -ideal and the worship of God. They hated his half-alliance with whatever -was Christian in the Convention, and his perpetual appeals to the -Moderates. - -The Lower Committee had a partially independent life. It was known to be -the policy of Robespierre to submit this body, as he had submitted all -the other organs of government, to the great Committee of Public Safety. -Hence it was in this Lower Committee of General Security—menaced as a -function and as individuals, thoroughly in touch, by its position, with -the police—that the conspiracy arose. The majority of its members joined -it, and from the Higher Committee Billaud and Collot adhered. On the 7th -of Thermidor (25th of July 1794) the storm burst. Barrère read his report -to the Convention, and it was an open menace to Robespierre. - -The origins of that report merit a certain discussion. We have seen that -from the first the reports, directed by the Committee, were usually -written by Barrère, and were read to the Convention by him. On the other -hand, we can discover usually in the style, and always in the opinions of -the reports, the action of whoever led in the councils of the Committee. -Thus, in the document of this nature of which so much mention is made in -chapter vi., the spirit, and evidently many of the actual phrases, are -the work of Danton. - -Who drew up Barrère’s report, whether (possibly) it was his own work, -when he saw opinion shifting away from Robespierre, or whether, as is -more probable, it was inspired by Billaud and Collot, and permitted -by the five neutrals, we cannot tell. The main fact is this, that the -Committee had at least permitted to be made in its name a public -declaration hostile to the man who, through the Committee, had ruled -France. - -The report repudiated in detail the policy of the past seven weeks; it -insisted on the importance of the victories, on the iniquity of further -lists of victims. For the first time in four months the Convention acted -freely; it ordered the report to be printed and to be sent to all the -Communes of France. - -On the next day Robespierre came for the last time into his accustomed -place. He gave his last speech to the Parliament. He was to appear once -more, but never again as the orator and the leader. Reading, as was -his wont, not declaiming, in the slow even voice that had compelled -such attention, such enthusiasm, and such fear, he made the last of his -declarations. This speech, if no other, should be read to understand -the man. Here a theory stated with power and with precision; there a -description of those without whose condemnation the theory could not be -realised. A noble ideal based upon the scaffold; a dogma and a detailed -persecution side by side. He read it slowly from end to end, proving -to himself, and, as he thought, to his audience, the perfection of -his ideal, and the necessity of the terrible road towards it. But his -audience heard nothing of the ideal; they heard only the description of -themselves. - -Men of all kinds, the mere demagogues, were in that summary, the personal -enemies, the financiers. It seems that on the manuscript from which he -read even Cambon’s name was written. But in this extreme crisis, when he -was denouncing the first men in order to save his own position, he was -no longer Robespierre. It made no difference to his fate, yet we judge -him with more accuracy when we know that he omitted the name of Cambon, -and that he did not pronounce that of Carnot, whom he had threatened in -private. It was an attempt at compromise. - -The Convention heard him and his threat. Of his theories they had heard -enough for years. Yet such was the power of his slow clear utterance, -of the reverence which his following commanded, and of the idea which -he expressed so well, and in which all at heart believed, that they -voted the printing and the dissemination of the speech. Cambon and -Billaud-Varennes rose to demand the repeal of the vote. The great -unwieldy assembly, or rather its great unwieldy neutral faction, -hesitated, conferred, and yielded to the demand. Then Robespierre was -doomed. - -As he was reading, as the distribution of the speech and then its repeal -were being voted, there hung above his head and that of the Parliament -the flags taken in the new victories from the English and Austrians -at Turcoing, at Landrecies, at Quesnoy, at Condé, at Valenciennes, at -Fleurus, and it was they that turned the scale. - -When the evening came the Club met, the little society of the Jacobins, -which was still the most independent and the most vital force in Paris. -It had dared to elect a president for its debates whose whole policy was -antagonistic to Robespierre; yet now it heard him and remembered its old -idol. He re-read, in the same tone, but in a more familiar surrounding -and with ampler diction, the speech of the morning, and his hearers -grew wild with enthusiasm. They hissed and they turned out Billaud and -Collot, who had dared to be present; they cried out to Robespierre that -they would follow him always towards the perfect Republic; and David, an -excellent artist and a bad man, cried to him from the back, “I will drink -the hemlock with you!” but he was afraid even to acknowledge his master -when Robespierre came to die. - -The Jacobins that night were ready to rise for Robespierre. As so -many minorities have been in that city of convictions and of intense -enthusiasms, they were ready to impose themselves and their creed upon -the capital and upon France; but they did not know to what a handful -they had been reduced in the last seven weeks. All night the conspiracy -against Robespierre worked hard. Boissy D’Anglas, the leader of the -“Marsh,” was brought over. To him and his followers Robespierre was -pointed out as the tyrant; to what was left of the Mountain he was -denounced as the moderate and the compromiser. But, above all, he was, to -the great bulk of the Convention, the enemy who had destroyed all civil -order in pursuit of his mad theories, and who had even held the victories -of no account. - -The Parliament met the next morning, on the 9th of Thermidor (27th of -July). It was a year to a day since Robespierre had joined the great -Committee; but it was for the condemnation of Robespierre that they -met. The great hall waited for a coming tumult. First into the tribune -went St. Just, with his beautiful face and strong bearing, determined -in oratory as in the battles to strike at once and lead a charge. He -was eloquent, for he was trying to save his friend; he boldly attempted -argument, a compromise, anything; called it “saving the Republic.” “Let -us end his domination if you will, but let the government still be that -of the Revolution, and let us draw up such rules as shall save us from -arbitrary power without destroying the motive force of the national -demand.” The sentiment was precisely that of the Convention, but the -speaker was known to be merely the young bodyguard of their enemy. - -Tallien called out from the right, “Pull back the curtain,” and, though -the fellow was an actor, he had struck the right note. St. Just could -never defend Robespierre; it would have been a cloak for continuing the -Terror. The Convention applauded, and from applause turned to crying down -St. Just in a public roar of fear and hatred. - -Then twice Robespierre tried to speak; the hubbub silenced him. During -a lull in the storm they voted the arrest of Henriot. It meant the -transference of such pitiful armed force as he commanded from the hand of -a friend to that of an enemy. Robespierre made a last effort to rescind -that order. He was not heard. - -Tallien was given the tribune by the Speaker (Collot was Speaker that -day, and Collot had been turned out by the Jacobins the night before). -Tallien spoke theatrically, as he always did, but to the point. -Robespierre, he said, had plotted to destroy the assembly for his -purposes; he quoted the speech of the day before. While Barrère, the -turncoat, stood looking this way and that, not knowing how things would -turn. Once more Robespierre attempted a reply; he only raised a storm -that drowned his voice. - -When he saw that full speech was denied him, he turned from the place -where he stood towards the “Marsh,” the Moderates, and said, “I appeal to -you who are just and who are not conspiring with these assassins;” but -the “Marsh” was lost to him—they also cried him down. - -A little silence followed. They saw Robespierre attempting for a fifth -time to speak, but the agony of the night and the fearful struggle of the -morning had overcome him at last: his voice could not be heard though he -tried to articulate. Garnier of the Aube called to him across the floor -of the hall, “The blood of Danton chokes you.” It was the truest thing -said in that wild meeting. - -Before the silence was broken, Louchet, an unknown man, rose and -proposed the arrest, saying openly what all thought: “No one will deny -that Robespierre has played the master; let us vote his arrest.” Then -Robespierre found his voice. He went up four steps above his usual seat, -to a place where, high up and from the left, from the summit of what -had been the Mountain in the old days, he could see the whole of that -multitudinous assembly, with whose aid he had hoped to regenerate France -and to save mankind. Beneath him as a host, like the dim pictures of -Martin’s Milton, rank on rank, he saw so many heads that it must have -seemed to him a nation. He remembered all his dreams of a perfect state, -of men living in equality, with no one oppressed and no one oppressing, -of a government based upon the clear will of all, and upon the civic -virtues which he had preached, till there should rise the perfect -Republic, an exemplar for all the nations. He saw that he was doomed, -and with him all his dreams. Perhaps, also, he saw the armed despotism -which he had twice prophesied coming in his place. To the last he did not -understand his folly, and he replied to the demand of Louchet, “Vote for -my death.” - -Le Bas, who had been with St. Just in the Ardennes, who had helped to -make the great army of Sambre-et-Meuse, and Robespierre the younger, -another honest man, came and did what David failed to do—they said they -would die with him, and took his hands in theirs. The Committee passed to -the vote, and the three were taken away with St. Just and with Couthon. -The scene that follows is the end of the Revolution in Paris. - -Twice at least in the course of the preceding five years Paris had risen -against the law and had removed an obstacle or a man for the sake of the -Revolution. The random Municipality of 1789 (which for all its disorder -was the parent of the puissant modern system of Communes) is an example -in point; the 2nd of June is another. Ultimately the people of Paris were -the only force on which government rested, and it was to them that the -final appeal was made. - -The Commune possessed the initiative in this matter—it was the sole -centre of Paris in theory; and now that the clubs were all in decay -(save the Jacobins), now that the great orators were exiled or dead, and -that the Sections themselves did not meet, the Commune was also the only -centre in fact. But the Commune, it will be remembered, had become a -Robespierrian thing. It determined to rise against the Convention. - -The Convention had ordered the arrest of Henriot, who was commander of -the armed force (such as it was) of the town. It sent his successor, -Hesmart to do the work. But the head of a number of pikes and guns would -not submit to a man who represented only the law, and instead of Hesmart -arresting Henriot, it was Henriot who arrested Hesmart. - -Meanwhile the other officers of the Commune displayed the same energy, -the same rapidity of execution and design which under better leaders -and for a better cause had hitherto succeeded. Lescot-Payot (the -Robespierrian mayor who had been put into the place of Pache on the -21st of Floréal), and Payan the national agent, were at the head of -the movement. They sent orders to the prisons to refuse the arrested -deputies, they gave Henriot the formal order to employ his full force and -act. They raised the Jacobins. They formed a committee of nine who were -to take over the government; they ordered the arrest of their principal -enemies in the Convention, and most important of all, they convened the -Sections. - -They had only a night to work in—the 9th Thermidor to the 10th—and -_their_ work had the energy of a fever; but the greatest factor of -all was lacking—the fever did not spread. The inertia of the people, -even their disapproval, was evident as they proceeded; the majority of -such Sections as did meet stood aloof from or condemned the cause of -Robespierre. - -While it was still just light, between eight and nine in the evening, -Robespierre, whom the keepers of the Luxemburg prison had refused, was -brought to the Mairie, and there one after the other all the arrested -deputies came, profiting by the official routine; for the Mairie was the -“right place” officially for prisoners when a difficulty arose as to -imprisonment within Paris. But official routine had a strange bedfellow -that night, for while the officials took the prisoners there, the small -band of rebels, who knew of no place more friendly, brought there also -those whom they had delivered by force. Robespierre was again with -the strongest of his friends—his brother, St. Just, Couthon; he was -surrounded by an organised and legal body, the Commune, which had risen -in his defence; they passed to the Hotel de Ville, and outside, on the -Place de Grève, there gathered between ten o’clock and eleven a fairly -large group of the National Guard. But there was no order among them, nor -any accurate knowledge among their officers as to what was to be done. -From the windows of the room where Robespierre and his companions sat, -there could be dimly seen a moving crowd of mingled citizens and guards, -discussing rather than preparing for action. - -Robespierre refused to put himself at the head of the movement; at least -it is only thus that we can explain the delay and the confusion. He was -to the last the strange mixture of lawyer and pedant and idealist. He -would not act without the legal right, for his pedantry forbade it, nor -move with an armed minority, because, judged by his theories, it would -have been a crime. Perhaps at the very last he decided to move: there -exists a document authorising a march on the Convention, and at its base -the first three letters of his name—the signature unfinished, interrupted. - -Meanwhile the Convention had found a new energy and a power of corporate -action to which it had been long a stranger—each man there was defending -his life. Legendre, with a small force, went and closed the Jacobins. -Barras was given the command of such armed men as could be gathered; the -two committees sent emissaries who appealed with success to the Sections. -The Convention was the law which had always meant so much to the people; -it was the authority of the constitution. Its majority, obeyed when it -was in lethargy, could not but be successful when it awoke. All Paris -defended it. - -At midnight one of the sudden thunder-showers which are common in the -Seine valley at that season cleared what was left of the crowd before -the Hotel de Ville. They had discussed both sides, and they had not -decided—hardly an army for rebellion; they had doubted what business they -had there, and with the rain they went home. Yet it was not till two -hours after, in the early morning, that the little band of the Convention -came into the square. They found it almost empty, with here and there a -small group standing on the wet cobble-stones, sleepy but curious. - -Bourdon and a few policemen went into the Hotel de Ville and found no -defenders. They went up to the room where the conspirators sat. - -Robespierre was on the ground with his jaw broken by a pistol-shot. - -At half-past seven in the evening of that day (the 10th Thermidor) -twenty-two of the Robespierrians were taken in three carts to the -guillotine. Robespierre himself, half-unconscious from his wound, stood -propped against the side of the cart, his head bandaged, his arms bound, -his chin upon his breast. Ropes also bound his body to the sides of the -tumbril. He passed the house where Duplay had sheltered him, and where -he had hidden himself, so as not to hear the noise of the executioners’ -carts. Now beneath him the heavy wheels were making the same sound on the -ruts of the Rue St. Honoré. At a cross-street the cart stopped to let -pass the funeral of Madame Aigué, who had killed herself the day before -from fear of Robespierre. - -As they neared the Place of the Revolution, where Louis and Danton had -suffered, probably at the turning of the Rue St. Honoré, where the -guillotine came in sight and where Danton had sung his song, a woman came -forward from the crowd—doubtless some one whom his tyranny had directly -bereaved—and struck Robespierre a blow. For sixteen hours he had not -spoken nor made a sign, but when he felt through this blow the popular -hatred, he made a gesture of contempt and of despair; he shrugged his -shoulders, but kept his innumerable thoughts within the bandages. “_De -mourir pour le peuple et d’en être abhorré_.” - - * * * * * - -Then—so the greatest of French historians tell us—France marched down a -broad road to the tomb where she has left two millions of men. - -But the armies of the great twenty years cannot be stated in the terms -of one man’s ambition, nor summed up in any of the simple formulæ which -a just hatred of Cæsarism has framed to explain them. At the root of -every battle of the Empire was the organisation and the enthusiasm of -1793. The tactics of Austerlitz and of Jena were learned in Flanders; the -enthusiasm of the Guard itself came in clear descent from the exaltation -of the Sambre-et-Meuse. - -In this book we have attempted to judge the first man of a great crisis -in relation to his time; it is still more essential that, when we -consider the after-effects of his action, a whole nation under arms -should stand in the right historical framework, its gigantic effort part -and parcel of a supreme necessity. - -We can understand, we can speak rationally, and therefore truly, of -Danton, when we show him above all loving and defending France and the -Revolutionary Thing: that same appreciation will make us follow clearly -the continuous development of his action. It is hardly too much to say -that, until Tilsit, the French had to advance or be crushed—nation, -creed, and men. - -The men and the armies must be for us the men and the armies that gave -a new vigour to Europe; the details of their action should not be the -matter of our judgment, but their relation to the whole community—its -needs, its defence, its faith. - -As the time grows greater between that period and our own, a just -proportion imposes itself. The flame which, close at hand, burnt in -a formless furnace is beginning to assume a certain shape. From a -standpoint so distant that no living memory bridges the gulf, we can -measure the light, the heat, and even the fuel of that flame. - -As to its final meaning in our society, every day makes that clearer; -and, to change the metaphor, this much becomes more and more apparent, -that through whatever crises the Western civilisation is to pass, and -whatever form its edifice will finally take, when the noise of the -building is over, the corner-stone, with its immense strength and its -precision of line, was planned by the philosophy and was hewn by the -force of the Revolution. Civilisations die, and ours was dying before -that wind swept across Europe. - -It would have been a poor excuse for leaving unremoved the rubble, the -dust, and the putrescence of the old world to have pleaded that the decay -was the action of centuries, and that old things alone were worthy of -reverence. Old things alone are worthy of reverence, but old things which -have grown old upon just and sure foundations, to which time has added -ornament and the satisfaction of harmonious colour, without destroying -the main lines, and without sapping the strength by which they live. - -The new foundations alone stand at the present day. They are crude, they -satisfy nothing in us permanently, they are very far from affording -that sentiment of content which is the first requisite of a happy -civilisation. But time will do in this case, as it has always done in -every other, the work of harmony and of completion. The final society -will not be without its innumerable complexity of detail, its humour, -and its inner life. Certainly it will not long remain a stranger to the -unseen; but it will be built upon 1793. - -Meanwhile the light grows on the origins. The personal bitterness which -the struggle produced has passed. It is a pious memory in this or that -family in France to give itself still the name of a Revolutionary -faction; but the hatred that has produced confusion in honest critics, -and that has furnished such ample material for false history, that hatred -is disappearing in France. The vendettas have ceased, and the grosser of -the calumnies are no longer heard. The history of the Revolution began -to be possible when Louis Blanc sat down to curse the upheaval that had -killed his father, and ended by producing the work which more than any -other exalted the extreme Revolutionary ideal. - -The story of that time is now like a photographic negative, which a man -fixes, washing away the white cloud from the clean detail of the film. -Point after point, then more rapidly whole spaces, stand out precise and -true. And the certitude which he feels that the underlying picture is an -accurate reminiscence of Nature comes to us also when we make out and -fix some passage in the Revolution, cleared of its mass of hearsay, of -vituperation, of ignorance, and of mere sound. - -We are beginning to see a great picture, consonant in its details, and -consecutive in its action. The necessity of reform; the light of the -ideal striking men’s minds after a long sleep, the hills first and -afterwards the plains; privilege and all the interests of the few alarmed -and militant; the menace of attack and the preparation of defence; the -opposition of extremes on either side of the frontier, growing at an -increasing speed, till at last, each opposite principle mutually exciting -the other, as armatories their magnets, from a little current of opinion -rose a force that none could resist. The governments of the whole world -were for the destruction of the French people, and the French people were -for the rooting out of everything, good and evil, which was attached, -however faintly, to the old regime. - -The rhetoricians passed in the smoke of the fire, unsubstantial, full of -words that could lead and inspire, but empty of acts that could govern -the storm. From their passing, which is as vague as a vision, we hear -faintly the “Marseillaise” of the Girondins. - -The men of action and of the crisis passed. They burnt in the heat -they themselves had kindled, but in that furnace the nation was run, -and forged, and made. Then came the armies: France grown cold from the -casting-pit, but bent upon action, and able to do. - -Wherever France went by, the Revolutionary Thing remained the legacy of -her conviction and of her power. It remains with a kind of iron laughter -for those who judge the idea as a passing madness. The philosophers have -decided upon a new philosophy; the lawyers have clearly proved that -there has been no change; the rhetoric has been thoroughly laughed down, -enthusiasm has grown ridiculous, and the men of action are cursed. But -in the wake of the French march citizens are found who own the soil and -are judged by an equal code of laws; nationalities have been welded, -patriotism has risen at the call of the new patriotic creed; Germany, -Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Italy have known themselves as something more -than the delimitations of sovereigns. Nor was there any abomination of -the old decay, its tortures, its ignominies, its privileges, its licensed -insults, or its slaveries, but she utterly stamped them out. In Germany, -in Austria, in Italy, they disappeared. Only in one dark corner they -remained—the great Northern field, where France herself grew powerless -from cold, and from whence an unknown rule and the advance of relentless -things menaces Europe now. - -But with the mention of that frozen place there comes a thought older -than all our theories—the mourning for the dead. Danton helped to make -us, and was killed: his effort has succeeded, but the tragedy remains. -The army at whose source he stood, the captain who inherited his action, -were worn out in forging a new world. And I will end this book by that -last duty of mourning, as we who hold to immortality yet break our hearts -for the dead. - -There is a legend among the peasants in Russia of a certain sombre, -mounted figure, unreal, only an outline and a cloud, that passed away to -Asia, to the east and to the north. They saw him move along their snows -through the long mysterious twilights of the northern autumn in silence, -with the head bent and the reins in the left hand loose, following some -enduring purpose, reaching towards an ancient solitude and repose. They -say it was Napoleon. After him there trailed for days the shadows of the -soldiery, vague mists bearing faintly the forms of companies of men. It -was as though the cannon-smoke of Waterloo, borne on the light west wind -of that June day, had received the spirits of twenty years of combat, -and had drifted farther and farther during the fall of the year over the -endless plains. - -But there was no voice and no order. The terrible tramp of the Guard -and the sound that Heine loved, the dance of the French drums, was -extinguished; there was no echo of their songs, for the army was of -ghosts and was defeated. They passed in the silence which we can never -pierce, and somewhere remote from men they sleep in bivouac round the -most splendid of human swords. - - - - -APPENDIX - - - - -I - -NOTE ON THE CORDELIERS - - -The spot once occupied by the Cordeliers is among the most interesting -in Paris, and it is of some importance to sketch its history and to -reconstruct its appearance at greater length than was possible in the -text. - -All the land from St. Germains des Près up northwards along the hillside -had belonged to that abbey since its foundation, when the first dynasty -of Frankish kings had endowed the foundation with a great estate carved -out of what had once been the Roman fiscal lands on the south bank. Round -the abbey itself a few houses had gathered, forming the “Faubourg” (or -suburb) of “St. Germains”; but the greater part of the estate was open -field and meadow. When Philip Augustus built his great wall round Paris -it cut through the estate, leaving the Church and Abbey of St. Germains -outside the city, but enclosing a small part of the fields within its -boundary. - -You may trace the line of the wall at this day by noting the street “Rue -de Monsieur le Prince,” once called “Rue des Fossés Monsieur le Prince,” -and running on the line of the outer ditch. The wall ran not twenty yards -east of the modern street and exactly parallel to it. A portion of it -may yet be seen in that neighbourhood, a great hollow round built into -the wall of one of the houses, a cobbler’s shop in the Cour du Commerce; -it is one (the last, I believe) of the half-towers which flanked Philip -Augustus’s wall. - -In the beginning of the thirteenth century, very shortly after the -death of St. Francis, the first preachers of the new Order which he -had founded came to Paris. It was the moment when the University was -climbing up the hill, building its colleges, having possessed its -charter for some years, and already a strong, organised, wealthy, -and therefore conservative body. This order of preachers, wandering, -intensely new, and founded by a mystic whose place in Christendom was -not yet finally determined, were bound to come into collision with the -spirit of the place. It must be remembered that the thirteenth century -was not transitional, but, on the contrary, a time of settled order. -For a century it had known the Roman law; it had everywhere the Gothic -architecture; it had systemised and made legal the rough accidents of -feudal custom; it was wealthy, proud, and successful. On it there falls -one of those creations which are only possible in a time of energy, and -yet which almost invariably quarrel with the period that has produced -them. An Order devoted to simplicity, making of holy poverty the -foundation of the inner life, specially created for the poor (whom the -growing differentiation of society was beginning to debase), the early -Franciscans were essentially revolutionary, because they built on the -great foundations of all active and permanent reform—I mean the appetite -for primitive conditions, and the determination to break through the net -of complexity which the long growths of time weave about a conservative -society. - -The rich Abbey of St. Germains gave them asylum. It was proud to possess -dependants, it was great enough to afford benevolent experiments, and it -took pleasure in offending the University, which was an upstart in its -eyes, and was beginning to show as a powerful rival in the affairs of the -south side of Paris. The Franciscans, therefore—whom the populace already -called the “Cordeliers” from the girdle of rope about their habit—were -permitted to settle in that little corner of their estate which had been -cut off by the building of the town wall, and they occupied a triangle of -which the wall formed the south-western, a lane (afterwards called “Rue -des Cordeliers”) the northern, and an irregular line bounding one of the -University estates the south-eastern side. - -This was in 1230. St. Louis was still a boy of fifteen. The little -foundation was, for the University, nothing but an unwelcome neighbour -whom it could not oust, and for the Abbey of St. Germains nothing but a -guest. Their provisional tenure did not permit them a peal of bells nor a -public cemetery. - -St. Louis, however, grew into a manhood which, for all its piety, had -a wonderful grasp of the society around it. The saint who was never -clerical, and the Capetian who in all things was rather for the spirit -than the letter, became their principal support. The Papacy, having once -(though reluctantly) recognised the Franciscan movement in the interview -between Innocent III. and its founder, continued in the succeeding -generation to protect it. From a distance, where the quarrels of the -University affected it little, the Holy See decided more than one dispute -in favour of the new-comers, and the Franciscans of Paris flourished -exceedingly. By 1240 the full privileges of an independent foundation -were granted. They have their public service, their cemetery, and their -bells. St. Louis helps them to build a new chapel by giving them, in -1267, part of the great fine which he levied on Enguerrand de Coucy. They -succeed at last in obtaining the recognition of the University; they are -permitted to teach; they number among their lecturers Duns Scotus and St. -Bonaventure; and they become one of the most famous of the colleges. - -During the Middle Ages (apart from certain minor structures and a few -private houses which had been permitted to rise on their land, and which -were technically known as the “dépendances”), three principal groups of -buildings marked the foundations. First, the monastery itself, a somewhat -irregular mass, running (as a whole) north and south, and separated from -the Rue des Cordeliers by a little court or garden. Secondly, running -from the northern end of this convent, and forming, as it were, a letter -L with the main building, was the chapel, lying, of course, east and -west, and forming the southern side of the Rue des Cordeliers, upon -which was the principal porch. Thirdly, running also east and west, but -separated from the other buildings by a short space, was the hall. - -This famous monument, the only part of the college that has been -preserved, stood well back from the street, and in the middle of the -convent grounds. It was on the eastern side of the monastery, and hence -in the ground plan balanced (so to speak) the church, which lay to the -west of that main building; this was so designed that its western end -faced about the middle of the college. - -I have called it a hall because its use exactly corresponded to that of -our college halls in the English universities. I mean, it was at once a -refectory and lecture-room. It was approached by a little lane running up -through the grounds under the side of the convent, later hemmed in with -houses. - -Here not only were the voices of the great scholars heard and the -subtleties of the fourteenth century, but also Etienne Marcel called the -States General of 1357. From hence that Danton of the mediæval invasion -sent out his messengers to the Feudality. Here the District gathered for -the elections of 1789; here the Club met in 1791 and urged the debate -that finally produced the Republic of the next year. It was here also -that the three watchwords of the Republic were devised; here Hérbert -veiled the Declaration; and here the last few words of 1794 were spoken. -Here the century, which owes more perhaps to that site than to any place -in France, has collected a museum of surgery, where you may see anomalies -preserved in spirits, skeletons hung on wires, and other objects, -interesting rather than sublime. - -As for the college and its estate, they continued for some three -hundred years—that is, during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth -centuries—to increase in importance. It is a matter of common knowledge -how soon the pure ideals of St. Francis had to compromise with the world. -This Order, like all others, became wealthy, rooted, and traditional. The -Cordeliers, as Paris grew, found themselves possessed of a most valuable -plot, whose ground-value continually increased. They reserved the garden -to the west, but for the rest—and especially around the buildings and -along the lanes—houses were built. When the wall of Philip Augustus -was first embedded by the growth of the city, and afterwards in part -destroyed, the Cordeliers bought an extension to their estate, so that -it stretched a little beyond the new street of “the Fossés,” which had -been built on the site of the ditch. In 1580 their old thirteenth-century -chapel (which must have been one of the best bits of early Gothic in -Paris) was burnt down, and a larger one in the style of the time was -put up by the piety of Henry IV. Throughout the seventeenth century the -house seems to have suffered from a decay which continued throughout -the succeeding hundred years, and culminated in the disasters of the -Revolutionary period. They permitted the alienation of a strip to the -west of their grounds, through which the municipality drove in 1673 -the new street which, in compliment to the Order, they called “Rue de -l’Observance,” after the name of their rule. - -With this exception no important change occurred to change the aspect of -the quarter until the Revolutionary period with which we have to deal. - - * * * * * - -We are, after this general description, in a position to recognise the -site of the Cordeliers in modern Paris. As you go down the Boulevard St. -Germains, just before you reach the Boulevard St. Michel (going east), -you see a street leading off at a slight angle to the right. It is the -Rue de l’École de Médecine, the college after which it is named facing -both on this street and on the Boulevard. This street is merely the Rue -des Cordeliers broadened and modernised. As you go a few yards up this -street, you see on your left the great court of the college, and if you -stand at its gate and look at the opposite side of the street, at the new -buildings which are now the lecture-rooms and theatres of the Faculty, -you are looking at the site of the old church, which has disappeared -during this century. The street has been broadened by taking down the -southern side, so that the church would actually have overlapped the -modern street. Continuing, you pass on your right the open yard leading -up to what was the hall of the Cordeliers, and is now the museum of -surgery (the Musée Dupuytren), and a few yards farther brings you into -the Boulevard St. Michel. Following this very broad avenue for twenty -yards at the most, you may note a new street, the “Rue Racine,” turning -off to the right. This did not exist in Danton’s time, but it lies -_nearly_ on the line that separated the Cordeliers from the Collège -d’Harcourt (at present the Lycée St. Louis). As a fact, the line was a -trifle to the south of the Rue Racine, and of course more irregular. -The Rue Racine in its turn leads you into that old street the “Rue de -Monsieur le Prince.” If you turn again to the right and go down this some -hundred yards, you are still following the boundary of the Cordeliers, -till you reach the “Rue Antoine Dubois.” This is identical with the -old “Rue de l’Observance,” spoken of above, and a few steps down this -short street leads you to the starting-point in the “Rue de l’École de -Médecine.” Such a modern itinerary would describe as nearly as is now -possible the circumference of the college and estate of the Cordeliers. -The quadrilateral comprised by these four streets, the Rue de l’École de -Médecine, the Rue Racine, the Rue M. de le Prince, and the Rue Antoine -Dubois, is the site of the famous convent and its grounds. - -To reproduce the quarter in 1788 we have to imagine the following -changes:—The Rue de l’École de Médecine, very narrow, flanked for the -greater part of its southern side with the church and old wall of the -convent. It leads into a little narrow street called the “Rue de la -Harpe,” which went right up the hill, and would correspond to a strip -taken in the exact centre of the present Boulevard St. Michel. The -first few buildings here, notably the Church of St. Come, were still -on the Cordeliers’ estate. Just above them, however, began the grounds -and buildings of the “College d’Harcourt.” As we have observed, the -Rue Racine did not exist, nor anything corresponding to it. To follow -the boundaries of the estate you would have had to let yourself in by -a side-door, and then you might have followed a long, irregular wall -which separated their land from the College d’Harcourt. This wall, after -passing through a great garden, came out on the Rue Monsieur le Prince, -and the rest of one’s circuit would be much what it is to-day. - -Finally, to see the building as Danton saw it, you must imagine a -half-deserted place, rich, but somewhat unfrequented, like certain old -legal Inns that once stood in London, old walls appearing here and there -from between houses of a century’s date; a mass of irregular buildings, -of garden and of private house hopelessly intermingled; while up a narrow -and dark passage stood the Hall, which was still the best preserved part -of the college, and with which alone his name is associated. - - - - -II - -NOTE ON CERTAIN SITES MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK - - -It may be of interest to those who desire to study with some -particularity the personal history of Danton to know where are to be -found in modern Paris the places with which we have found him personally -connected in this book. - -His first offices were in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles. This street has -disappeared in the improvements which included the prolongation of the -Rue de Rivoli. This office in the Rue des Mauvaises Paroles occupied -almost exactly the same spot, which can be recognised to-day in the -following manner. As you go along the northern side of the Rue de Rivoli -going east, you come to a point 500 yards or so from the Louvre, from -whence you begin to see the Tour St. Jacques just peering round the -southern side of the street. The shops which are then upon your left -hand and the pavement upon which you stand correspond to the position of -the old mansard house in which Danton served his apprenticeship. It was -here that he had his first offices; it was from this that he bought the -business of Monsieur M. de Paisy in the Rue de la Tissanderie. - -Concerning the position of these offices in the Rue de la Tissanderie, -which he moved into, I have been able to learn nothing. There is a -curious little record in the police archives of Paris—Danton complaining -that he could not work on account of the noise that a saddle-maker made -in the exercise of his trade in the same house. In this little document, -which is quoted by Monsieur Clarétie in his “Life of Camille Desmoulins,” -the house is mentioned as being “just opposite the Rue des Deux Portes”; -but as an inference to be drawn from the same record is that he left -immediately after for some other lodging in the same street, this does -not help us much. - -I have said in the text that Danton lived, during the six years which -were those of his active political life, in a house of the Passage du -Commerce. I have also mentioned in the text the fact that Dr. Robinet -mentions a short residence in the Rue des Fossés Saint Germains. I have -given, moreover, in the same passage my reasons for following M. Aulard -in rejecting this first address. It seems proved that, after he left -the Rue de la Tissanderie, he moved with his wife to the corner house -of the Passage du Commerce. This was his home during the whole of the -Revolution, and it is worth while to describe its position and character -with some care. - -In the first place, it has disappeared; the construction of the Boulevard -St. Germains destroyed all that end of the Cour du Commerce. If you -are going along the Boulevard St. Germains from the west towards the -University, you pass on the right the statue of Danton. It is erected on -an open triangle of ground, formed by the junction of the Boulevard and -of the Rue de l’École de Médecine. The apex of this triangle, not twenty -yards from the statue, marks the site of the old house in which Danton -and Desmoulins lived, and in which they were arrested before their trial. - -The old quarter was a network of narrow streets, and where the Boulevard -St. Germain now stands, an intricate block of houses, with courtyards and -passages, not unlike the similar intricate masses which you will find in -the City of London, formed the northern side of the Rue des Cordeliers -(that is to say, the modern Rue de l’École de Médecine). A narrow alley, -known as the Cour de Commerce, joined this Rue des Cordeliers by a still -narrower passage. Danton’s house was the corner house, as is proved by -the mention in the inventory that some rooms looked upon this passage and -some upon the Rue des Cordeliers. - -Of course he did not occupy the whole of it, but, in the Parisian custom, -which had already obtained for more than a century, he took a flat, and -two rooms (used as a lumber and as a servant’s bedroom) were added from -the entresole below. This flat was just such an apartment as a similar -bourgeois householder would have in Paris to-day: a dining-room, two -bedrooms, a study, a little library, a drawing-room, a kitchen, and -offices, built round the staircase and courtyard or well of the house. - -I have been unable to find any mention of the rental which was paid, but -a guess at something like £150 a year in that quarter at that time for -such a flat would, I think, not be extravagant. The corresponding flat -above, Desmoulins took after his romantic marriage in December 1790, -but he did not begin to occupy the house until the early part of 1791. -It was here that his little Horace was born; it was here that his wife -and Danton’s passed the terrible night of the 10th of August, and it -was here, in the great bedroom overlooking the Rue des Cordeliers, that -Danton’s wife died in February 1793. - -As to the furniture of the little apartment, it may be described as -follows:—The drawing-room was not very large, but there had been spent -upon it the most considerable sum in the furnishing of the house. It -figures for very nearly a third in the valuation, which may be read in -Appendix VII. The white furniture, which was the mark of the eighteenth -century, was its principal note; it is also worth observing that the -household was sufficiently cramped for room to use the cupboards in the -drawing-room as wardrobes. The principal bedroom was well furnished, but, -as you will find to be the case in such houses in Paris, the study, the -dining-room, and the spare room to the side of the study were very bare. -It is also remarkable that the lumber-room held nothing but two trunks -and an old double bedstead. It was the household of a man who made every -effort to maintain his position before his wife’s friends, but who was -not wealthy, and who had evidently arranged the scale of his expenditure -considerably below the probable receipts which an office such as his -would have brought in. I should much doubt whether as much as £500 a year -would go out on such an establishment, though he was certainly receiving -£1000. We know the reason of this; he had to pay off by every means in -his power the debt which he had incurred in buying the practice. While -he lived in this house, and until the office was suppressed in 1790, he -continued to keep his business rooms in the Rue de la Tissanderie. It may -be worthy of mention that he kept two servants, and that his apartment -was on the first, whilst that of Desmoulins was on the second floor of -the house. - -As to the Cordeliers, on which the preceding note is written, the hall in -which their meetings were first held still exists (as we have said in the -text) under the title of Musée Dupuytren. The Church of the Cordeliers, -into which they afterwards moved, has disappeared, but the last locale -of the club (when the Municipality had turned them out of the church in -1791) still remains, and is to be discovered at No. 105 Rue Thionville. -Danton’s father-in-law had been master of a café on the Quai de l’École. -This house still remains. If I am not mistaken, it was altered slightly -during the restorations of the Second Empire. It is the house which now -stands at the south-western corner of the Place de l’École, and which -faces the quai on one side and the square on the other. The street and -quay outside M. Charpentier’s café was, however, somewhat oblique to -the modern street, and ran less east than west, more south-east than -north-west, than it does to-day. - -The quay has been raised and the old fountain in the Place de l’École -destroyed. Otherwise the quarter is much the same. The café became famous -later for its draught players, a reputation that still continues. - - - - -III - -NOTE ON THE SUPPOSED VENALITY OF DANTON - - -I will not go in this note into any of the general considerations which -have led the greater part of modern historians to reject the legend of -Danton’s venality. These general considerations are by far the strongest -arguments upon which we can rely in this matter, but I trust that the -character which I have attempted to draw in the text of the book will -furnish them in sufficiency. - -Neither do I desire to insist in this note upon the unquestionable value -of the two principal modern authorities in England and in France (Mr. -Morse Stephens and M. Aulard), who both of them regard the question as -finally settled in Danton’s favour. I have insisted sufficiently upon -this in the text. What I shall attempt to do is to quote the contemporary -accusations, to determine how much reliance can be placed upon them, to -show their character, and to describe in what way and to what extent they -are explained by documents which have since come to light. - - * * * * * - -First of all, a list of those contemporaries who took his venality for -certain. It is very formidable. - -Mirabeau (letter to Lamarck, Thursday, 10th March 1791).—... “Montmorin -has told me ... of particular schemes ... for instance, that Beaumetz and -... D’Andrée dined yesterday alone and got Danton’s confidence ... and -then proposed to demolish Vincennes in order to make themselves popular. -Danton got 30,000 livres yesterday, and I have the proof that Danton -inspired the last number of Desmoulins’ paper.... If it is possible I -intend to risk 6000 livres, but at any rate they will be more innocently -distributed than the 30,000 livres of Danton.” Here is a categorical -statement in which a man says what the court had often said (and Mirabeau -was then an agent of the court), “I have managed Danton at such and such -a price,” and the passage gives us indirectly the name of Montmorin. The -date should be noted. - -Bertrand de Molleville, a far less practical and a far less careful -man than Mirabeau, also a singularly untrustworthy authority, has the -following:—Memoirs Particuliers, i. 354.—“By the hands of this man -Durand, under the ministry of De Montmorin, Danton received more than -50,000 francs to propose certain motions of the Jacobins. He was fairly -faithful in keeping this contract, but stipulated that he should be left -free as to the means he employed.” ... Again ... “In the first debates -upon the king’s trial the infamous Danton, whose services had been so -dearly paid _out of the Civil List_, was one of those who displayed the -greatest violence. I was the more alarmed as this scoundrel was at the -moment (Autumn 1792) a most powerful and dangerous man in the Assembly. -The ardent zeal which I felt for the safety of the king, and which would -have made me think all means legitimate, suggested this means against -Danton to neutralise the rage of the monster; and though the method I -took required a lie, I did not hesitate to employ it without the least -scruple. I wrote to him on the 11th December:—‘I must not leave you -ignorant, Sir, of the fact that I have found in the papers of the late -Monsieur Montmorin notes of the dates of the sums which have been paid -out of the secret service money, including a receipt in your handwriting. -Hitherto I have made no use of this document, but I warn you that I have -enclosed them in a letter which I am writing to the President of the -Convention, and I will have them printed and placarded on the corners -of the streets if you do not conduct yourself well in the trial of the -king.’ As a fact, Montmorin had shown me these papers a year before, -though he had not given them to me. But Danton knew they existed, and -knew how intimate had been my relations with Montmorin. He did not reply -to the letter, but I saw in the published prints that he had got himself -named deputy in a mission to the army of the North. He only returned at -the end of the king’s trial, and contented himself with voting for death -without giving any opinion.” (Particular Memoirs, ii. 288-291.) I would -have the reader to specially mark this extract, to which I shall return -at the end of my note, as it can be easily proved by internal evidence to -be a falsehood. It is, indeed, of more value to any one who desires to -write a life of Bertrand himself, than it is to one who is writing the -life of Danton. - -Thirdly, Lafayette says (Memoirs, iii. 83-85): “Danton, whose receipt -for 100,000 francs was in the hands of Montmorin, asked for Lafayette’s -head; that was running a great risk, but he depended on the discretion of -Lafayette and on his keeping a secret. For Lafayette to have spoken would -have been to have signed the death-warrant of Montmorin, who had paid -Danton in order to moderate his anarchic fury.” And again (iv. 328-330), -he says of Danton: “He was a vulgar tribune and incapable of turning -the masses from evil by persuasion or by respect, but he knew how to -flatter their passions, &c. &c.... I knew him from the first week of the -Revolution in the district of Cordeliers, whither I had been attracted. -After the 6th October he took money from Montmorin, whom he caused in -consequence to be assassinated on the 2nd September. In connection with -this secret he said to me once, ‘General, I know you do not know me, I am -more of a Monarchist than you.’... I have learnt since from the person -to whom Madame Elizabeth told it that he had received, about the 10th -August, a considerable sum to give the movement a direction in the king’s -favour, and, indeed, he got the royal family sent to the Temple. He said -to a friend of the king, ‘It is I who will save him or kill him.’” - -Fourthly, there is Brissot (iv. 193-194). “Among the stipendiaries of -Orleans was ... Danton. I have seen the receipt for 500,000 francs which -were paid him by Montmorin. He was sold to the court in order to thrust -the Revolution into the excesses which would make it odious to the great -bulk of Frenchmen.” - -Fifthly, Madame Roland (who has so much to say against a character -so profoundly antipathetic to her) has this special passage on his -corruption (Dauban’s edition, 1864, pp. 254-255): “He went to Belgium to -augment his wealth, and dared to admit a fortune of 1,400,000 francs, to -assume luxury,” &c. &c. - -Sixthly (if it is worth quoting), among the papers that Robespierre -left, in the notes that formed the basis of St. Just’s report, are the -words—“Danton owed an obligation to Mirabeau; it was Mirabeau who got him -repaid the price of his practice. It has even been said that he was paid -twice. I heard him admit to Fabre certain thefts of shoes belonging to -the army.” - -Such are the contemporary accusations. There are the following points to -be noted with regard to them. No one says that he himself paid money; -the sums of money are very various. They are paid, according to some, -on a few definite occasions; according to others, upon all occasions. -Finally, every accusation that has any definite basis at all pivots round -the name of Montmorin. “Montmorin held the receipt,” “Montmorin told me,” -and so forth. Now, if we remember that Montmorin held the receipt for a -legitimate and open reimbursement (see Appendix VI.), and then compare -the accusations with what we know of the men and of the time, if we then -proceed to check these merely general conclusions by matters of absolute -knowledge drawn from the valuations upon Danton’s estate at various -moments of his life, we shall agree with the more modern authorities who -have worked with the documents before them, that Danton is innocent of -actions to the charge of which his uncertain temper and his lack of solid -social surroundings laid him open. - -In the first place, let us consider the words of the accusations which -appear above, and which include all those of any importance. - -That of Mirabeau is what you would expect from such a man; it is quiet, -contemptuous, treating of Danton as something on the very last level -of the time. But if we take the specific accusation and separate it -from all general points of view, we find this much: that Montmorin has -been talking to him with regard to what “those fellows” were doing. “In -connection with this,” says Mirabeau, “Danton got 30,000 yesterday” to -work such and such a political move. The grave feature in the quotation -is the way in which Mirabeau, who understood men and who had a good grasp -of Paris, treats Danton’s venality as being something well known, gives -a particular example of it, and passes at once to other things. But the -specific accusation is hearsay from Montmorin, and, as I have said, it is -always Montmorin’s name which crops up when this gossip is on foot. - -I would, therefore, sum up the value of Mirabeau’s accusation somewhat -as follows:—If we could prove that Danton was a spendthrift, and that -large sums of money passed through his hands for his personal pleasures, -then Mirabeau’s chance remark, while it would be worthless in a court -of law, ought to have some small weight before history. Mirabeau was (on -a higher plane) a _bon viveur_ such as Danton was reputed to be, and the -circles in which the men moved touched each other especially in the point -of their good living; but if we can find that Danton did not, as a fact, -spend nor invest great sums of money, then the accusation is simply a -common error based upon a remark of Montmorin’s, suited to the current -impression of Danton’s character, but disproved by the known facts of -Danton’s life. - -Bertrand de Molleville’s accusation is of particular value to any one who -is concerned, as I am, in attempting to get to the truth in this matter. -It is the only one which is perfectly categorical and detailed. In -proportion as it is categorical and detailed it is untrue. If you wish to -know whether a man has committed a certain crime, and you hear a number -of witnesses against him, one of whom only gives careful evidence with -dates, details, and so forth, and if you can then prove that this witness -has lied upon all the points which supported his principal accusation, -you are in a fair way to winning your case. - -De Molleville begins by making the sum 500,000 francs. It seems enormous. -It is a sum which no man could receive and spend in a few days’ debauch -without attracting the attention of the whole city, which no man could -invest without leaving some obvious accession of property, and he puts -the receipt of this sum as coming under Montmorin’s ministry—that is, at -a time when public order was secured, when the course of the registries, -the transmission of property and so forth, were in the fullest light. - -He gives the name of the man who handed him the sum, and calls him -Durand. On this point it is impossible to say yes or no, but we can -say with absolute certitude that the incident of the letter upon which -Bertrand de Molleville makes the whole matter turn, is an untruth added -to an untruth. In the first place, he makes Danton “violent in his -demands against the king.” This accusation is absolutely false. - -When the trial of the king was mooted, Danton did speak (notably on -the 6th of September), with some decision in favour of the king’s -being brought to trial upon particular points. He expressed himself in -that speech with very great energy upon this particular feature of the -trial, that the king merited condemnation because he had obviously and -openly betrayed the nation,—a thing which nobody doubted, which nobody -denied, and which Louis himself and his advisers would simply have met -by saying (at a later epoch of course), “We called in the foreigner as a -necessary police in the time of anarchy; we desired to save France by its -betrayal.” So far, however, from Danton being a leader of the attack on -Louis or of the demand for his trial, that attack and that demand were -as spontaneous as anything the Convention ever did; and Danton followed -rather than led, as a glance at the _Moniteur_ can prove. - -In the much more important debates wherein the life of Louis was first -implicitly and then explicitly at stake, Danton was absent, and in the -days of November there is no question at all but that Danton’s one -preoccupation was to reconcile the Mountain with the Girondins. - -De Molleville goes on to give his letter a date—such things are done -on purpose, as a rule, in order to give a special character of legal -evidence to one’s accusations. He says that he wrote the letter on the -11th of December, that Danton on receiving the letter was frightened, and -without replying to it got himself put upon the mission to the army of -the North. - -Now Danton left for the army of the North on the 1st of December, and if -the letter was written at all (which I doubt), it was written at a time -when Danton, being absent, could not possibly have acted as De Molleville -said he did. He could not have “asked” to go on a mission (he did not -ask, but was sent), and have started on the 1st in consequence of a -letter written on the 11th. - -Finally, De Molleville says he came back to vote on the punishment of the -king, but had been coerced by the letter into merely voting for death -without giving his opinion. This again is a lie. If there is anything -remarkable to the historian in the vote Danton gave on the 16th January -1793, and in the speech which he made before his vote, it is that he, -by nature so wary, should have discovered in this crisis a violent -manifestation of opinion and motive. I have amply shown in the text that -we could only reconcile those abnormal days in Danton’s life by some -extreme shock to the emotions. Some represent him as suffering a violent -rebuff from his political opponents; some consider the scene of misery -and impending death which he found in his home on returning from his long -journey. He demanded a simple majority vote; he spoke violently against -the appeal to the people; and when he voted for the death of the king -he turned to the Right and said, “I am not a statesman; I am not one of -those who are ignorant of the duty of not compromising with tyrants, and -who do not know that kings can only be struck on the head, who do not -know that we can expect nothing from the kings of Europe save by force -and by arms. I vote for the death of the tyrant.” - -If these are the words, and if that is the action of a man terrorised by -a letter into a silent and furtive vote, then evidence has no meaning. - -De Molleville, I think, can in this, as in nearly all his historical -evidence (with the exception of that which turns upon the personal habits -of the king, where he has the details of a valet), be dismissed. - -With Lafayette, again, we have that half-truth and half-lie which runs -through all his accusations. “The receipt for 100,000 francs was in the -hands of Montmorin.” This was true. The sum was not quite 100,000, it was -61,000 (Appendix VI.); but the receipt did exist, and to any one who did -not know that all the men occupying positions on the Council had been -reimbursed, it might look like a receipt for a bribe, or might be twisted -into meaning such. It is impossible for us to discover whether Lafayette -meant to tell an untruth, as we can prove De Molleville did; he may in -this matter have been perfectly loyal, for there was a note found among -his papers after his death (Memoirs, iii. 84-85), saying that “a position -on the Councils was only worth 10,000, and had been reimbursed at 100,000 -as a bribe.” We now know from the discovery of so many receipts that from -60,000 to 80,000 was the regular price of reimbursements, but Lafayette -might easily have been ignorant of this, and have jumped to a false -conclusion. - -As to his mention of Madame Elizabeth’s having told the man who told him -that Danton had been paid before the 10th August, the old man’s memory is -certainly turning to the remark which many witnesses heard from the lips -of that saintly woman just before the attack on the Tuilleries, when she -said with simplicity (she knew nothing at all of the characters of the -Revolution save what she might hear from the courtiers), “Well, we can -count on Danton; he has been paid.” That is not evidence. If Danton was -paid to make the 10th of August turn in favour of the monarchy, and if, -as Lafayette hints, he had attempted to make it so turn, he certainly -took the most extraordinary way of defending his employers. One might as -well say that Lord Chatham’s principal object in the taking of Quebec -was the defence of the French power in Canada. For the 10th of August -was openly and directly an attack upon the ancient crown of France, to -overthrow it and to substitute in its place a new regime, and Danton -worked at it as indefatigably as a general before a battle would work. - -The remark, “General, I am more monarchist than you,” reads to me like -truth; it is exactly what Danton would have said. He despised Lafayette -as much as any one man can despise another. He believed right up to the -moment of the war that the existing fact of the monarchy was worth all -the theories in the world as a nucleus for the new regime, and he saw -the emptiness of Lafayette’s vanity. He may quite probably have met -it upon some occasion as direct as that which Lafayette has given us, -and Lafayette, in the abundance of his folly, may quite easily have -misunderstood the meaning of his criticism. - -Brissot is an admirable example of how the false rumours arose. He says: -“I have myself seen the receipts which Montmorin held from Danton.” - -Now, as we have seen, that receipt (to any one who did not know the -details of the transaction) might quite honestly appear a damning piece -of evidence, and it is without question the document round which the -great mass of accusations have been built. - -As to Madame Roland, I cannot imagine what flight of feminine inaccuracy -made her put down a fortune of £60,000 to her enemy’s name. If a witness -in any other circumstances than revolution should tell one that a young -lawyer and politician had secretly and suddenly become possessed of this -sum, he would be reputed mad. In such a time, however, anything seems -possible to an enemy, and we must rely upon the simple fact that Danton -can be definitely proved neither to have spent, invested, nor left a -tenth of such a sum. It seems to me that this accusation of Madame -Roland’s is on a par with that other extreme remark that she had known -“the Dantons living on 16s. a week, which they borrowed regularly from -their father-in-law,” and this “at the opening of the Revolution,” a time -when we know him positively to have been defending cases involving half -a million pounds in the issue of the trial, and when we know him to have -had for clients some of the richest men in France. - -Now, the papers that prove Danton’s financial position are quite simple. -He was cut off suddenly; they were all seized, and they all remain. -Unless he spent huge sums in debauch (sums like those of Orleans), or -unless he buried the money, he cannot have received much more than -what openly appears. He entered his married life with a debt of £2500 -secured on his office. He enjoyed a good practice for four years; he was -reimbursed to somewhat less than the value of his office, and on his -death the sum sequestrated by the State, and later refunded to his sons, -tallies with this small fortune. - - - - -IV - -NOTE ON DANTON’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MASSACRES OF SEPTEMBER - - -The arguments for and against Danton’s responsibility in this matter must -necessarily be of a more general order than those which can be advanced -for and against his character in regard to money matters. There are but -one or two really definite facts upon either side, and, as the purport -of these notes is to deal with actualities, I will treat of these known -facts only. - -In the first place, it must be clearly understood that Danton did not -shrink from, and was not unsympathetic with, the extreme measures of -the Revolution. His position with regard to them is perfectly clear -in history, and is simply this—his violence was persuaded that an -exceptional time required, almost as a method of government, the most -exceptional terrors. - -But, on the other hand, Danton was a man to whom not only a useless -massacre but a useless anything was detestable. Death in itself, the -infliction of death on others, even the death to which he himself was -led, never seemed to him a matter of vast moment. It is a common fault -in courageous men to have this disregard for the life of others and of -oneself, but I deny that you will ever discover Danton causing the death -of a single human being unless it is in the furtherance of his policy. - -In the second place, consider what is actually known to have proceeded -from his mouth. (1) Quite early in the Revolution (in June 1791) he -demanded the head of Lafayette, and he probably meant it; (2) he boasted -of, or confessed to, being the author of Mandat’s death; (3) in the -course of speeches which led up to the establishment of the Revolutionary -tribunal he speaks in favour of the extreme penalties and of the terror -that they would inspire, always as a means to an end, and as a means -to be employed without hesitation. Let me quote but one sentence from -the speech of the 10th March 1793 to illustrate what I mean:—“I feel to -what a degree it is necessary to take judicial measures by which we may -punish the counter-revolutionaries. This tribunal should be erected in -order to replace for them the supreme tribunal of popular vengeance. It -is very difficult to define a political crime, but if a man of the common -people for his sort of misdeed gets punished at once, is it not necessary -that extreme laws, something out of the common running of our social -machinery, should be passed to terrify rebels and to strike the guilty? -In this matter the safety of the people demands from you extreme methods -and the measures of terror.” - -Finally, we know that Danton was, on the whole, the guide of that earlier -part of the Terror between May and August 1793, in which (as he thought) -the system was doing necessary work without which the nation could not -have been saved. - -Now, let us set against these what we definitely know of Danton’s -character which would lead us to a conclusion that he would not have -countenanced massacre. - -No one questions the fact that the leading motive in Danton’s mind was -the establishment of a strong government around or in the place of a -weak monarchy. He was a true descendant of the lawyers of the Code. -The massacres of September took place at a moment when he was using -the whole of his personal energy in trying as well as may be to supply -that Government. He guides the ministry in Paris; he dominates Roland -as a man might dominate a woman. It was of supreme importance to such a -scheme that the thin ice between government and anarchy in the days that -preceded Valmy should not be broken. The massacre of September broke it; -there was a week of anarchy in Paris. There is the first great argument -against Danton’s complicity with the massacres. - -It must, however, be remembered that a theory exists, by no means -untenable, which would make Danton argue something in this fashion: -“Once let the popular fury have full rein against what it regards as the -internal enemy, and I shall have the disappearance of that disturbing -factor of royalist reaction in Paris, while on the part of the mob I -shall have the lassitude and shame that follow excess; they are not -difficult to govern.” It is only a personal opinion, but it seems to me -that in a mind of Danton’s type, downright and practical to excess, such -a far-reaching and subtle idea as the last would hardly occur, and that -the massacres must have produced on him an especial annoyance, because -they were the breakdown of a system the support of which occupied his -every effort. - -Secondly, Danton’s allusions to the massacres of September were always of -a more definite and more reasonable nature than those of his colleagues. -The attitude which he adopts with regard to them after their occurrence -is this: “There was no public force, none of that disciplined government -which I postulate as the first necessity of the Revolution; nothing on -earth could prevent them, and they occurred in spite of every governing -power.” So much for generalities. - -Now let us turn to one or two points which have been made the basis of a -definite accusation against Danton in this matter. - -Firstly: that he knew that the massacres were coming, and withdrew from -prison more than one of his friends on the eve of the uprising. This I -take to be true, or rather I am certain of it; but one would have to -be very ignorant of the time not to know that all Paris expected the -massacres, and that those who were at all in touch with the Commune knew -two or three days before that anything illegal might be done. To have -worked to prevent them, in which Danton might have employed his energy, -would, as I have said in the text, have been to risk that which he most -desired, and to risk it for the sake of saving the prisoners. Certainly -he did not desire to save them as passionately as he desired to remain at -the helm and build up a government; he preferred to keep his influence -over the city. That accusation is just. - -Secondly, it is affirmed with justice that Danton, from the peculiar -position of the ministry which he occupied, filled the prisons, -which were afterwards gutted. It is true that on Danton, as Minister -of Justice, and above all as a general power in the Cabinet, the -responsibility of arresting the prisoners rests; but was this action -taken with a knowledge of what the consequences would be nearly a month -later? Certainly not. It would show a complete ignorance of what happened -in the last fortnight of August to say that an action taken just after -the 10th was taken with a view to something that would occur on the 2nd -of September. The state of public feeling in those four weeks went -through a most violent crisis, and one might say that the intensity of -the feeling against the Royalists and the foreigners was not only a -hundred-fold greater when Verdun was actually falling than it had been -just after the success against the Tuilleries, but different in quality -as well. - -Thirdly, there is one detailed accusation—the circular which Marat -sent out to the Departments. If it can be proved that this circular -was approved of, that its distribution was aided by Danton, then we -shall have a definite piece of evidence which cannot be overridden. Now -let me describe what that circular was, and see how far we must blame -circumstances, how far the carelessness, and how far the deliberate act -of the minister. All the accounts are much the same. Madame Roland says, -“Sent out above the signature of the Minister of Justice.” Bertrand de -Molleville is also perfectly definite (Memoirs, ix. 310)—“Sent by the -minister Danton.” - -The examination of the documents seventy years later has given more -accurate results to history than the memoirs of contemporaries, whether -they are truthful and enthusiastic like Madame Roland, or frankly -dishonest like Bertrand de Molleville. Bougeart was at the pains of -looking up the original documents at the archives of the police. -What appears in this document (Bougeart, pp. 121-122) is a series -of signatures, Panis, Sergent, Marat, &c., that is, the Committee -of Surveillance appointed by the Commune. There is no trace of any -ministerial signature, and even the stamp which was used in the office -by the clerks for everything that passed officially through the Ministry -of Justice is not attached to the sheet. What did happen was this. -The circulars were sent out in envelopes which bore the official mark -of the Ministry. It is as though some act of a body in London, let us -say, should be distributed to the provinces in the blue envelopes of -Her Majesty’s Service. That is all, either for or against Danton, that -remains of the incident of the circular. - -Now it is certain that Danton had not at that time openly broken with -Marat. Moreover, Danton had not actually quarrelled with the Commune, -though he certainly treated it with contempt. But Danton had no -conceivable object in helping Marat to distribute the circulars unless -he himself was openly on Marat’s side. A man of his character would -either have signed, or else, had he known that the circulars were going -out, he would have forbidden their distribution; he would have taken some -definite line. Why? Because the distribution of the circular was bound to -condemn him to a very definite position—here is a man who has stood aloof -from a very violent conspiracy, a conspiracy whose authors came out at -last in the open day and gloried in what they had done. They wrote the -most violent of all their manifestoes, containing such phrases as “the -ferocious prisoners have been put to death by the people;” “it was an act -of justice indispensable to our Committee,” and so forth. It would be -quite impossible to send out unwittingly such a circular as that without -knowing that one was compromising oneself and definitely entering the -most extreme party of the Parisians. It is inconceivable, therefore, that -he would have lent official envelopes for the purpose, and have said, -“So far I will help you, but I will not help you more than that.” You -might as well suppose an English official in India, of the stronger kind, -saying, “I will allow you, an unofficial personage, to send out the order -for an illegal execution from this office, but I will not put my name to -it.” - -Again, how comes it that this document alone, of all those sent from -the Minister of Justice at the time, goes out in the official envelope, -but bears in itself no mark whatsoever of the Ministry of Justice? -How was it that the officials in the country towns, among the mass of -papers that they received from the Ministry in Paris, should receive -this single one without any stamp or signature, and should then discover -that it had proceeded from a body which had nothing on earth to do with -the Ministry of Justice? There are but two replies possible to this -question—either that the envelopes were taken from the Ministry by one -of the clerks (several of whom we know to have been intimately linked -with the Commune), or that Danton timidly lent envelopes but refused -to do anything further. Of these two replies, the second appears to me -absolutely at variance not only with Danton’s own character but also with -the general routine of a great office. I cannot conceive the Cabinet -Minister offering, in the very gravest conditions, a few blue envelopes, -when a whole political party desire from him a definite pronouncement on -one side or the other. - -Finally, it may be asked, could these envelopes go out without his -knowledge? To that I answer that such a thing might be done from any -government office to-day. It was, moreover, a time of revolution; the -whole complicated organism had been shaken and partly transformed; there -was confusion in every department of the building, and even under these -conditions Danton was doing far more work than depended upon his office. -I think, therefore, that it is eminently possible that the circulars -should have been sent out by one of the clerks without his knowledge; and -the fact that no signature was used, and that the documents did not even -pass through one of the many hands whose duty it was to affix the formal -stamp, still further corroborates the view that the circulation of the -appeal was surreptitious. - -As to the accusations such as that of Lafayette (Memoirs, iv. 139, 140), -“He commanded the massacre of September and paid the murderers, who went -all covered with blood to get their money from Roland,” I attach no -importance to them at all. Even the phrase in which Danton is supposed -to have saluted the return of the murderers from Versailles is very -doubtful. It does not occur in any contemporary account; it is not in the -_Moniteur_; it is not in the “Révolutions de Paris;” Madame Roland does -not quote it, even on hearsay; it is not one of Peltier’s inventions, and -I have some difficulty in tracing it to its origin. - -I think, then, that the general position of Danton during the days of -September may be summed up as follows. He did not regard the lives of the -prisoners as being of the first importance; he did not use what would -have been to his certain knowledge a useless energy in protesting; he -did not (as he might conceivably have done) form a special and vigorous -tribunal to replace that which was on the point of acquitting L. de -Montmorin. By all those, therefore, who would regard public order and a -security for life as being more important than the success of a political -idea, or the integrity and defence of a nation, he can be accused of -a criminal negligence in the matter of the massacres of September. He -certainly cannot be accused of having designed them; he cannot be accused -on any definite proof of having approved them, and he cannot be accused -of having failed to share in the regret and misery which that terrible -blunder caused. If we may judge the attitude of his mind by comparing it -with that of contemporaries, rather than by comparing it with our own -attitude in a time of security and order, we may say that the massacres -taught him a more definite lesson than they taught to Roland, for they -caused him to pursue a policy of conciliation and to strengthen the -government; that, on the other hand, he did less to stop them than Manuel -did; and that in a comparison with men whom we know to have been honest, -such as Roland himself, or by a contrast with men whom we know to have -been evil, such as Hébert, or whom we know to have been frenzied, such as -Marat—judged in the midst of all this, Danton will appear responsible to -history for having been guilty of indifference at a moment when he might -have saved his reputation by protesting, though perhaps his protest would -not have saved a single life. - - * * * * * - -The object of the remainder of this Appendix is to provide for the reader -certain documents that illustrate the statements and the line of argument -in the text. Of these documents but few have been translated, because -only a few appeal to any one but a special student of the Revolution, or -are necessary to the understanding of this book. - -By far the most important of the documents here printed is the last, -Barrère’s report of the 29th of May 1793. Hitherto unpublished, it -furnishes (to my mind) the most complete explanation of the somewhat -complicated manœuvres pursued by the Committee, manœuvres which permitted -the revolution of May 31st and June 2nd. - -To each document a short preface has been attached for the purpose of -explaining its origin and of mentioning the authorities (if any) in which -it can be found. - - - - -V - -SHORT MEMOIR BY A. R. C. DE ST. ALBIN - - -This memoir was published for the first time as an article in the -_Critique Française_ of the 15th of March 1864. It was so published by -the author himself, and, though appearing seventy years after Danton’s -death, is not without importance. De St. Albin, who is better known by -his first name of Rousselin, had some personal acquaintance with Danton -(though he was but a boy at the time) and he lived to a great age. He -had, moreover, an acquaintance with the family after the Revolutionary -period. These circumstances make his testimony decisive on all -non-controversial points and valuable on many others. - -The criticisms to be made against his account are obvious. It is too -florid; it errs also in giving an amiable and somewhat mediocre character -to the statesman himself and to all his relatives and surroundings. We -have in it but a poor expression of the energy that was Danton’s chief -character, and which the writer’s own mind cannot reflect. It was, -moreover, written so very long after the events which it describes that -in more than one place an error of date or number has been committed; -especially in the incident of Barentin at the close of the memoir, with -which M. Aulard finds so much fault, and in the amount of his wife’s -dowry, which was not 40,000 but only 20,000 livres. On the other hand, it -is fresh, full of personal recollections, written by a trustworthy man, -and gives many interesting details on the earlier and less known part of -Danton’s life. - -“La famille de Danton n’a point à se prévaloir d’une antique noblesse. -Le nom de Danton est commun dans la contrée d’Arcis-sur-Aube, il est -apparu avec un certain bruit, en 1740, dans les querelles du jansénisme. -Parmi les pièces de théâtre destinées à populariser ces discussions -théologiques, il en est une intitulée _La Banqueroute des marchands de -miracles_, qui est signée du P. Danton. On a supposé, non sans raison, -qui cet ecclésiastique était un grand-oncle du conventionnel. - -“Georges-Jacques Danton naquit à Arcis-sur-Aube le 26 octobre 1759. Il -était fils de Jacques Danton, procureur au bailliage d’Arcis, qui avait -épousé, en 1754, Jeanne-Madeleine Camut. Le père mourut le 24 février -1762, âgé d’environ quarante ans, laissant sa femme enceinte et quatre -enfants en bas âge, deux filles et deux garçons, Georges-Jacques Danton -resta sous la tutelle de sa mère, femme douée de toutes les qualités qui -commandent l’estime. C’est par la sensibilité et la douceur du caractère -que la mère de Danton élevait et gouvernait sa jeune famille. Georges, -celui de ses enfants dont l’extérieur indiquait le plus de force et de -volonté, était le plus docile envers elle. Se jeune indépendance était -bien vite soumise quand sa mère parlait à son cœur. La tendresse obtenait -ce que la crainte aurait vainement tenté d’arracher. Madame veuve Danton -eut un heureux auxiliaire pour le soutien de sa maison dans son père, -entrepreneur des ponts et chaussées de la province de Champagne. Celui-ci -donna les premières leçons à son petit-fils: il voyait avec joie ses -mâles dispositions. - -“Il est intéressant de noter quel fut le milieu dans lequel Danton -passa ainsi ses premières années, et nous avons trouvé, dans un auteur -contemporain, le passage suivant qui nous semble curieux: - -“‘La ville d’Arcis-sur-Aube est composée d’hommes indépendants; l’air y -est vif, les hommes sont robustes; la rivière de l’Aube, qui traverse -le pays, est navigable en tout temps, le commerce maritime occupe les -natifs; quand les marins ne sont pas occupés à l’eau, ils font des bas; -ils sont laborieux, industrieux. Arcis n’est comparable à aucune partie -de la Champagne; les lois y sont observées comme si elles n’existaient -pas, par le seul sentiment de l’ordre; les seigneurs de l’ancien régime -avaient toujours rencontré des opposants dans des hommes chez qui l’amour -de la liberté est inné.’ - -“L’enfance de Danton n’eut rien de remarquable; il fut élevé, suivant -l’usage du pays, à peu près comme un enfant de la nature. - -“Il avait été nourri par une vache, ce qui est usité en Champagne, quand -les mères ne sont pas assez fortes pour allaiter leurs enfants. La vache -nourrice de Danton fut un jour aperçue par un taureau échappé, qui se -précipita sur elle et donna au pauvre enfant un coup de corne qui lui -arracha la lèvre. C’est à cette cicatrice que tenait la difformité de sa -lèvre supérieure. - -“En grandissant, Danton, comme tous les êtres doués d’une force -extraordinaire, éprouvait le besoin de l’exercer. Il voulut un jour faire -preuve de vigueur, prendre sa revanche et lutter contre un taureau. Il -était difficile qu’il sortit vainqueur de la lutte. Un coup de corne lui -écrasa le nez. - -“Ces accidents auraient dû le rendre prudent, mais il n’y a guère de -prudence là où il y a grande surabondance de vie. Un jour le robuste -enfant croit pouvoir faire marcher devant lui les porcs de la ferme qui -obstruaient l’entrée de la maison. Il les attaque à coups de fouet; mais -son pied glisse, il tombe, et les porcs devenus furieux, se ruent sur lui -et lui font une terrible blessure, assez semblable à celle dont Boileau -fut victime dans son enfance, au dire d’Helvétius, qui attribuait à cette -blessure la disette de sentiment qu’il prétendait remarquer dans les -ouvrages du poète. Quel que soit le mérite de cette appréciation, elle -ne serait pas applicable à Danton. Sa virilité avait été compromise, non -perdue, et il conserva toute son énergie et toute sa hardiesse. Rien ne -l’arrêtait: chaque jour il donnait de nouvelles preuves de témérité. -A peine fut-il rétabli de ce malheureux accident, qu’entraîné par sa -passion pour la natation, il faillit se noyer et fut atteint d’une -fièvre maligne, à laquelle vint se joindre une petite vérole très grave, -accompagnée du pourpre. Tout semblait ainsi se réunir pour le défigurer. - -“Pour faire contracter à son enfant quelques habitudes de discipline, -la mère de Danton le remit d’abord à la surveillance d’une maîtresse -d’école; celle-ci n’avait pas le temps ou la volonté d’user avec lui -d’indulgence. Danton trouva quelque différence dans la comparaison de -ce nouveau régime avec les tendresses de sa mère et de son aïeul: non -moins sévère que la demoiselle Lambercier de J.-J. Rousseau, la maîtresse -d’école croyait ne pouvoir se passer de verges pour diriger les enfants, -et Danton lui avait paru avoir les premiers droits à ses corrections. -Tous ses contemporains se souvenaient de l’avoir vu faire trop souvent -l’école buissonnière et employer les heures de classe à barboter dans -l’Aube. Il préférait la liberté de vivre à l’ennui de répéter les -caractères de l’alphabet. Il avait cependant d’heureuses aptitudes et -apprenait rapidement; mais toute habitude réglée était antipathique à sa -nature. - -“A huit ans, il fut débarrassé de la rigoureuse maîtresse, et -_transvasé_, comme il le dit lui-même, dans une institution supérieure. -Le chef de cette institution croyait savoir assez de latin pour en -enseigner les éléments. Quand les premiers principes de la grammaire ne -sont pas montrés avec une habile méthode aux jeunes intelligences, elle -leur offre peu d’attrait. - -“Danton en avait peu-être un peu moins pour _Lhomond_ que pour le jeu -de cartes. A peine le devoir terminé, en hâte il courait avec quelques -camarades dans un coin pour faire sa partie. Des billes ou des gâteaux -étaient le bénéfice du gagnant. Souvent vainqueur, il partageait toujours -avec le vaincu. Quand il se trouvait seul, il lisait ou allait se -promener ans les bois ou dans les champs. - -“Pour modifier cette humeur un peu sauvage, les parents de Danton crurent -devoir le mettre dans une maison religieuse. - -“Quoiqu’il ne fût point destiné à l’état ecclésiastique, on le plaça -d’abord au petit séminaire de _Troyes_; mais la monotonie de cette -maison lui devint bientôt pénible. Pendant tout le temps qu’il y resta, -il observa la règle, mais il ne pouvait souffrir que sa récréation fût -subitement interrompue par un coup de cloche. _Cette cloche_, disait-il, -_si je suis encore forcé de l’entendre longtemps, finira par sonner mon -enterrement_. - -“Un reproche mal fondé et reçu publiquement du supérieur décida Danton à -solliciter sa sortie du séminaire. - -“Le fait suivant peut être raconté comme trait de caractère: La pension, -dans cette maison, était modique. Les élèves n’avaient de vin qu’en -le payant séparément à la fin de chaque année. Tous les dimanches on -distribuait des cartes, qui étaient une espèce de billet au porteur. -En présentant cette carte au distributeur, on recevait une mesure de -vin appelée _roquille_. Danton était généreux, et un de ses grands -plaisirs alors était de régaler ses camarades en leur passant des cartes -de _roquilles_, surtout à ceux qu’il savait n’avoir pas la bourse -bien garnie. Sa générosité alla si loin, que, lorsqu’on fit le compté -général et la proclamation publique de tous ceux qui avaient bu du vin, -il se trouva être celui qui avait fait une plus grande consommation de -_roquilles_. La veille du départ pour les vacances, le supérieur du -petit séminaire adressa ces paroles à Danton: _Mon ami, vous pouvez -vous flatter d’être le plus grand buveur de la communauté_. A ces -mots, tous les rires d’éclater sur lui; il ne répondit pas, mais il se -promit bien de ne plus boire de roquilles au petit séminaire. Malgré -une véritable bonté, Danton était peu endurant, et on l’avait surnommé -_l’anti-supérieur_, et même _le républicain_. - -“A peine revenu à Arcis-sur-Aube, il déclara à sa mère qu’il ne -rentrerait plus au petit séminaire: “Il y a là, dit-il, des habitudes -qui ne me vont pas, et que je ne pourrai jamais comprendre.” L’année -suivante, on le mit dans une pension laïque. Ses études n’y perdirent -rien, car il eut depuis des succès qu’il n’avait pas obtenus auparavant. -Il fit ainsi sa seconde, et y remporta la presque totalité des prix.... - -“Nous arrivons au mois de juin 1775. On apprend que le sacre de Louis -XVI. va s’accomplir à Reims. Danton avait déjà plus d’une fois entendu -les imprécations dont toute la France couvrait la mémoire de Louis XV. -A l’âge de seize ans il en savait assez pour abhorrer l’emploi des -lettres de cachet, qui étaient si prodiguées sous ce règne scandaleux. Le -professeur avait annoncé qu’il donnerait l’événement du sacre du nouveau -monarque comme texte d’amplification: _Pour bien se pénétrer de son -sujet_, dit Danton d’un ton décidé, _il faut se servir de ses yeux. Je -suis curieux de voir comment se fait un roi_. - -“Son projet n’est confié qu’à quelques fidèles camarades qui lui prêtent -de l’argent pour sa route. Il part sans prévenir son maître; il traverse -son pays d’Arcis sans voir ses parents, dans la crainte de les trouver -opposés à son pèlerinage. Après avoir franchi vingt-huit lieues sans -encombre, il arrive à Reims, se glisse partout; il suit attentivement -toutes les cérémonies du sacre, et il entend le jeune monarque, la main -sur l’Évangile, prononcer le serment _de régner par les lois et pour le -bonheur de la nation_. Que des réflexions fait naître un pareil spectacle -dans un cerveau ardent, déjà prompt à concevoir de rapprochements! - -“A son retour de Reims, les amis de Danton étaient impatients de -l’entendre raconter tout ce qu’il avait vu. Cet appareil ne l’avait -pas émerveillé, la richesse des décors de la cathédrale ne l’avait pas -séduit. Il raisonnait assez déjà pour sentir que ce n’était guère plus -qu’une pompe vaine, encore dispendieuse pour la France déjà si obérée. Le -jeune voyageur s’égayait en parlant de ce nombreux essaim d’oiseaux de -toute espèce auxquels on avait donné la volée dans l’église: “_Plaisante -liberté_, disait-il, _que de voltiger entre quatre murs, sans avoir de -quoi manger ni poser son nid_!” Il comparait aussi les oiseaux babillards -aux courtisans qui entouraient déjà le nouveau roi, par continuation -de leur dévouement pour le défunt. A l’entendre débiter avec autant de -simplicité que de malice ses réflexions sur le luxe, on peut entrevoir -que l’écolier moraliste, devenu grand, ne sera pas sans quelque exigence -envers la royauté, et sans quelque sévérité envers les agents qui vivent -des abus. - -“Danton, revenu à Troyes, éprouva des difficultés pour rentrer à sa -pension. Sa sortie, à l’insu du maître, avait indisposé celui-ci. Le -voyageur, soumis et repentant, proteste _qu’il na été à Reims que -pour se mettre en mesure de faire en connaissance de cause son devoir -d’amplification sur le sacre_. Il produit effectivement un morceau des -plus brillants, mais où il se défend d’introduire les observations -hardies échappées dans la familiarité de conversation, qui ne peuvent -se présenter dans une narration écrite, dont les convenances sont la -première règle. Le maître, satisfait et surpris du mérite de l’œuvre, -en fait lecture à ses élèves. Il dit _qu’il aurait donné la première -place à l’auteur s’il n’avait fait l’école buissonnière_. Les camarades -de Danton s’unissent avec enthousiasme à l’appréciation du maître; ils -admirent comment l’enfant prodigue, leur ayant fait un récit aussi -piquant, aussi jovial de son voyage, avait pu en même temps mettre dans -son style autant de réserve et de noblesse. C’est ainsi que Danton fait -admettre ses excuses, et sa grâce est devenue une espèce de triomphe. -Il reprend sa classe, dont les travaux allaient bientôt se terminer. -L’époque des compositions pour les prix annuels approchait; se fiant -à sa facilité, Danton ne semble pas se préparer au concours. Mais -dès que les sujets de composition sont donnés, il rassemble tous les -efforts de son intelligence et obtient toutes les couronnes. Il déploie -d’admirables moyens dans le discours français, la narration latine et -la poésie. Imagination, jugement, exactitude, saillie dans la pensée, -force, élégance, originalité dans l’expression, rien ne lui manque, -et le 18 août 1775 fut peut-être le plus beau jour de sa vie. Le nom -de _Danton-Camut_ (qui était celui de sa mère pour le distinguer d’un -homonyme son condisciple) fut répété au bruit des fanfares. Si le lauréat -fut heureux, ce fut surtout en apportant ses lauriers à sa mère, objet -de son culte et de son amour; cette piété filiale, dès lors le plus vif -de ses sentiments, demeurera la même dans son cœur pendant tout le cours -de sa vie, quelles qu’en soient les violences ou les distractions; plus -tard, il la montra mieux encore, et l’homme auquel il voua la haine la -plus tenace fut un misérable soupçonné d’avoir manqué de respect à Madame -Danton. - -“Lorsqu’un écolier se distinguait au collège, on songeait à la carrière -que lui ouvriraient ses talents. _Il faut en faire un prêtre ou un -procureur._ Le curé de Barberey, près Troyes, désignait déjà Danton -pour qu’il lui succédât dans son presbytère; mais le moment de séjour -que Danton avait fait au séminaire ne lui avait pas inspiré la vocation -ecclésiastique. Il avait besoin de liberté, il lui fallait les franches -allures, l’indépendance. Il demandait une profession libérale, il -désirait être avocat.... Démosthènes et Cicéron, qu’il venait de -commencer à connaître n’étaient-ils pas des avocats? La famille réunie -ayant déféré au vœu de Danton, il fut décidé qu’il irait à Paris et qu’il -travaillerait chez un procureur pour y apprendre la procédure en même -temps qu’il ferait ses études de droit, pour se préparer au barreau. - -“Ici vient se placer une circonstance intéressante qui fait honneur -à Danton et qui fournit une nouvelle preuve de sa tendresse pour ses -parents. Madame veuve Danton, demeurée seule avec sa nombreuse famille, -s’était remariée pour lui donner un soutien. Elle avait épousé M. -Recordin, estimable négociant, dont la bonté est restée proverbiale dans -le pays: _bon et brave comme Recordin_. Par suite de sa facilité dans ses -relations, les affaires de la maison Recordin se trouvèrent embarrassées. -Danton, loin d’exiger les comptes qu’il avait droit de demander de la -fortune qui lui revenait de son père, fut le premier à offrir des secours -à son beau-père; il mit à sa disposition tout ce qui lui appartenait; -il alla jusqu’à engager la portion du bien de ses tantes qui devait lui -échoir un jour, ne craignant pas d’aliéner son présent en son avenir. -_Il faut mettre ses affaires en règle,_ disait-il, _quand on fait un -grand voyage_. - -“Tels furent les préparatifs du départ. - -“Tous les témoignages de ses camarades, parents et amis, déposent de la -délicatesse de Danton sous tous les rapports; à l’exception du prêt de -quelques écus qui lui furent offerts par ses camarades pour le voyage de -Reims, il n’a jamais demandé d’argent à qui que ce soit, dans les moments -où, soit comme écolier, soit comme clerc de procureur, il a pu éprouver -de ces gênes de jeune homme qui rendent hardi aux emprunts. - -“Danton arrive à Paris en 1780 dans la voiture du messager -d’Arcis-sur-Aube, qui était l’ami de sa famille, et qui voulut lui faire -la conduite gratuitement. Il se logea à l’auberge du _Cheval noir_, -tenue rue Geoffroy-Lasnier par un nommé Layron, qui était l’hôte le plus -fréquenté par les Champenois. Danton avait très peu de fonds, et il dut -se mettre immédiatement au travail: il entra chez un procureur appelé -Vinot. Ce procureur commença par lui demander un modèle de son écriture, -qu’il ne trouva pas belle. Les procureurs de ce temps-là voulaient de ces -écritures promptes et faciles, propres à produire de larges grosses, de -longues requêtes. Le jeune Champenois déclara franchement _qu’il n’était -pas venu pour être copiste_. Ce ton d’assurance imposa au procureur -Vinot. Il dit: _J’aime l’aplomb, il en faut dans notre état_. - -“Danton fut admis comme clerc, avec la nourriture et le logement. Il -étudia la procédure non sans quelque dégoût; il fut chargé, comme on -dit dans le métier, _de faire le palais_. C’est la première initiation -des jeunes clercs aux affaires. Elle commence à les mettre en relation -avec les choses et les personnes du monde judiciaire, et leur donne -les éléments de la pratique par de petits plaidoyers sommaires et -des explications contradictoires qui leur ouvrent les idées et leur -apprennent à se conduire dans le labyrinthe où ils sont destinés à vivre. - -“Danton remplissait sa fonction de clerc avec intelligence et exactitude; -ses récréations les plus habituelles étaient toujours l’escrime, la -paume et la natation, sa passion favorite! dont il usait fréquemment; -c’était le besoin même de son tempérament. Il était assez habile à cet -exercice pour être cité au premier rang; il y trouva un encouragement -digne de son émulation. Il sauva plusieurs fois de la mort des camarades -qui auraient péri s’il n’était venu au secours de leur imprudence et de -leur faiblesse. Quelques-uns d’entre eux ont raconté les tours de force -véritables que Danton exécutait dans les courants les plus difficiles de -la rivière. De l’endroit même où ils prenaient leurs ébats, on voyait -les tours de la Bastille, et plus d’une fois les baigneurs ont entendu -Danton, dressant sa tête comme un triton, jeter une menace du côté de la -prison d’État et s’écrier de sa voix vibrante: _Ce chateau fort suspendu -sur notre tête m’offusque et me gêne. Quand le verrons-nous abattu? Pour -moi, ca jour là, j’y donnerais un fier coup de pioche!_ - -“Les constitutions les plus robustes sont souvent les plus exposées, -parce que cette exubérance de force donne plus de sécurité. Danton, à la -suite d’une double partie de natation et d’escrime, fut encore atteint -d’une grave maladie. Longtemps retenu au lit, alors que son corps était -réduit à l’inaction, il ne pouvait se livrer à ses exercices habituels, -mais son imagination ne restait point inactive. Avec son infatigable -ardeur de lecture, il s’obstina à lire _l’Encyclopédie_ tout entière, -et il avait achevé ce labeur si considérable avant que la convalescence -fût terminée. Il trouvait encore le temps de lire les grands publicistes -dont les principes et la morale politique commençaient à devenir les -guides du siècle. Montesquieu qu’il devait souvent citer, fut de sa part -l’objet d’une étude tout particulière, et, après avoir lu _l’Esprit des -lois_, il disait: _Quel horizon nouveau s’ouvre devant moi! Je n’ai -qu’un regret, c’est de retrouver dans l’écrivain qui vous porte si loin -et si haut, le président d’un parlement._ De Montesquieu, Danton passa -bientôt à Voltaire, à J.-J. Rousseau, puis à Beccaria, qui apparaissait -alors. Danton ne tarda pas à savoir par cœur l’admirable petit ouvrage -de cet auteur, le traité _Des délits et des peines_, qui allait réformer -la législation criminelle du monde; afin de se préparer des couleurs de -style pour le jour où il aurait à parler aux foules, afin d’apprendre, -à revêtir les questions sociales des belles images de la nature, Danton -étudia particulièrement l’_Histoire naturelle_ de Buffon: au moyen de -sa puissante mémoire il en retenait et récitait des pages entières. -Voilà d’amples provisions d’instruction qui pourront trouver un jour un -utile emploi dans la carrière de l’homme public! Tout en dédaignant la -littérature frivole et n’ayant jamais lu de romans que les chefs-d’œuvre -consacrés qui sont des peintures de mœurs, Danton apprit en même temps -la langue italienne assez pour lire le Tasse, l’Arioste et même le Dante. -Il faisait aussi des vers avec facilité, quelques-uns même adressés, en -tout bien et tout honneur, à une personne qui n’était pas indigne de les -lui inspirer, à la femme de son procureur. - -“Mais tous ces délassements littéraires étaient en dehors de la -profession qu’il voulait exercer. Ils ne lui firent point négliger -l’apprentissage de la procedure et du droit. - -“Il lui restait maintenant à devenir de licencié avocat, et comme il -avait gardé un bon souvenir de la ville de Reims, il alla se faire -recevoir avocat dans cette ville. Champenois de cœur, il était heureux -de contribuer de tous ses moyens à l’honneur de son pays natal. Il -avait toujours de bonnes saillies à son service, et ne manquait pas une -occasion de citer des hommes distingués dans les lettres et les arts de -diverses époques qui appartenaient à la province de Champagne. Parmi -les contemporains, Danton pouvait du reste trouver plus d’un exemple -à l’appui de son patriotique enthousiasme: c’est ainsi qu’il parlait -souvent de quelques notabilités qu’il connaissait, tels que le savant -_Grosley_, l’avocat _Linguet_. - -“De retour de Reims à Paris, Danton, après avoir achevé son stage, -s’essaya au barreau de la capitale pendant quelque temps. Chargé d’une -affaire, entre autres, pour un berger contre le seigneur de son village, -il eut l’occasion de produire, en cette circonstance, quelques-uns des -sentiments qu’il devait plus tard développer davantage sur un grand -théâtre. Il réclama avec autant de vigueur que d’adresse les principes de -l’égalité devant la loi. Il gagna sa cause devant la cour de parlement -qui, comme on se le rappelle, n’était alors composée que de nobles et -de privilégiés. Nous ne sommes encore qu’en 1785. Le factum de Danton -fut imprimé: il était concis, substantiel, énergique—nous n’avons pu -en retrouver la trace.—Cette première lutte soutenue par Danton fit -sensation au palais et valut au jeune avocat des témoignages d’estime de -Gerbier, Debonnière, Hardouin et toutes les sommités du barreau de cette -époque. Linguet, qui se connaissait en style, et qui, nous l’avons vu, -était de Reims, lui adressa à ce sujet de vifs encouragements. - -“Mais les témoignages de ces hommes éminents, qui assuraient à Danton un -succès d’honneur, ne le menaient point à la fortune; il s’en éloignait -même à mesure que son talent aurait dû l’en rapprocher davantage, car -il recherchait la clientèle du pauvre autant que d’autres recherchaient -la clientèle du riche. Il pensait qu’en thèse générale le pauvre est le -plus souvent l’opprimé, qu’ainsi il a le droit de priorité à la défense. -D’après ce principe de conduite, ceux qui ont dit que Danton n’avait -point fait fortune au barreau, pouvaient ajouter qu’il ne l’y aurait -jamais faite.... - -“S’ennuyant peut-être un peu, comme on a pu l’entrevoir, dans sa -profession d’avocat, Danton ne demandait point de distraction à des -plaisirs qui auraient pu prendre sur les ressources nécessaires à son -existence. Gagnant fort peu dans ses travaux de palais, il n’aurait pas -voulu ajouter à la gêne de sa position en contractant des dettes; il -était fort rangé, toujours avec une petite réserve d’économies qui lui -permettait de rendre des services sans en demander lui-même. Après son -frugal repas chez un traiteur, dont la maison était nommée l’_Hôtel de la -Modestie_, il prenait une demi-tasse de café et jouait quelques parties -de dominos. Ajoutez, de temps en temps, le spectacle d’une tragédie -classique au Théâtre-Français, voilà toute la defense et tous les -amusements du jeune avocat. - -“Un café où se rendait le plus habituellement Danton s’appelait _Café -de l’École_, parce qu’il était situé sur ce quai, presque au coin de -la place qui a conservé ce nom. C’était un rendez-vous très fréquenté -par les hommes de loi qui se trouvaient rapprochés du Châtelet et du -Palais de Justice. La rigueur du costume et de la coiffure, espèce de -signalement perpétuel, avait cet avantage qu’on n’était pas tenté de se -commettre. - -“Les maîtres des cafés, alors peu nombreux dans Paris, étaient eux-mêmes -des bourgeois d’honnête allure. Ils maintenaient le bon ton de leur -maison par leur civilité. Ils faisaient rarement fortune, à l’exception -de deux ou trois qui étaient de premier rang. Le _Café de l’École_ -n’était pas précisément à ce niveau; mais il était l’un de ceux qui -avaient la meilleure réputation. Nous croyons voir encore le maître de la -maison avec sa petite perruque ronde, son habit gris et sa serviette sous -le bras. Il était rempli de prévenances pour ses clients, et il en était -traité avec une considération cordiale. Une femme des plus recommandables -et fille de la maison, aussi douce que gracieuse, tenait le comptoir. -Parmi les habitués, qui paraissaient s’arrêter avec un intérêt -particulier à ce comptoir, on put remarquer un jeune avocat qui, d’abord -fort gai et jovial, parut quelque temps après plus sérieux. Ce jeune -avocat était Danton; il avait cru d’abord ne causer que généralement et -sans conséquence avec les dames du comptoir; son cœur s’y était pris, et -Danton était amoureux. Mademoiselle Gabrielle Charpentier n’avait pas -songé à se défier des assiduités de Danton; elle se trouva bientôt, à son -insu, préoccupée du même sentiment. Sans être dans le secret de cette -inclination, le père et la mère Charpentier ne furent pas très surpris -quand la main de leur fille leur fut demandée par le jeune avocat. La -vivacité de son caractère leur fit craindre un moment de consentir à -cette union; mais il avait su toucher le cœur de Gabrielle. Lorsqu’on -disait: _Qu’il est laid!_ elle répétait, presque comme l’avait dit une -femme au sujet de Lekain: _Qu’il est beau!_ Elle admirait son esprit, que -l’on trouvait trop piquant; son âme, que l’on trouvait trop ardente; sa -voix, que l’on trouvait forte et terrible, et qu’elle trouvait douce. - -“Il fallait cependant prendre des renseignements sur ce prétendant. -M. Charpentier visita particulièrement les procureurs chez qui Danton -avait travaillé, et les avocats avec lesquels il avait été en rapport au -barreau. Il n’y eut qu’une voix en sa faveur. D’après des renseignements -aussi satisfaisants, les bons parents ne s’informèrent point de sa -fortune; ils y tenaient peu, quoique en ayant eux-mêmes une assez -modeste. Pourtant, ils donnaient en mariage à leur fille une somme de -40,000 francs, ce qui était pour l’époque une dot considérable. Ils -imposaient à leur gendre une seule condition, c’est qu’il exerçât un -état; c’est qu’il fût _occupé_. La profession d’avocat au parlement était -sans doute une profession honorable et libre, mais trop libre peut-être, -et qui ne commandait pas un travail assez assidu. Danton promit de -remplir les vœux de son beau-père; il s’exprima dans des termes si -chaleureux, que le père et la mère Charpentier se mirent à aimer Danton -presque autant que leur fille. - -“Des amis de Danton lui conseillèrent d’acheter une charge d’avocat aux -conseils. M. et Madame Charpentier offrirent généreusement la dot de -leur fille; mais ce n’était que 40,000 francs, et il en fallait 80,000! -Des Champenois dévoués proposèrent de compléter ce qui manquait pour le -payement de la charge. - -“Ils s’en rapportaient tous à la délicatesse et à la probité de -Danton; sa bonne conduite était sa caution. Le mariage n’ayant plus de -cause de retard, les bans publiés, le consentement de sa mère arrivé -d’Arcis-sur-Aube, Georges-Jacques Danton et Gabrielle Charpentier -furent unis, et le même jour il entra, comme il le disait gaiement, _en -puissance de femme et en charge d’officier ministériel; le même jour, -mari et avocat aux conseils_. - -“Les avocats aux conseils réunissaient les doubles fonctions d’avocats et -de procureurs; ayant peu de procédure à faire, ils avaient l’avantage de -rester maîtres de leurs affaires et de ne pas subir, comme les avocats -des autres cours, la loi d’un procureur préoccupé du désir d’attirer à -lui tous les bénéfices. Les fonctions des avocats aux conseils avaient -aussi quelque chose d’éminemment propre à élever l’âme des jeunes gens; -leur mission consistait souvent à redresser les torts du parlement et des -cours supérieures. Ils communiquaient journellement avec les maîtres des -requêtes, avec les conseillers d’État, avec les hommes du plus haut rang, -qui étaient obligés de recourir à leur ministère pour lutter contre les -usurpations dont ils avaient à se plaindre. - -“Les avocats aux conseils avaient ainsi l’occasion, en discutant avec -les ministres eux-mêmes, soit pour les attaquer, soit pour les défendre, -d’apprendre à connaître les rapports des autorités entre elles, la vraie -distinction des pouvoirs, l’organisation civile dans toute son étendue, -l’ordre social dans son ensemble: c’était une excellente école pour créer -des économistes, des politiques, des législateurs. - -“En exposant le rôle et la mission des avocats aux conseils, nous aurions -peut-être dû expliquer que tels étaient au moins la pensée et le droit -de l’institution. Faut-il constater maintenant ce qu’était en fait -l’institution? Sur le nombre de soixante membres composant l’honorable -confrérie, on voyait plusieurs hommes distingués qui sentaient la -dignité de leurs fonctions, traitaient leurs clients avec générosité et -délicatesse, les affaires avec science, application et courage. Mais -tous, il faut bien le dire, n’avaient pas un sentiment aussi élevé de -leurs devoirs, et il en était quelques-uns dont l’émulation consistait à -faire beaucoup de _grosses_. - -“Au moment où Danton fut reçu avocat aux conseils, c’était en 1787; il -avait vingt-huit ans, sa femme en avait vingt-cinq. Dans ce moment, -l’Ordre était divisé en trois partis plus ou moins actifs. - -“Les anciens voulaient créer un _syndicat_, à la tête duquel ils auraient -été tout naturellement placés. - -“Les jeunes arrivants appartenaient aux idées nouvelles, et ne voulaient -être ni conduits ni éconduits. - -“Un troisième parti se composait des hommes modérés et pacifiques qui, -aimant le repos avant tout, et, comme on a dit depuis, _la paix partout -et toujours_, ne voulaient se mêler à aucune action et préféraient -laisser faire le mal à leur détriment plutôt que de se mouvoir en aucun -sens et se laisser déranger même par un progrès qui leur eût été utile, -mais qui aurait pu les _désheurer_. - -“On a déjà pressenti à quel parti Danton avait dû se rallier. Il ne -méconnaissait pas la discipline qui doit présider à la bonne organisation -d’une compagnie judiciaire; mais il croyait que la force et la puissance -réelles des compagnies sont dans leur indépendance, comme le talent -même des membres de ces corporations ne peut se passer de la dignité du -caractère. - -“L’homme qui, en entrant dans une compagnie, dessine ses opinions avec -une énergique rudesse, peut s’attendre à rencontrer bien des luttes et -bien des hostilités. - -“Voulant juger la valeur du nouvel arrivant, les avocats, sous prétexte -de bienvenue, et sans l’avoir averti à l’avance, lui firent subir une -épreuve en latin. On lui imposa pour sujet l’exposé de la situation -morale et politique du pays dans ses rapports avec la justice. -C’était, comme Danton l’a dit depuis, _lui proposer de marcher sur des -rasoirs_.... Il ne recula point. Saisissant même comme une bonne fortune -la difficulté inattendue dans laquelle on croyait l’enlacer, il s’en tira -avec éclat, et laissa ses auditeurs dans l’étonnement de sa présence -d’esprit et de la décision de son caractère. Il ne craignit point -d’aborder la politique qui commençait a pénétrer en toute affaire, et -qui était peut-être ici une cause secrète du piège qui lui était tendu. -On espérait surprendre en défaut un jeune avocat qui levait la tête et -annonçait des principes d’indépendance. Danton, en homme de talent habile -à triompher des plus grandes difficultés, osa parler des choses les plus -actuelles; il dit que, comme citoyen ami de son pays, autant que comme -membre d’une corporation consacrée à la défense des intérêts privés et -publics de la société, il désirait que le gouvernement sentît assez la -gravité de la situation pour y porter remède par des moyens simples, -naturels et tirés de son autorité; qu’en présence des besoins impérieux -du pays, il fallait se résigner à se sacrifier; que la noblesse et le -clergé, qui étaient en possession des richesses de la France, devaient -donner l’exemple; que, quant a lui, il ne pouvait voir dans la lutte du -parlement, qui éclatait alors, que l’intérêt de quelques particuliers -puissants qui combattaient les ministres, mais sans rien stipuler au -profit du peuple. Il déclarait qu’à ses yeux l’horizon apparaissait -sinistre, et qu’il sentait venir une révolution terrible. Si seulement on -pouvait la reculer de trente années, elle se ferait amiablement par la -force des choses et le progrès des lumières. Il répéta dans ce discours, -qui ressemblait au cri prophétique de Cassandre: _Malheur à ceux qui -provoquent les révolutions, malheur à ceux qui les font!_ - -“Plusieurs fois les vieux avocats qui avaient tendu ce piège à Danton -voulurent interrompre son improvisation. Ils avaient cru entendre des -mots qui les effrayaient, tels que _motus populorum, ira gentium, salus -populi suprema lex_.... Les jeunes gens qui, récemment sortis des -collèges, avaient le droit de comprendre le latin mieux que les anciens, -qui l’avaient oublié ou ne l’avaient jamais su, répondaient à leurs vieux -confrères qu’ils avaient mal entendu, que le récipiendaire était resté -dans une mesure parfaite, irréprochable. - -“Espérant constater plus facilement dans le texte d’une rédaction -écrite les pensées imprudentes qu’ils avaient cru saisir en écoutant -ses paroles, les anciens demandèrent que Danton déposât son discours -de réception sur la table de la chambre du conseil. Danton répondit -qu’il n’avait rien écrit. Il avait déjà pour système d’écrire le moins -possible. Ainsi qu’il l’a dit depuis, on n’écrit point en révolution. Il -ajouta d’ailleurs que si l’on désirait porter un jugement sur les paroles -qu’il avait prononcées, il ne prétendait pas s’y opposer. Il était assez -certain de sa pensée et de sa mémoire pour répéter avec fidélité toute -son improvisation.... Le reméde eût été pire que le mal. L’aréopage -trouva que c’était déjà bien assez de ce qu’on avait entendu, et la -majorité s’opposa avec vivacité à la récidive. - -“Le cabinet acheté par Danton était loin, au moment où il en devint -titulaire, de posséder une clientèle nombreuse. Il n’en fut pas moins -toujours d’un grand désintéressement vis-à-vis de ses clients. - -“Il se montrait peu exigeant dans la question des honoraires, même -lorsqu’il avait gagné sa cause. Lorsque son client venait s’acquitter -envers lui, il lui arrivait souvent de dire: _c’est trop_, et de rendre -ce qu’il appelait _le trop_. Dans certaines affaires perdues, il refusait -toute rémunération. ‘Je n’ai point de déboursés, disait-il, puisque je -n’ai point fait d’écritures, et que j’ai laissé à la régie son papier -timbré.’ Il lui arrivait, bien qu’il ne fût pas riche, de donner lui-même -des secours d’argent à des clients malheureux. - -“Une pareille conduite ne mène pas rapidement à la fortune. Cependant le -cabinet de Danton s’améliora en très peu de temps. En dirigeant dignement -ses affaires, il gagnait de vingt à vingt-cinq mille francs par an; son -sort de père de famille était assuré. - -“Dans ce temps où la France était encore divisée en provinces, les -classes inférieures pouvaient se réclamer des grands seigneurs de leur -pays, et ceux-ci aimaient souvent par vanité autant que par humanité à -protéger leurs vassaux. La maison de Brienne était de Champagne, près -Arcis-sur-Aube. Danton était connu du comte de Brienne, ancien ministre -de la guerre, et de l’archevêque de Sens, alors premier ministre. Il -comptait parmi ses clients M. de Barentin. Il avait des conférences avec -lui pour ses affaires particulières, et plusieurs fois, après les avoir -traitées, M. de Barentin s’entretenait avec son avocat des affaires -publiques. La manière supérieure dont Danton voyait les choses avait -frappé M. de Barentin et lui avait laissé une vive impression de sa -capacité. - -“Devenu garde des sceaux, M. de Barentin se souvint aussitôt de -son avocat et lui fit demander s’il voulait être secrétaire de la -chancellerie? Danton, dans un long entretien qu’il eut avec ce ministre, -lui exposa avec détails un plan qu’il croyait pouvoir éloigner -les déchirements que l’opposition des parlements allait enfanter. -Quelques-uns de ces parlements venaient d’être exilés: Danton pensait que -leur rappel n’était pas une chose de la plus grande urgence. Il fallait -avant tout les enlacer dans la participation aux réformes; ils en étaient -autant les adversaires que la noblesse et le clergé, dont ils faisaient -en quelque sorte partie et dont ils avaient les privilèges. Tous les -privilégiés enfin, quels que fussent leurs costumes, qu’ils eussent -un manteau de noblesse, une soutane de prêtre ou une robe de palais, -tous, selon l’opinion de Danton, devaient contribuer aux charges qui ne -pesaient que sur le tiers État, c’est-à-dire sur l’immense majorité; la -nation attendait l’allégement du fardeau intolérable qu’elle ne pouvait -plus supporter, la résignation était épuisée.... - -“Si ces idées étaient acceptées, le roi, étant à leur tête, se trouverait -conquérir dans l’intérêt de tous une puissance supérieure à tous les -intérêts particuliers. Il pourrait réaliser les demandes de la raison et -donner, par un progrès réel, toute satisfaction aux lumières du siècle et -à la philosophie, interprète des vrais besoins de l’humanité. - -“En résumé, le plan conçu par Danton tendait à faire accomplir par le -roi une réforme progressive qui, laissant en place les pouvoirs établis, -les rendit, à leur insu ou malgré eux, les instruments de cette équité -pratique qui aurait fortifié à la fois tous les organes du mécanisme -social. M. de Barentin parla du projet de Danton à l’archevêque de Sens. -On parut l’approuver. Dans l’intervalle, la cour répudia ce système trop -net et trop décisif pour ses allures. Le parlement fut rappelé. Brienne -croyait en avoir gagné les principaux membres. - -“Mais trois mois après—novembre 1787—lorsque le roi fut obligé de -venir à Paris tenir un lit de justice à ce même parlement pour obtenir -l’enregistrement d’un édit portant création de divers emprunts jusqu’à -concurrence de 450 millions, Louis XVI rencontra la plus violente -opposition dans cette cour qu’on croyait réduite. Il voulut vaincre -l’opposition en exilant les plus récalcitrants, les conseillers Fréteau, -Sabatier, de Cabre et le duc d’Orléans.... Au mois de mai suivant, 1788, -le même parlement rendit un arrêt qui réclama avec véhémence ‘les lois -fondamentales de l’État; le droit de la nation d’accorder des subsides, -le droit des cours du royaume de vérifier les édits, de vérifier dans -chaque province les volontés du roi, et de n’en accorder l’enregistrement -qu’autant qu’elles seraient conformes aux lois constitutives de la -province, ainsi qu’aux fondamentales de l’État; l’immovabilité et -l’indépendance des magistrats, le droit pour chaque citoyen de n’être -jamais traduit en aucune manière devant d’autres juges que ses juges -naturels désignés par la loi; le droit, sans lequel tous les autres sont -inutiles, de n’être arrêté, par quelque ordre que ce soit, que pour être -remis sans délai entre les mains des juges compétents; protestant la -cour du parlement contre toute atteinte qui serait portée aux principes -exprimés.’ - -“M. de Barentin proposa de nouveau a Danton d’être secrétaire du sceau. -Celui-ci remercia en disant que l’état de la question politique était -changé. ‘Nous n’en sommes plus aux réformes modestes; ceux qui les ont -refusées ont refusé leur propre salut; nous sommes, dit-il plus nettement -que jamais, à la veille d’une révolution. Eh quoi! ne voyez-vous pas -venir l’avalanche?... - - A. R. C. DE SAINT-ALBIN.” - - - - -VI - -EXTRACTS FROM DOCUMENTS - -SHOWING THE PRICE PAID FOR DANTON’S PLACE AT THE CONSEILS DU ROI, -THE SOURCES FROM WHICH HE DERIVED THE MONEY FOR ITS PAYMENT, AND THE -COMPENSATION PAID ON ITS SUPPRESSION IN 1791. - - -The three documents from which I quote below are of the utmost importance -to a special study of Danton, because they give us most of our evidence -as to the value of his post at the Conseils du Roi, and permit us -to understand his financial position during the first years of the -Revolution. - -They are three in number:— - -(_a_) The deed of sale by which Danton acquired the post from Me. Huet de -Paisy. This deed was discovered by Dr. Robinet (from whose “Vie Privée -de Danton” I take all the documents quoted) in the offices of a Parisian -solicitor, Me. Faiseau-Jaranne of the Rue Vivienne. This gentleman was -the direct successor in his business of the M. Dosfant who drew up the -deed seventy years before. - -I have quoted only the essential portions of this exceedingly interesting -piece of evidence. They give us the date of the transaction (March 29, -1787), the price paid, 78,000 livres, or rather (seeing that Danton -acquired the right to collect a debt of 11,000) 67,000 livres net -(say £2600); the fact that some £2000 of this was paid down out of -a loan raised for him by his relations in Champagne and his future -father-in-law, while some £160 he paid out of his savings, and the rest -remained owing. The receipt of 1789, which I have attached at the end of -the extract, shows us that by that time the balance had been paid over -to Me. Huet de Paisy, including interest at 5 per cent. Incidentally -there is mention of Danton moving to the Rue de la Tissanderie, whence we -shall find him drawing up his marriage-contract. - -(_b_) The marriage-contract between Danton and Antoinette Charpentier, -contains all the customary provisions of a French marriage-contract, -and is witnessed by the usual host of Mends, such as we find witnessing -Desmoulins’ contract, three or four years later. It tells us, among other -things, the position of his stepfather Recordain and the well-to-do -connections of the Charpentiers; but the point of principal interest is -the dowry—20,000 livres, that is, some £800—of which the greater part -(£600) went to pay his debt on the place he held as Avocat ès Conseils, -and the fact that he had remaining a patrimony of some £500. - -(_c_) The acknowledgment of the sum due as compensation to Danton when -the hereditary and purchasable office which he had bought was put an -end to. All students of the period know the vast pother that has been -raised on this point, the rumour that Danton was overpaid as a kind of -bribe from the court, &c. &c. All the direct evidence we have of the -transaction is in these few lines. They are just like all the other forms -of reimbursement, and are perfectly straightforward. - -The amount is somewhat less than we should give in England under similar -circumstances, for (1) the State does not allow for the entrance-fees -(10,000 livres), which Danton had had to pay, and (2) it taxes him 12 -per cent. for the _probable_ future taxation which would have fallen -by death, transference, &c., on the estate. Finally, he gets not quite -70,000 livres for a place which cost him first and last 78,000. - -To recapitulate: the general conclusions which these documents permit us -to draw with regard to Danton’s financial position are as follows:—The -price of the practice he bought was 68,000 livres; of this, 56,000 was -paid down, a sum obtained by borrowing 36,000 from Mdlle. Duhattoir (a -mortgagee discovered by the family solicitor, Millot), and 15,000 from -his future father-in-law, Charpentier, the remaining 5000 being paid out -of his own pocket. - -He thus remains in debt to Me. Huet de Paisy, the vendor, in a sum of -12,000 livres at 5 per cent. interest. - -To this must be added a sum of 10,000 livres entrance-fee, which he -presumably pays by recovering a debt of somewhat larger amount (11,000) -which he had bought along with the practice. - -When he marries, his wife’s dowry cancels his debt to Charpentier and -leaves him 5000 livres over, he possessing at that time in land and -houses at Arcy some 12,000—in all 17,000 livres or their value are in -hand in the summer of 1787, and his total liabilities at the same date -are the 36,000 to Mdlle. Duhattoir and the 12,000 to Me. de Paisy. He -starts his practice, therefore, with 31,000 livres, or about £1200 of net -liability. The practice was lucrative; we know that he is immediately -concerned with three important chancery cases; he becomes the lawyer of -two of the wealthiest men in the kingdom; he lives modestly. We know that -he pays the 12,000 with interest in December 1789, and though we do not -possess the receipt for Mdlle. Duhattoir’s repayment, it is eminently -probable that, under such conditions, he could easily have met a debt -of less than £800 out of four years’ successful practice in a close -corporation, which of necessity dealt with the most lucrative cases in -the kingdom. I think, therefore, one may regard the reimbursement which -he received in 1791 as presumably free from debt, and see him in no -financial difficulty at any period of the Revolution. This opinion has -the advantage of depending upon the support of all those who have lately -investigated the same documents—MM. Aulard, Robinet, earlier Bougeart -(but he is a special pleader), and finally Mr. Morse Stephens in England. - - -(_a_) FROM THE DEED OF SALE BETWEEN HUET DE PAISY AND DANTON, _29th March -1787_. - - “Par devant les conseillers du Roi, notaires, &c.... - - “... Me. Charles-Nicholas Huet de Paisy, écuyer, ancien avocat - au Parlement et ès conseils du Roi, demeurant à Paris, Rue de - la Tissanderie, paroisse de St. Jean en Grève ... a vendu... - a Me. Jacques-Georges Danton, avocat au Parlement, demeurant - à Paris, Rue des Mauvaises Paroles, paroisse St. Germain - l’Auxerrois ... l’état et office héréditaire d’avocat ès - conseils du Roi, faisant un des 70 créés par édit du mois de - septembre 1738.... - - “Ledit Me. Huet de Paisy vend en outre en dit Me. Danton - la pratique et clientèle attachées au sous dit office, et - consistant en dossiers, liasses, &c.... - - “Cette vente est faite... par ledit Me. Danton qui s’y oblige - d’entrer au lieu... dudit Me. Huet de Paisy.... Moyennant - la somme de 78,000 livres... dont 68,000 sont le prix de la - pratique et 10,000 les charges accoutumées.... - - “Ledit Me. Huet de Paisy reconnaît avoir reçu sur les 68,000 - livres (prix de la pratique) la somme de 56,000 livres dont - autant quittances. Quant au 12,000 livres de surplus Me. Danton - promet et s’oblige de les payer dans quatre années du jour de - sa reception audit office avec l’intérêt sur le pied du dernier - vingt ... (5 per cent.). - - “Déclare en outre une ... somme de 11,000 livres lui être - légitimement due par.... (_Then follow the details of this debt - to the office. Danton consents to pay the 68,000 on condition - that he may collect this debt from the client of the office, - and specially mentions the fact that, if he is not given full - powers to collect, the price shall be not 68,000, but only - 57,000 livres_).... - - “A ces présentes est intervenu Me. François-Jacques Millot, - procureur au Parlement, demeurant à Paris, rue Percée, paroisse - St. Séverin. Fondé de la procuration spéciale pour ce qui - suit dû, Sieur François Lenoir, maître de poste, et dame - Marie-Geneviève Camus, son épouse, de dame Elisabeth Camus, - veuve du Sieur Nicolas Jeannet et de demoiselle Anne Camus, - fille majeure, demeurant tous à Arcy-sur-Aube, passée en brevet - devant Morey notaire à Troyes, en présence de témoins, le - deux décembre dernier, l’original de laquelle dûment contrôlé - légalisé a été certifié véritable et déposé pour minute à Me. - Dosfant, l’un des notaires soussignés par acte du vingt-huit - du présent mois. Lequel a, par ces présentes, rendu et - constitué lesdits Sieur et dame Lenoir, dame veuve Jeannet et - demoiselle Camus, cautions et répondants solidaires dudit Me. - Danton envers ledit Me. Huet de Paisy, ce faisant les oblige - solidairement avec lui, séparément les uns avec les autres - au payement desdites douze mille livres qui restent dues sur - ladite pratique, intérêts d’icelle, et au payement des dix - mille livres, prix du corps dudit office aux époques ci-dessus - fixées, à quoi ledit Me. Millot, audit nom, affecte, oblige et - hypothèque sous ladite solidarité, généralement tous les biens, - meubles et immeubles, présents et à venir de ses constituants. - - “Ledit M. Danton déclare que dans, les cinquante-six mille - livres par lui ci-dessus payées, il y a trente-six mille livres - qui proviennent des deniers qu’il a empruntés à demoiselle - Françoise-Julie Duhauttoir, demoiselle majeure, et quinze mille - livres qu’il a empruntées du Sieur François-Jérôme Charpentier, - contrôleur des fermes, sous le cautionnement desdits Sieur et - dame Lenoir, dame veuve Jeannet et demoiselle Camus.... (_What - follows is the receipt in full, signed by Huet de Paisy in - December 1789._) - - “Et le trois décembre mil sept cent quatre-vingt-neuf, est - comparu devant les notaires à Paris, soussignés, ledit Me. Huet - de Paisy, nommé et qualifié en l’acte ci-devant, demeurant à - Paris, rue des Couronnes, près de Belleville,—Lequel a reconnu - avoir reçu dudit Me. Danton aussi ci-devant nommé, qualifié - et domicilié, à ce présent, la somme de treize mille cinq - cent livres composée, 1ᵒ des douze mille livres qui, sur le - prix du traiteé ci-devant, avaient été stipulées payables en - quatre années du jour de la réception dudit Me. Danton et sur - lesquelles ce dernier devait exercer l’effet de la garantie - contractée par ledit Me. de Paisy, par le traiteé ci-devant, - relativement à l’affaire du Sieur Papillon de la Grange, de - l’effet de laquelle garantie, quoique cette affaire ne soit pas - encore terminée, ledit Me. Danton décharge ledit Me. de Paisy; - 2ᵒ et de quinze cents livres pours les intérêts de ladite somme - de douze mille livres échus jusqu’au premier octobre dernier - qu’ils ont cessé de courir, de convention entre les parties; de - laquelle somme de treize mille cinq cents livres et de toutes - choses au sujet dudit traité, ledit Me. Huet de Paisy quitte - et décharge Me. Danton;—Dont acte fait et passé à Paris, en - l’étude, lesdits jour et an et ont signé.” - - -(_b_) FROM THE MARRIAGE-CONTRACT OF DANTON AND MDLLE. CHARPENTIER, _9th -June 1787_. - - “Par devant les conseillers du Roi, &c.... - - “Me. Georges-Jacques Danton, avocat ès conseils du Roi, - demeurant à Paris, rue de la Tissanderie, paroisse de Jean - en Grève, fils du defunt Sieur Jacques Danton, bourgeois - d’Arcis-sur-Aube, et dame Jeanne-Madeleine Camus, sa veuve - actuellement épouse du Sieur Jean Reordain négociant audit - Arcis-sur-Aube, de présent à Paris, logée chez ledit sieur, son - fils, à ce présent, stipulant le dit Me. Danton d’une part. - - “Et Sieur François-Jerome Charpentier, controleur des Fermes, - et dame Angelique-Octavie Soldini, son épouse... demeurant à - Paris, quai de l’École, paroisse de St. Germain l’Auxerrois, - stipulant pour... demoiselle Antoinette-Gabrielle Charpentier - leur fille majeure... d’autre part. - - “... Ont arrêté les conventions civiles dudit mariage ... à - savoir... - - (_Then follow the names of the witnesses to the contract; - their only importance is the idea they give us of the social - position of the two bourgeois families concerned. They include - Papillon, a surgeon; Dupont, a lawyer of the Châtelet; Duprat - and Gousseau, barristers; Wislet, a banker; Mme. Tavaval, widow - of a painter to the Court, and so forth._)... - - “... Les biens dudit futur époux consistent:— - - “(1ᵒ) Dans l’office d’avocat aux conseils... acheté à Me. Huet - de Paisy... le 29 mars dernier... moyennant la somme de 68,000 - livres qu’il doit en entier soit audit Me. Huet de Paisy, soit - aux personnes qui lui ont prêté les sommes qu’il a payées - comptant. - - “(2ᵒ) Dans de terres, maisons et heritages situé audit - Arcis-sur Aube et aux environs de valeur de la somme de 12,000 - livres.... - - “Les père et mère de ladite demoiselle lui donnent en dot - ... une somme de 18,000 livres... pour s’acquitter de cette - somme ils... déchargent ledit Me. Danton de celle de 15,000 - livres qu’ils lui ont prêtée, et qui a été employée par lui au - payement de partie du prix... attachée à l’office dudit Me. - Huet de Paisy.... - - “Ils ont présentement payé audit Me. Danton les 3000 livres - completant les dix huit milles livres. - - “Enfin ladite demoiselle future épouse apporte ... la somme de - 2000 livres provenant de ses gains et épargnes.” - - (_The remainder of the document is a statement of the - “community property” in marriage and the settlements made in - case of decease, the whole regulated by the “custom of Paris.” - They have no interest for this book._) - - -(_c_) FROM THE NOTE LIQUIDATING DANTON’S PLACE AT THE CONSEILS DU ROI AND -HIS RECEIPT FOR THE REIMBURSEMENT, _8th and 11th of October 1791_. HELD -BY DE MONTMORIN IN HIS OFFICE. - - “Nous, Louis-César-Alexandre-Dufresne Saint-Léon, commissaire - du Roi, directeur général de la liquidation. - - “Attendu la remise à nous faite des titres originels... - concernant l’office d’avocat ès conseils du Roi dont était - titulairé ... le Sieur Georges-Jacques Danton. - - “Ledit office liquidé... par décret de l’Assemblée Nationale - ... sanctionné par le Roi le deux octobre, à la somme de 69,031 - livres 4 sols.... Avons delivré au Sieur Danton... la présente - reconnaissance définitive de la dite somme de 69,031 livres 4 - sols, qui sera payée a la caisse de l’extraordinaire.... - - “M. Georges-Jacques Danton, avocat ès conseils, en présence - des soussignés... a reconnu... la liquidation... de l’office - d’avocat ès conseils du Roi dont été titulairé... ledit - Georges-Jacques Danton... savoir. - - “(1ᵒ) 78,000 livres... principale moyennant laquelle il a - acquis l’office le 29 Mars 1787. - - “(2ᵒ) 240 livres pour le remboursement du droit de mutation. - - “(3ᵒ) 416 livres 4 sols pour celui du Marc d’or. - - “(4ᵒ) 125 livres pour celui des frais de Sceau. - - “Deduction faite de 9750 pour le huitième du prix retenu.... - Au moyen du paisement effectif qui sera fait audit Sieur Danton - de ... 69,031 livres 4 sols ... quitte et décharge l’état, M. - Dufresne de Saint-Léon et tous autres de ladite somme de 69,031 - livres 4 sols ... &c.” (_The remainder of the document is the - mention of the original deed of sale having been shown to the - liquidator, and the correction of certain clerical errors in a - former document._) - - - - -VII - -EXTRACTS FROM DOCUMENTS - -SHOWING THE SITUATION OF DANTON’S APARTMENT IN THE COUR DE COMMERCE, ITS -FURNITURE AND VALUE, &C. - - -The extracts given below are of a purely personal interest, and do not -add anything material to our knowledge of the Revolution. On the other -hand, they are of value to those who are chiefly concerned with Danton’s -personality, and with the details of his daily life. They show what kind -of establishment he kept, with its simple furniture, its two servants, -its reserve of money, &c., and enable us to make an accurate picture of -the flat in which he lived, and of its position. It is from them that I -have drawn the material for my description of the rooms in Appendix II. -on p. 329. Incidentally, they tell us the profession of M. Charpentier’s -brother (a notary), give us a view of the religious burial practised in -the spring of 1793, show us, as do many of his phrases elsewhere, the -entire absence of anti-clericalism in Danton’s family as in his own mind, -the number of the house, the name of its proprietor, Danton’s wardrobe, -his wine, the horse and carriage which he bought for his hurried return -from Belgium, and many other petty details which are of such interest in -the study of an historical character. - -Like most of the documents quoted in this Appendix, they are due to the -industry and research of Danton’s biographer, Dr. Robinet, and will be -found in his Memoir on Danton’s private life. They are three in number:— - -(_a_) The various declarations of Thuiller, the justice of the peace -for the Section du Théâtre Français. He put seals upon the doors and -furniture (as is the French custom) upon the death of Danton’s first -wife. This death occurred on February 11, 1793, while Danton was away on -mission in Belgium, and the visit of the justice of the peace is made on -the following day, the 12th. Danton returns at once, and the seals are -removed on various occasions, from the 24th of March to the 5th of April, -in the presence of Danton himself, or of his father-in-law, Charpentier. - -(_b_) The inventory which accompanied the sealing and unsealing of the -apartments. - -(_c_) The raising of the seals which were put upon the house after -Danton’s execution. Interesting chiefly for the astonishing writing and -spelling of the new functionaries. - -All the three were obtained by Dr. Robinet from the lawyers who have -succeeded to, or inherited from, the original “Etudes” where the -documents were deposited. - - “Cejourd’hui douze février mil sept cent quatre-vingt-treize, - l’an deuxième de la République française, dix heures du matin, - nous, Claude-Louis Thuiller, juge de paix de la section du - Théâtre-Français, dite de Marseille, à Paris, sur ce que - nous avons appris que la citoyenne Antoinette-Gabrielle - Charpentier, épouse du citoyen Georges-Jacques Danton, député - à la Convention Nationale, était décédée le jour d’hier - en son appartement, rue des Cordeliers, cour du Commerce, - dans l’étendue de notre section, et attendu que ledit - citoyen Danton est absent par commission nationale, nous - sommes transporté avec le citoyen Antoine-Marie Berthout, - notre secrétaire-greffier ordinaire, en une maison sise à - Paris, rue des Cordeliers, cour du Commerce, et parvenus à - l’entrée de l’escalier qui conduit à l’appartement dudit - citoyen Danton, nous avons trouvé des prêtres de la paroisse - de Saint-André-des-Arts et le cortège qui accompagnait - l’enlèvement du corps de la d. Charpentier, épouse dudit - citoyen Danton, et étant montés au premier étage au-dessus de - l’entresol et entrés dans l’appartement dudit citoyen, dans un - salon ayant vue sur la rue des Cordeliers, nous y avons trouvé - et par-devant nous est comparue la citoyenne Marie Fougerot, - fille domestique dudit citoyen Danton.—Laquelle nous a dit - que ladite citoyenne Antoinette-Gabrielle Charpentier, épouse - dudit citoyen Danton, est décédée dans la nuit du dimanche - au lundi dernier en l’appartement où nous sommes, par suite - de maladie; que ledit Danton est absent par commission de la - Convention Nationale; que la mère de ladite défunte Charpentier - a envoyé chercher hier son fils encore en bas âge, qu’elle - comparante, le citoyen Jacques Fougerot, son frère qui, depuis - quinze jours, habite la maison où nous sommes, et la citoyenne - Catherine Motin, aussi fille domestique dudit citoyen Danton, - sont les seuls qui restent dans l’appartement dudit Danton; - que les clefs des meubles et effets étant dans l’appartement - où nous sommes ont été prises et emportées par la mère de - ladite défunte Charpentier qui était présente à ses derniers - moments; qu’elle vient d’envoyer chercher lesdites clefs chez - le citoyen Charpentier, qui demeure quai de l’École. Et a signé - M. Fougerot. - - “A l’instant est comparu le citoyen François-Jérôme - Charpentier, demeurant à Paris, quai de l’École, nᵒ 3, section - du Louvre.—Lequel nous a représenté un paquet de clefs.” - - -(_a_) EXTRACTS FROM THE “APPOSITION DES SCELLÉS” BY M. THUILLER, JUSTICE -OF THE PEACE, ON FEBRUARY 12, 1793, AND FROM THE “VACATIONS” BY THE SAME. - - “Surquoy nous, Juge de Paix susdit ... avons apposé nos scellés - comme il suit. Premierment dans le dit salon ayant vu sur la - rue des Cordeliers ... dans un petit salon étant en suite ayant - même vue ... dans la chambre à coucher étant en suite et ayant - même vue.... - - “Le citoyen Charpentier a fait observer des louis que ledit - citoyen Danton avait remis à sa femme pour payer aux mandats - de ceux qui viendraient le rejoindre dans la Belgique.—Des - scellés ... sur une porte d’un cabinet noir qui communique - avec une petite chambre à coucher ... sur la porte d’entrée - dudit cabinet noir ... dans une chambre dernière le salon - ayant vue sur la cour du Commerce... dans un anti-chambre près - de la cuisine ayant vue sur la cour du Commerce.... Dans une - chambre de domestiques à l’entresol.... Dans la petite salle - audessous.... Dans la salle a manger ayant vue sur la cour du - Commerce.... Dans une chambre en suite à toilette.... Dans la - cuisine.... Dans la cave.... - - “Et le 24 février 1793, l’an deuxième de la République - française, est comparu devant nous le citoyen Georges-Jacques - Danton, député à la Convention ... lequel nous a requis ... de - procéder à la levée des dits scellés ... apposés après le décès - de la dite dame (_the word “citoyenne” is evidently still a - little unfamiliar_) Antoinette Charpentier.... - - “Ensuite à la réquisition des parties nous nous sommes ... - transportés dans une maison, rue du Pæon, Hotel de Tours ... où - il a été procédé à l’estimation d’un cabriolet, d’un cheval, - d’une jument et harnais.... Le C. Antoine-François Charpentier, - notaire, demeurant rue du l’Arbre-Sec, a comparu ... et le C. - François-Jerome Charpentier, nᵒ. 3 Quai de l’École....” - - (_The rest of the document is a long account of the raising of - the seals on various occasions, from March 1 to April 5. It - contains nothing of interest._) - - -(_b_) SUMMARY OF THE INVENTORY TAKEN IN DANTON’S HOUSE AFTER HIS FIRST -WIFE’S DEATH, _25th February 1793_. - - “L’an mil sept cent quatre vingt-treize, le deuxième de la - République française, le vingt-cinq février, huit heures du - matin. - - “A la requête de Georges-Jacques Danton, député a la Convention - Rationale, demeurant, etc. ... il va être par lesdits notaires - a Paris soussignés, procédé à l’inventaire de tous les biens, - meubles, &c.... dans les lieux composant l’appartement du - premier étage d’une maison située a Paris, rue des Cordeliers, - passage du Commerce, appartenant au Sieur Boullenois.” - - (_Here follow the details of the Inventory, of which I give a - summary in English._) - - Livres - - _In the Cellar._—Three pieces of Burgundy, 62 bottles - of claret, 92 bottles of Burgundy, a small barrel of - white wine 600 - - _In the Kitchen._—The usual _batterie de cuisine_ of a - French household, enumerated in detail, and valued at 208 - - _In the Pantry and Offices of the Kitchen._—A few chairs, - a pair of scales, cups, saucers, and so forth 98 - - _In a Bedroom adjoining, and giving on the Cour de - Commerce._—The usual furniture; probably a dressing-room. - Here was the watch found on Danton after his execution, - his writing-table, &c.: the whole, including dishes in - the cupboard and a stove 264 - - _In a larger Bedroom giving on the Rue des - Cordeliers._—After the usual furniture, a small - piano, a guitar, two looking-glasses, and a writing-table 990 - - _In a little Room opening out of this._—Usual furniture - of a small study or boudoir, furnished in the white - wood of the period 470 - - _In the Drawing-room._—The furniture, mostly grey and - white, no piece worth any special mention 992 - - A large cupboard near the chimney contained some summer - clothes put away, and the sword which Danton had worn - in the old Bataillon of the Cordeliers. The whole - valued at 332 - - _In a little Room looking on an inner court_ (evidently - used as a Library, the list of whose books will be found - on p. 380):—Furniture, chiefly bookcases, to the value of 160 - - _In a little Lumber-room._—Three empty trunks and a bed 16 - - _In two little Rooms adjoining._—Furniture (mostly put away) 214 - - The rest of the inventory mentions the household linen, the - clothes, the plate, and the jewels. The summary is as follows:— - - Household linen, in all 734 - - Clothes, including every item 925 - - Plate, including several wedding presents, marked with - initials 291 - - Knives and forks other than plate 20 - - Jewellery (including two women’s rings, set with brilliants, - and a wedding-ring) 509 - - This gives us the whole value of the furniture, clothing, &c., - in the house, and it amounts to a total of just over 9000 - livres, that is, about £360. There was £50 in money in the - house, which he had left with his wife before going off to - Belgium. - - -(_c_) EXTRACTS FROM THE RAISING OF THE SEALS AFTER DANTON’S DEATH. - - “L’an trois de la République une et indivisible, cejourd’hui - vingt-cinq messidor, neuf heures de matin, à la requête du - bureau du Domaine national du département de Paris et en - vertu de son arrêté en _datte_ du seize susdit mois, signé - Rennesson et Guillotin, portant nomination de nous Jourdain, - pour en notre qualité de commissaire dudit bureau, à l’effet - de nous transporter, assisté de deux commissaires civils de - la section du Théâtre-Français, et d’un commissaire de toute - autorité constituée qui aurait fait apposer des scellés dans la - demeure de feu Jacques-Georges Danton, condamné à mort le seize - germinal, an deuxième, par le Tribunal Révolutionnaire établi à - Paris, y procéder à la levée d’iceux, et pareillement à celle - de ceux dudit bureau du domaine national en ladite demeure, - sise rue des Cordeliers, nᵒ 24, le tout en présence du citoyen - Charpentier, beau-père dudit feu Danton et tuteur d’Antoine et - François-Georges Danton, enfants mineurs dudit _deffunt_, et de - la citoyenne feue Antoinette-Gabrielle Charpentier, fille dudit - citoyen Charpentier, ayeul et tuteur desdits mineurs; faire - ensuite concurremment avec ledit tuteur, et en présence de la - citoyenne seconde femme en secondes noces dudit Danton, ou de - son fondé de pouvoir, le recollement des meubles et effets - dudit _deffunt_ sur l’inventaire qui en a été précédemment - fait, ensuite mettre le logement cy-dessus désigné, et - pareillement les titres et papiers, meubles et effets qui se - trouveront à la disposition dudit citoyen Charpentier au nom et - qualité qu’il procède, moyennant décharge valable, destituer le - gardien préposé à la garde des scellés, duquel remise lui sera - faite par extrait de ladite destitution. - - “Nous, Jean-Baptiste Jourdain cy-dessus _qualiffié_, - demeurant audit Paris, rue de la Liberté, nᵒ 86, section du - Théâtre-Français. - - “Étant accompagné des citoyens Beurnier et Leblanc, - commissaires adjoints au comité civil de la susdite section, - requis par nous audit comité civil, sommes ensemble et en vertu - de l’arrêté ci-dessus _datté_, transporté en la demeure sus - _ditte_, rue des Cordeliers, _ditte_ de l’_Écolle_ de Santé, - audit nᵒ 24, entré de la cour du Commerce, où étant nous avons - requis le citoyen Desgranges, gardien, de nous faire ouverture - lors de l’intervention dudit citoyen Charpentier et de la - citoyenne Gély, seconde femme dudit Danton.... - - “Clos le présent à deux heures de relevée dudit jour, - vingt-cinq messidor, an troisième de la République une et - indivisible, et ont lesdits citoyens Charpentier et Gély, - ainsi que nos adjoints et ledit citoyen Desgranges, signés - le présent avec nous, après lecture, approuvé trente-neuf - mots rayés comme nuls, ainsi signés Gély, Charpentier Le - Blanc, Desgranges, Jourdain et Beurnier. Plus bas est écrit. - Enregistré à Paris, le premier thermidor an 3ᵒ. Reçu quatre - livres. Signé Caron. Deux mots rayés nuls à la présente. - - “Pour _coppie_ conforme, délivrée par nous, membres du bureau - du Domaine national du département de Paris. - - “A Paris, le sept thermidor an troisième de la Republique une - et indivisible. - - Signé RENESSON, DUCHATEL. - - “Collationné à l’original, déposé aux archives de Seine-et-Oise. - - _L’archiviste_, - SAINTE-MARIE MÉVIL.” - -The lack of education in the Robespierrian functionary is worth noting. - - - - -VIII - -CATALOGUE OF DANTON’S LIBRARY - - -No part of the very scanty evidence we possess upon Danton’s personal -life and habits is of more value than this little list. It is the small -and carefully chosen bookcase of a man thoroughly conversant with -English and Italian as well as with his own tongue. He buys a work in -the original almost invariably, and collects, in a set of less than two -hundred works, classic after classic. He has read his Johnson and his -Pope; he knows Adam Smith; he has been at the pains to study Blackstone. -It must be carefully noted that every book he bought was his own choice. -There were only a few legal summaries at the old home at Arcis, and -Danton was a man who never had a reputation for learning or for letters, -still less had he cause to buy a single volume for effect. I know of few -documents more touching than this catalogue, coming to the light after -seventy years of silence, and showing us the mind of a man who was cut -off suddenly and passed into calumny. He had read familiarly in their own -tongues Rabelais and Boccaccio and Shakespeare. - -_The following volumes are in English_:— - - A translation of Plutarch’s Lives 8 vols. - Dryden’s translation of Virgil 4 ” - Shakespeare 8 ” - Pope 6 ” - Sussini’s Letters 1 vol. - The Spectator 12 vols. - Clarissa Harlowe 8 ” - A translation of Don Quixote (probably Smollett’s) 4 vols. - ” ” Gil Blas 4 ” - Essay on Punctuation 1 vol. - Johnson’s Dictionary (in folio) 2 vols. - Blackstone 1 vol. - Life of Johnson 2 vols. - Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” (number of vols. - given as 23, probably an error) - Robertson’s History of Scotland 2 ” - ” ” America 2 ” - Works of Dr. Johnson 7 ” - -_The following are in Italian_:— - -(The names are not given in Italian by the lawyer, and I can only follow -his version.) - - Venuti: History of Modern Rome 2 vols. - Guischardini: History of Italy 4 ” - Fontanini: Italian Eloquence 3 ” - Denina’s Italian Revolutions 2 ” - Caro’s translation of Virgil 2 ” - Boccaccio’s Decameron 2 ” - Ariosto 5 ” - Boiardi’s edition of the “Orlando Furioso” 4 ” - Métastase (?) 8 ” - Dalina (?) 7 ” - Reichardet (?) 3 ” - Davila: History of the French Civil Wars 2 ” - “Letters on Painting and Sculpture” 5 ” - Il Morgante de Pulci, 12 mo 3 ” - -_The remainder (except one or two legal books and classics) are in -French._ - - Métamorphoses d’Ovide, traduit par Banier, in 4to 4 vols. - Œuvres de Rousseau, 4to 16 ” - Maison Rustique, 4to 2 ” - Lucrèce, traduit par La Grange, 8vo 2 ” - Amours de Daphnis et Chloé, 4to, Paris, 1745 - Œuvres de Lucien, traduit du grec, 8vo 6 ” - — de Montesquieu, 8vo 5 ” - — de Montaigne, 8vo 3 ” - — de Malby, 8vo 13 ” - — Complètes d’Helvétius, 8vo 4 ” - Philosophie de la nature, 8vo 7 ” - Histoire Philosophique, de l’Abbé Raynal, 8vo 10 ” - Œuvres de Boulanger, 8vo 5 ” - Caractères de la Bruyère, 8vo 3 ” - Œuvres de Brantôme, 8vo 8 ” - — de Rabelais, 8vo 2 ” - Fables de La Fontaine, avec les figures de Fessard, 8vo 6 ” - Contes de La Fontaine, avec belles figures, 8vo 2 ” - Œuvres de Scarron, 8vo 7 ” - — de Piron, 8vo 7 ” - — de Voltaire, 12mo 91 ” - Lettres de Sévigné, 12mo 8 ” - Œuvres de Corneille, 12 mo 6 ” - — de Racine, 12mo 3 ” - — de Gresset, 12mo 2 ” - — de Molière, 12mo 8 ” - — de Crébillon, 12mo 3 ” - — de Fiévé (sic), 12 mo 5 ” - — de Regnard, 12mo 4 ” - Traité des Délits, 12mo 1 vol. - Le Sceau Enlevé, 12mo 3 vols. - Tableau de la Révolution Française, 13 cahiers - Dictionnaire de Bayle, folio 5 vols. - César de Turpin, 4to 3 ” - Œuvres de Pasquier, folio 2 ” - Histoire de France de Velly, Villaret et Garnier, 12mo 30 ” - Histoire du P. Hénault, 8vo 25 ” - — Ecclésiastique de Fleury, 4to 25 ” - — d’Angleterre de Rapin, 4to 16 ” - Dictionnaire de l’Académie, 4to 2 ” - Corpus Doctorum, 4to 1 vol. - Dictionnaire Historique, 8vo 8 vols. - Abrégé de l’Histoire des Voyages, 8vo 23 ” - Dictionnaire d’Histoire Naturelle de Bomard, 8vo 15 ” - Virgile de Desfontaines, 8vo 4 ” - Œuvres de Buffon, 12mo, figures 58 ” - Hérodote de Larcher, 8vo 7 ” - Œuvres de Démosthenes et d’Eschyle, par Auger, 4to 4 ” - Histoire Ancienne de Rollin, 12mo 14 ” - Cours d’Etudes de Condillac, 12mo 16 ” - Histoire Moderne, 12 mo 30 ” - — du Bas-Empire, 12mo 22 ” - Corpus Juris Civilis, folio 2 ” - Encyclopédie par Ordre de Matières, toutes les - livraisons excepté la dernière (1). - -The whole is valued at just over a hundred pounds (2800 livres). - - - - -IX - -EXTRACTS FROM THE MEMOIR WRITTEN IN 1846 BY THE SONS OF DANTON - - -This memoir was written by Danton’s sons. Both survived him, the one by -fifty-five, the other by sixty-four years (1849, 1858). Their fortune -was restored to them by the Republic two years after their father’s -death (13th April 1796). Their guardian, Charpentier (their maternal -grandfather), died in 1804; they then were taken in by Danton’s mother, -Mme. Recordain, who was still living at Arcis. She died in October -1813, a year in which the youngest came of age, and they sold out the -greater part of the land in which Danton’s fortune had been invested, -and appear to have put the capital into one of the new factories which -sprang up after the peace. In 1832 we find them partners and heads of a -cotton-spinning establishment at Arcis, which they maintain till their -deaths. They left, unfortunately, no surviving sons. - -The manuscript was written for Danton’s nephew, the son of a younger -brother. This nephew became inspector of the University of Paris, and -lent the MSS. to several historians, among others, Michelet and Bougeart. -It finally passed into the possession of the latter, who gave it to Dr. -Robinet. This writer printed it in the appendix of the “Vie Privée,” from -which I take it. - -It is not a precise historical document, such as are the official -reports, receipts, &c., upon which much of this book depends. Thus, -it ignores the dowry of Mdlle. Charpentier and the exact date of the -second marriage; it is weak on some points, especially dates, but there -attaches to it the interest due to the very quality from which these -errors proceed—I mean its familiar reminiscences. While the memory of -these men, advanced in life, is at fault in details, it is more likely to -be accurate in the motives and tendencies it describes than are we of a -hundred years later. - - “Rien au monde ne nous est plus cher que la mémoire de notre - père. Elle a été, elle est encore tous les jours calomniée, - outragée d’une manière affreuse; aussi notre désir le plus - ardent a-t-il toujours été de voir l’histoire lui rendre - justice. - - “Georges-Jacques Danton, notre père, se maria deux fois. Il - épousa d’abord en juin 1787, Antoinette-Gabrielle Charpentier, - qui mourut le 10 février 1793. Dans le cours de cette même - année 1793, nous ne pourrions pas indiquer l’époque precise, - il épousa, en secondes noces, Mademoiselle Sophie Gély, qui - vivait encore il y a deux ans (nous ne savons pas si elle - est morte depuis). Notre père en mourant ne laissa que deux - fils issus de son premier mariage. Nous sommes nés l’un le 18 - juin 1790, et l’autre le 2 février 1792; notre père mourut le - 5 avril 1794; nous n’avons donc pas pu avoir le bonheur de - recevoir ses enseignements, ses confidences, d’être initiés à - ses pensées à ses projets. Au moment de sa mort tout chez lui - a été saisi, confisqué, et plus tard, aucun de ses papiers, à - l’exception de ses titres de propriété, ne nous a été rendu. - Nous avons été élevés par M. François-Jérôme Charpentier, notre - grand-père maternel et notre tuteur. Il ne parlait jamais - sans attendrissement de Danton, son gendre. M. Charpentier, - qui habitait Paris, y mourut en 1804, à une époque où, sans - doute, il nous trouvait encore trop jeunes pour que nous - puissions bien apprécier ce qu’il aurait pu nous raconter de - la vie politique de notre père, car il s’abstint de nous en - parler. Du reste, il avait environ quatre-vingts ans quand il - mourut; et, dans ses dernières années, son esprit paraissait - beaucoup plus occupé de son avenir dans un autre monde que de - ce qui s’était passé dans celui-ci. Après la mort de notre - grand-père Charpentier, M. Victor Charpentier, son fils, fut - nommé notre tuteur. Il mourut en 1810. Quoiqu’il habitât - Paris, nous revînmes en 1805 à Arcis, pour ne plus le quitter. - La fin de notre enfance et le commencement de notre jeunesse - s’y écoulèrent auprès de la mère de notre père. Elle était - affaiblie par l’âge, les infirmités et les chagrins. C’était - toujours les yeux remplis de larmes qu’elle nous entretenait - de son fils, des innombrables témoignages d’affection qu’il - lui avait donnés, des tendres caresses dont il l’accablait. - Elle fit de fréquents voyages à Paris; il aimait tant à la - voir à ses côtés! Il avait en elle une confiance entière; elle - en était digne, et, s’il eût eu des secrets, elle les eût - connus, et nous les eussions connus par elle. Très souvent - elle nous parlait de la Révolution; mais, en embrasser tout - l’ensemble d’un seul coup d’œil, en apprécier les causes, en - suivre la marche, en juger les hommes et les événements, en - distinguer tous les partis, deviner leur but, démêler les fils - qui les faisaient agir, tout cela n’était pas chose facile, - on conviendra: aussi, quoique la mère de Danton eût beaucoup - d’intelligence et d’esprit, on ne sera pas surpris que, d’après - ses récits, nous n’ayons jamais connu la Révolution que d’une - manière extrêmement confuse... - - “Sa mère, d’accord avec tous ceux qui nous ont si souvent parlé - de lui pour l’avoir connu, et que notre position sociale ne - fera, certes, pas suspecter de flatterie, sa mère nous l’a - toujours dépeint comme le plus honnête homme que l’on puisse - rencontrer, comme l’homme le plus aimant, le plus franc, le - plus loyal, le plus désintéressé, le plus généreux, le plus - dévoué à ses parents, à ses amis, à son pays natal et à sa - patrie. Quoi d’étonnant, nous dira-t-on? Dans la bouche d’une - mère, que prouve un pareil éloge? Rien, sinon qu’elle adorait - son fils. On ajoutera: Est-ce que pour juger un homme la - postérité devra s’en rapporter aux déclarations de la mère - et des fils de cet homme? Non, sans doute, elle ne le devra - pas, nous ne convenons. Mais aussi, pour juger ce même homme - devra-t-elle s’en rapporter aux déclarations de ses ennemis? - Elle ne le devra pas davantage. Et pourtant que ferait-elle si, - pour juger Danton, elle ne consultait que les ‘Mémoires’ de - ceux qu’il a toujours combattus?... - - “On a reproché à Danton d’avoir exploité la Révolution pour - amasser scandaleusement une fortune énorme. Nous allons prouver - d’une manière incontestable que c’est à très grand tort qu’on - lui a adressé ce reproche. Pour atteindre ce but, nous aliens - comparer l’état de sa fortune au commencement de la Révolution - avec l’état de sa fortune au moment de sa mort. - - “Au moment où la Révolution éclata, notre père était avocat aux - conseils du Roi. C’est un fait dont il n’est pas nécessaire de - fournir la preuve: ses ennemis eux-mêmes ne le contestent pas. - Nous ne pouvons pas établir d’un manière précise et certaine - ce qu’il possédait à cette époque, cependant nous disons que, - s’il ne possédait rien autre chose (ce qui n’est pas prouvé) - _il possédait au moins sa charge_, et voici sur ce point notre - raisonnement:— - - “(1ᵒ) Quelques notes qui sont en notre possession nous prouvent - que Jacques Danton, notre grand-père, décédé a Arcis, le 24 - février 1762, laissa des immeubles sur le finage de Plancy et - sur celui d’Arcis, il est donc présumable que notre père, né - le 26 octobre 1759, et par consequent resté mineur en très bas - âge, a dû posséder un patrimoine quelconque, si modique qu’on - veuille le supposer.”... - - [Here follow guesses as to how he paid for his place in the - _Conseils_. They are of no importance now, as we possess - the documents which give us this (p. 365). The only point - of interest in the passage omitted is the phrase, “probably - our mother brought some dowry.” We know its amount (p. 366), - but the sentence is an interesting proof of the complete - dislocation which Germinal produced in the family.] - - “Nous allons établir que ce qu’il possédait au moment de sa - mort n’était que l’équivalent à peu près de sa charge d’avocat - aux conseils. Nous n’avons jamais su s’il a été fait des actes - de partage de son patrimoine et de celui de ses femmes, ni, si, - au moment de la confiscation de ses biens, il en a été dressé - inventaire, mais nous savons très-bien et très-exactement ce - que nous avons recueilli de sa succession, et nous allons le - dire, sans rester dans le vague sur aucun point, car c’est ici - que, comme nous l’avons annoncé, nos arguments vont être basés - sur des actes authentiques. - - “Nous ferons observer que l’état que nous allons donner - comprend sans distinction ce qui vient de notre père et de - notre mère. - - “Une loi de février 1791 ordonna que le prix des charges et - offices supprimés serait remboursé par l’État aux titulaires. - La charge que Danton possédait était de ce nombre. Nous n’avons - jamais su, pas même approximativement, combien elle lui avait - coûté. Il en reçut le remboursement sans doute, car précisément - vers cette époque, il commença à acheter des immeubles dont - voici le detail:— - - “Le 24 mars 1791, il achète aux enchères, moyennant - quarante-huit mille deux cents livres, un bien national - provenant du clergé, consistant en une ferme appelée - Nuisement, située sur le finage de Chassericourt, canton de - Chavanges, arrondissement d’Arcis, département de l’Aube, à - sept lieues d’Arcis.... Danton avait acheté cette ferme la - somme de quarante-huit mille deux cents, ci - - 48,200 liv. - ------ - A reporter 48,200 liv. - - “12 avril 91.—II achète aux enchères du district d’Arcis, par - l’entremise de maître Jacques Jeannet-Boursier.... - - [Then follows a list of purchases made in the month of April - 1791, of which the most important is an extension to the house - at Arcis—the total of these is 33,600 livres; and in October - 1791 a few acres of land in the town and a patch of wood for - 3160 livres. Then follows the sum total.] - - “Total du prix de toutes les acquisitions d’immeubles - faites par Danton en mil sept cent quatre-vingt-onze: - quatre-vingt-quatre mille neuf cent soixante livres, ci - - 84,960 liv. - - “On doit remarquer qu’il est présumable que la plus grande - partie de ces acquisitions a dû être payée en assignats qui, - à cette époque, perdaient déjà de leur valeur et dont, par - conséquent, la valeur nominale était supérieure à leur valeur - réelle en argent, d’où il résulterait que le prix réel en - argent des immeubles ci-dessus indiqués aurait été inférieur à - 84,960 livres. - - “Depuis cette dernière acquisition du 8 novembre 1791 jusqu’à - sa mort, Danton ne fit plus aucune acquisition importante:—... - - [Here then is what Danton left.] - - “(1ᵒ) La ferme de Nuisement (vendue par nous le 23 juillet - 1813); - - “(2ᵒ) Sa modeste et vieille maison d’Arcis, avec sa dépendance, - le tout contenant non plus 9 arpents, 3 denrées, 14 carreaux - (ou bien 4 hectares, 23 ares, 24 centiares) seulement, comme - au 13 avril 1791, époque où il en fit l’acquisition de - Mademoiselle Piot, mais par suite des additions qu’il y avait - faites, 17 arpents, 3 denrées, 52 carreaux (ou bien 786 ares, - 23); - - “(3ᵒ) 19 arpents, 1 denrées, 41 carreaux (898 ares, 06) de pré - et saussaie; - - “(4ᵒ) 8 arpents, 1 denrée, 57 carreaux (369 ares, 96) de bois; - - “(5ᵒ) 2 denrées, 40 carreaux (14 ares, 07) de terre située dans - l’enceinte d’Arcis. - - “Nous déclarons à qui voudra l’entendre et au besoin nous - déclarons _sous la foi du serment_, que nous n’avons recueilli - de la succession de Georges-Jacques Danton, notre père, - et d’Antoinette-Gabrielle Charpentier, notre mère, rien, - absolument rien autre chose que les immeubles dont nous venons - de donner l’état, que quelques portraits de famille et le buste - en plâtre de notre mère, lesquels, longtemps après la mort de - notre second tuteur, nous furent remis par son épouse, et que - quelques effets mobiliers qui ne méritent pas qu’on en fasse - l’énumeration ni la description, mais que nous n’en avons - recueilli aucune somme d’argent, aucune créance, en un mot rien - de ce qu’on appelle valeurs mobilières, à l’exception pourtant - d’une rente de 100 fr. 5 p. 100 dont MM. Defrance et Détape, - receveurs de rentes à Paris, rue Chabannais, nᵒ 6, ont opéré la - vente pour nous le 18 juin 1825, rente qui avait été achetée - pour nous par l’un de nos tuteurs.... - - “On pourra nous faire une objection qui mérite une réponse; on - pourra nous dire: Vous n’avez recueilli de la succession de - votre père et de votre mère que les immeubles et les meubles - dont vous venez de faire la déclaration, mais cela ne prouve - pas que la fortune de votre père, au moment de sa mort, ne se - composât que de ces seuls objets; car sa condamnation ayant - entraîné la confiscation de tous ses biens sans exception, la - République a pu en vendre et en a peut-être vendu pour des - sommes considérables. Vous n’avez peut-être recueilli que ce - qu’elle n’a pas vendu. - - “Voici notre réponse:— - - “Les meubles et les immeubles confisqués à la mort de notre - père dans le département de l’Aube et non vendus, furent remis - en notre possession par un arrêté de l’administration de ce - département, en date du 24 germinal an IV. (13 avril 1796), - arrêté dont nous avons une copie sous les yeux, arrêté pris - en conséquence d’une pétition présentée par notre tuteur, - arrêté basé sur la loi du 14 floréal an III. (3 mai 1795), qui - consacre le principe de la restitution des biens des condamnés - par les tribunaux et les commissions révolutionnaires, basé - sur la loi du 21 prairial an III. (9 juin 1795), qui lève le - séquestre sur ces biens et en règle le mode de restitution; - enfin, arrêté basé sur la loi du 13 thermidor an III. (31 - juillet 1795), dont il ne rappelle pas les dispositions. - - “L’administration du département de l’Aube, dans la même - délibération, arrête que le produit des meubles et des - immeubles qui ont été vendus et des intérêts qui ont été perçus - depuis le 14 floréal an III. (3 mai 1795), montant à la somme - de douze mille quatre cent cinq livres quatre sous quatre - deniers, sera restitué à notre tuteur, en bons au porteur - admissibles en payement de domaines nationaux _provenant - d’émigrés seulement_. Nous ne savons pas si notre tuteur reçut - ces bons au porteur; s’il les reçut, quel usage il en fit; - nous savons seulement qu’il n’acheta pas de biens d’émigrés. - Il résulte évidemment de cet arrêté de l’administration du - département de l’Aube, que dans ce département le produit des - meubles et immeubles provenant de Danton et vendus au profit de - la République, ne s’est pas élevé au-dessus de 12,405 livres - 4 sous 4 deniers. C’était le total de l’état de réclamation - présenté par notre tuteur dans sa pétition, et tout le monde - pensera, comme nous, qu’il n’aura pas manqué de faire valoir - tous nos droits. On peut remarquer que dans cet arrêté il - est dit que ces 12,405 livres sont le montant du produit des - meubles et des immeubles vendus, et des _intérêts_ qui ont été - perçus depuis le 14 floréal an III. (3 mai 1795).... Mais si - d’un côté on doit ajouter 12,405 livres, d’un autre côté on - doit retrancher 16,065 livres qui restaient dues aux personnes - qui ont vendu à notre père les immeubles dont nous avons - hérité.... - - “Il est donc établi d’abord que dans le département de l’Aube, - le prix des meubles et des immeubles qui ont été vendus n’a pas - pu s’élever au-dessus de 12,405 livres; ensuite que notre père, - au moment de sa mort, devait encore 16,065 livres sur le prix - d’acquisition des immeubles qu’il y possédait.... - - “Maintenant nous allons citer quelques faits _authentiques_ qui - pourront faire apprécier la bonté de son cœur. Nous avons vu - précédemment que ce fut en mars et en avril 1791 qu’il acheta - la majeure partie, on pourrait même dire la presque totalité - des immeubles qu’il possédait quand il mourut. - - “Voici un des sentiments qui agitaient son cœur en mars et en - avril 1791. Il désirait augmenter la modeste aisance de sa - mère, de sa bonne mère qu’il adorait. Veut-on savoir ce qu’il - s’empressa de faire à son entrée en jouissance de ces immeubles - qu’il venait d’acheter? Jetons un regard sur l’acte que nous - tenons dans les mains. Il a été passé le 15 avril 1791 (deux - jours après la vente faite à Danton par Mademoiselle Piot) - par-devant Mᵉ Odin que en a gardé la minute, et Mᵉ Étienne son - collègue, notaires à Troyes. Danton y fait donation entre-vifs, - pure, simple et irrévocable, à sa mère de six cents livres de - rentes annuelles et viagères, payables de six mois en six mois, - dont les premiers six mois payables au 15 octobre 1791. Sur - cette rente de 600 livres, Danton veut qu’en cas de décès de sa - mère, 400 livres soient reversibles sur M. Jean Recordain, son - mari (M. Recordain était un homme fort aisé lorsqu’il épousa - la mère de Danton; il était extrêmement bon, sa bonté allait - même jusqu’à la faiblesse, puisque, par sa complaisance pour de - prétendus amis dont il avait endossé des billets, il perdit une - grande partie de ce qu’il avait apporté en mariage, néanmoins - c’était un si excellent homme, il avait toujours été si bon - pour les enfants de Jacques Danton, qu’ils le regardaient comme - leur véritable père; aussi Danton, son beau-fils, avait-il pour - lui beaucoup d’affection). Le vif désir que ressent Danton de - donner aux donataires des marques certaines de son amitié pour - eux, est la seule cause de cette donation. Cette rente viagère - est à prendre sur la maison et sur ses dépendances, situées à - Arcis, que Danton vient d’acquérir le 13 avril 1791. Tel fut - son premier acte de prise de possession. - - “On remarquera que cette propriété, au moment où Mademoiselle - Piot la vendit, était louée par elle à plusieurs locataires qui - lui payaient ensemble la somme de 600 livres annuellement. Si - Danton eût été riche et surtout aussi riche que ses ennemis ont - voulu le faire croire, son grande cœur ne se fût pas contenté - de faire à sa mère une pension si modique. Pour faire cette - donation Danton aurait pu attendre qu’il vint à Arcis; mais - il était si pressé d’obéir au sentiment d’amour filial qu’il - éprouvait que, dès le 17 mars 1791, il avait donné à cet effet - une procuration spéciale à M. Jeannet-Bourcier, qui exécuta son - mandat deux jours après avoir acheté pour Danton la propriété - de Mademoiselle Piot. Aussitôt que la maison était devenue - vacante et disponible, Danton, qui aimait tant être entouré de - sa famille, avait voulu que sa mère et son beau-père vinssent - l’habiter, ainsi que M. Menuel, sa femme et leurs enfants (M. - Menuel avait épousé la sœur aînée de Danton). - - “Au 6 août 1792 Danton était a Arcis; on était à la veille d’un - grand événement qu’il prévoyait sans doute. Au milieu des mille - pensées qui doivent alors l’agiter, au milieu de l’inquiétude - que doivent lui causer les périls auxquels il va s’exposer, - quelle idée prédomine, quelle crainte vient l’atteindre? Il - pense à sa mère, il craint de n’avoir pas suffisamment assuré - son mort et sa tranquillité; en voici la preuve dans cet acte - passé le 6 août 1792 par-devant Mᵉ Finot, notaire à Arcis. - Qu’y lit-on? ‘Danton voulant donner à sa mère des preuves des - sentiments de respect et de tendresse qu’il a toujours eus pour - elle, il lui assure, sa vie durant, une habitation convenable - et commode, lui fait donation entre-vifs, pure, simple et - irrévocable, de l’usufruit de telles parts et portions - qu’elle voudra choisir dans la maison et dépendances situées - à Arcis, rue des Ponts, qu’il a aquise de Mademoiselle Piot - de Courcelles, et dans laquelle maison sa mère fait alors sa - demeure, et de l’usufruit de trois denrées de terrain à prendre - dans tel endroit du terrain qu’elle voudra choisir, pour jouir - desdits objets à compter du jour de la donation. Si M. Jean - Recordain survit à sa femme, donation lui est faite par le même - acte de l’usufruit de la moitié des objets qu’aura choisis et - dont aura joui sa femme.... - - “Voici encore une pièce, peu importante en elle-même à la - vérité, mais qui honore Danton et qui prouve sa bonté: c’est - un pétition en date du 30 thermidor an II. (17 août 1794), - adressée aux citoyens administrateurs du département de Paris, - par Marguerite Hariot (veuve de Jacques Geoffroy, charpentier - à Arcis), qui expose que par acte passé devant Mᵉ Finot, - notaire à Arcis, le 11 décembre 1791, Danton, dont elle était - la nourrice, lui avait assuré et constitué une rente viagère - de cent livres dont elle devait commencer à jouir à partir du - jour du décès de Danton, ajoutant que, de son vivant, il ne - bornerait pas sa générosité à cette somme. Elle demande, en - conséquence, que les administrateurs du département de Paris, - ordonnent que cette rente viagère lui soit payée à compter du - jour du décès et que le principal en soit prélevé sur ses biens - confisqués au profit de la République. Nous ne savons pas ce - qui fut ordonné. Cette brave femme, que notre père ne manquait - jamais d’embrasser avec effusion et à plusieurs reprises - chaque fois qu’il venait à Arcis, ne lui survécut que pendant - peu d’années. - - “La recherche que nous avons faite dans les papiers qui nous - sont restés de la succession de notre grand’mère Recordain, - papiers dont nous ne pouvons pas avoir la totalité, ne nous - a fourni que ces trois pièces _authentiques_ qui témoignent - en faveur de la bonté de Danton dans sa vie privée. Quant - aux traditions orales que nous avons pu recueillir, elles - sont en petit nombre et trop peu caractéristiques pour être - rapportées. Nous dirons seulement que Danton aimait beaucoup - la vie champêtre et les plaisirs qu’elle pent procurer. Il ne - venait à Arcis que pour y jouir, au milieu de sa famille et de - ses amis, du repos, du calme et des amusements de la campagne. - Il disait dans son langage sans recherche, à Madame Recordain, - en l’embrassant: ‘Ma bonne mère, quand aurai-je le bonheur de - venir demeurer auprès de vous pour ne plus vous quitter, et - n’ayant plus à penser qu’à planter mes choux?’ - - “Nous ne savons pas s’il avait des ennemis ici, nous ne lui - en avons jamais connu aucun. On nous a très-souvent parlé de - lui avec éloge; mais nous n’avons jamais entendu prononcer un - mot qui lui fût injurieux, ni même défavorable, pas même quand - nous étions au collège; là pourtant les enfants, incapables de - juger la portée de ce qu’ils disent, n’hésitent pas, dans une - querelle occasionnée par le motif le plus frivole, à s’adresser - les reproches les plus durs et les plus outrageants. Nos - condisciples n’avaient donc jamais entendu attaquer la mémoire - de notre pere, il n’avait donc pas d’ennemis dans son pays. - - “Nous croyons ne pas devoir omettre une anecdote qui se - rapporte à sa vie politique. Nous la tenons d’un de nos amis - qui l’a souvent entendu raconter par son père, M. Doulet, - homme très recommandable et très digne de foi, qui, sous - l’Empire, fut longtemps maire de la ville d’Arcis. Danton - était à Arcis dans le mois de novembre 1793. Un jour, tandis - qu’il se promenait dans son jardin avec M. Doulet, arrive vers - eux une troisième personne marchant à grands pas, tenant un - papier à la main (c’était un journal) et qui, aussitôt qu’elle - fut à portée de se faire entendre, s’écrie: Bonne nouvelle! - bonne nouvelle! et elle s’approche.—Quelle nouvelle? dit - Danton.—Tiens, lis! les Girondins sont condamnés et exécutés, - répond la personne qui venait d’arriver.—Et tu appelles cela - une bonne nouvelle, malheureux? s’écrie Danton à son tour, - Danton, dont les yeux s’emplissent aussitôt de larmes. La mort - des Girondins une bonne nouvelle? Misérable!—Sans doute, répond - son interlocuteur; n’était-ce pas des factieux?—Des factieux, - dit Danton. Est-ce que nous ne sommes pas des factieux? Nous - méritons tous la mort autant que les Girondins; nous subirons - tous, les uns après les autres, le même sort qu’eux. Ce fut - ainsi que Danton, le Montagnard, accueillit la personne qui - vint annoncer la mort des Girondins, auxquels tant d’autres, en - sa place, n’eussent pas manqué de garder rancune.... - - “La France aujourd’hui si belle, si florissante, te placera - alors au rang qui t’appartient parmi ses enfants généreux, - magnanimes, dont les efforts intrépides, inouïs, sont - parvenus à lui ouvrir, au milieu de difficultés et de dangers - innombrables, un chemin à la liberté, à la gloire, au bonheur. - Un jour enfin, Danton, justice complète sera rendue à ta - mémoire! Puissent tes fils avant de descendre dans la tombe, - voir ce beau jour, ce jour tant désiré.” - - DANTON. - - - - -X - -NOTES OF TOPINO-LEBRUN, JUROR OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL - - -The interest of these notes is as follows:—They are the only verbatim -account of the trial which we possess. There are of course the official -accounts (especially that of Coffinhal), and upon them is largely based -the account in M. Wallon’s _Tribunal Révolutionnaire_; but these rough -and somewhat disconnected notes, badly spelt and abbreviated, were taken -down without bias, and as the words fell from the accused. Topino-Lebrun, -the painter, was at that time thirty-one years of age, a strong -Montagnard of course; he hesitated to condemn Danton, but was overborne -by his fellows, especially by his friend and master David. - -These notes were kept at the archives of the Prefecture of Police until -the year of the war. In 1867 M. Labat made copies, and gave one to Dr. -Robinet, and one to M. Clarétie. Each of these writers has used them in -their works on the Dantonites. The original document was burnt when, in -May 1871, the Commune attempted to destroy the building in which they -were preserved. - -There are given below only those portions which directly refer to Danton -and his friends. - - _Au président, qui lui demande ses nom, prénoms, âge et - domicile_, il répond: Georges-Jacques Danton, 34 ans, né a - Arcis-sur-Aube, département de l’Aube, avocat, député à la - Convention. Bientôt ma demeure dans le néant et mon nom au - Panthéon de l’histoire, quoi qu’on en puisse dire; ce qui est - très sûr et ce qui m’importe peu. Le peuple respectera ma tête, - oui, ma tête guillotinée! - - -SEANCE DE 14 GERMINAL (13 AVRIL). - -[Westermann having asked to be examined, the judge said it was “une forme -inutile.”] - - _Danton._ Nous sommes cependant ici pour la forme. - - _Vest. insiste._ Un juge vas (_sic_) l’interroger. - - _Danton dit_: Pourvu qu’on nous donne la parole et largement, - je suis sûr de confondre mes accusateurs; et si le peuple - français est ce qu’il doit être, je serai obligé de demander - leur grâce. - - _Camille._ Ah! nous aurons la parole, c’est tout ce que nous - demandons (grande et sincère gaieté de tous les députés - accusés). - - _Danton._ C’est Barrère qui est patriote à present, - n’est-ce-pas? (Aux jurés)—C’est moi qui ai fait instituer le - tribunal, ainsi je dois m’y connaître. - - _Vest._ Je demanderai à me mettre tout nu devant le peuple, - pour qu’on me voye. J’ai reçu sept blessures, toutes par - devant; je n’en ai reçu qu’une par derrière: mon acte - d’accusation. - - _Danton._ Nous respecterons le tribunal, parceque, &c.... - Danton montre Cambon et dit: Nous crois-tu conspirateurs? Voyez - il rit; il ne le croit pas. Écrivez qu’il a rit.... - - _Danton._ Moi vendu? un homme de ma trempe est impayable! La - preuve? Me taisais je lorsque j’ai défendu Marat; lorsque j’ai - été décrété deux fois sous Mirabeau; lorsque j’ai lutté contre - La Fayette?—Mon affiche, pour insurger, aux 5 et 6 octobre! - Que l’accusateur (Fouquier-Tinville) qui m’accuse d’après la - Convention, administre la preuve, les semi-preuves, les indices - de ma vénalité! J’ai trop servi; la vie m’est à charges. _Je - demande des commissionaires de la Convention pour recevoir ma - dénonciation sur le système de dictature._ - - J’ai été nommé administrateur par un liste triple, le dernier, - par de bons citoyens en petit nombre [that is, substitute in - December 1790]. - - Je forçai Mirabeau, aux Jacobins, de rester à son poste; je - l’ai combattu, lui qui voulait s’en retourner à Marseille. - - Où es ce patriote, qu’il vienne, je demande a être confondu, - qu’il paraisse, j’ai empêché le voyage de Saint-Cloud, j’ai été - décrété de prise de corps pour le Champ de Mars. - - J’offre de prouver le contraire [that is, the contrary of St. - Just’s statement that he was unmolested when he fled to Arcis] - et lisez la feuille de l’orateur: Des assassins furent envoyés - pour m’assassiner à Arcis, l’une a été arrêté.—Un huissier - vint pour mettre le décret à execution, je fuyais done, et le - peuple voulut en faire justice.—J’etais à la maison de mon - beau-père; on l’investit, on maltraita mon beau-frère pour moi, - je me sauvais (_sic_) à Londres, je suis revenu lorsque Garran - fut nommé. On offirit à Legendre 50,000 écus pour m’égorger. - Lorsque les Lameth ... devenu partisans de la cour, Danton - les combattit aux Jacobins, devant le peuple, et demanda la - République. - - Sous la législature je dis: la preuve que c’est la cour qui - veut la guerre c’est qu’elle a [a word illegible] l’initiative - et la sanction. Que les patriotes se rallient et alors si nous - ne pouvons vous vaincre nous triompherons de l’Europe (?). - - —Billaud-Varennes ne me pardonne pas d’avoir été mon - secrétaire. Quelle proposition avez-vous faite contre les - Brissotins?—La loi de Publicola! Je portai le cartel à Louvet, - qui refusa. Je manquai d’être assassiné à la Commune.—J’ai - dit a Brissot, en plein, Conseil, tu porteras la tête sur - l’echafaud, et je l’ai rappelé ici à Lebrun. - - —J’avai préparé le 10 août et je fus à Arcis, parce que Danton - est bon fils, passer trois jours, faire mes adieux à ma mere et - régler mes affaires il y a des témoins.—On m’a revu solidement, - je ne me suis point couché. J’étais aux Cordeliers, quoique - substitut de la Commune. Je dis au ministre Clavières, que - venait de la part de la Commune, que nous allions sonner - l’insurrection. Après avoir réglé toutes les opérations et le - moment de l’attaque, je me mis sur le lit comme un soldat, - avec ordre de m’avertir. Je sortis à une heure et je fus à la - Commune devenue revolutionnaire. Je fis l’arrêt de mort contre - Mandat, qui avait l’ordre de tirer sur le peuple. On mit le - maire en arrestation et j’y restais (_sic_) suivant l’avis des - patriotes. Mon discours à l’Assemblée législative. - - —Je faisais la guerre au Conseil; je n’avais que ma voix, - quoique j’eusse de l’influence. - - —Mon parent, qui m’accompagna en Angleterre [Mergez, a - volunteer in 1792, and later a general of Napoleon’s] avait dix - huit ans. - - —Je crois encore Fabre bon citoyen. - - —J’atteste que je n’ai point donné ma voix à d’Orléans, qu’on - prouve que je l’ai fait nommer. - - —J’eûs 400 mille f. sur les 2 millions pour faire la rev., 200 - mille livres pour choses secrêtes. J’ai dépensé devant Marat - et Robespierre pour tous les commissaires des departements. - Calomines de Brissot. J’ai donne 6000 a Billaud pour aller à - l’armée. Les autres 200 mille, j’ai donné ma comptabilité de - 130 mille et le reste je l’ai remis. - - ... Fabre la disponibilité de payer les commissaires, parce que - Billaud-Varenne avait de refusé (_sic_). - - Il n’est pas à ma connaissance que Fabre prêcha la fédéralisme. - - —J’embrasserais mon ennemi pour la patrie, à laquelle je - donnerais mon corps à dévorer. - - Je nie et prouve le contraire. Ce fut Marat qui m’envoya un - porte feuille et les pièces, et j’avais fait arrêter Duport. Se - a été jugé à Melun, d’après une loi. Liu et Lameth out voulu me - faire assassiner. Ministre de la Justice, j’ai fait executer la - loi. Pour mon fait, je n’avais pas de preuves judiciaires. - - —La guerre feinte n’est que depuis quinze jours, et le - Brissotins m’ont pardieu bien attaqué. Lisez le _Moniteur_. - Barbaroux a fait demander par le bataillon de Marseille ma - tête et celles de Marat et de Robespierre. Marat avait son - caractère volcanisé, celui de Robespierre tenace et ferme, et - moi, je servais à ma manière.—Je n’ai vu qu’une fois Dumourier, - qui me tâta pour le ministre: je repondis que je ne le serais - qu’on bruit de canon. Il m’ecrivit ensuite.—Placé là, Kelerman - (_sic_) voulait passer la Marne et Dumourier ne le voulait pas; - embarrassé et mon dictateur, je soutins le plan de Dumourier, - qui reussit.—Craignant la jalousie de deux généraux, j’envoyai - Fabre, etc.... avait vu Vesterman, au 10, le sabre à la main. - - —Je talonnai Servan et Laenée; je n’ai connu de plan militaire - que celui de Dumourier et de Kelerman, et Billaud fut nommé - par moi pour surveiller Dumourier; il eu a rendu compte - à la législature et aux Jacobin. Ordre d’examiner ce que - c’etait... cette retraite (_sic_). La Convention a envoyé trois - commissaires. - - —Moi, ministre, j’embrassais la masse et les détails de la - Justice. - - —Billaud m’a dit qu’il ne savait pas si Dumourier était un - traître; d’ailleurs c’était une surabondance de patriotisme. - - —Sur, la Belgique, répète son dire aux Jacobins. - - —Le piège des Brissots était de faire croire que nous - desorganisions les armées. - - —On me refuse des temoins, allons je ne me défends plus! - - —Je vous fais d’ailleurs mille excuses de ce qu’il y a de trop - chaud, c’est mon caractère. - - —Le peuple dechirera par morceaux mes ennemis avant trois mois. - - -SÉANCE DU 15 GERMINAL (4 AVRIL). - - _Hérault._ Sur le petit Capet, nie le fait.—Il fut nommé pour - la partie diplomatique avec Barrère. Déclare que jamais il ne - s’est mêlé de negociations. Nie avoir jamais fait imprimer - aucune chose en diplomatie. Deforgues envoya Dubuisson. - - _Hérault._ Je ne conçois rien à ce galimathias. Je me suis - opposé a l’envoi de Salavie. C’est un moyen employé par nos - ennemis. Envoyé dans le Bas-Rhin par le Comité, je travaillè - (_sic_) avec Berthelemy (_sic_) à la neutralité de la Suisse - et j’ai sauvé à la Republique un armée de soixante-mille - hommes.—Jamais je n’ai communiqué a Proly rien en politique, - il n’y en avait pas. Au surplus, il fallait me confronter - avec Proly.—J’ai été trompé comme j’a jaie st fois [J. Jay - St. Foix] comme la Convention, comme jam bon [this does not - mean _ham_, but Jean-Bon St. André], qui le voulait emmener - secretaire, comme Colot. Comme Marat, Proly a été porté en - triomphe. La Convention, par un decret solemnel, a reçu mes - explications. Anacharsis me dit vient (_sic_) dîner avec moi, - dîner avec Dufourni, etc.... J’ai laissé la veuve Chemineau, - etc. L’huillier! c’est à l’instigation de Clootz. - - J’ai connu l’abbé guillotiné en troie [that is, in Troyes] - (_sic_), dans mon exil il était chanoine et non refractaire. - C’est donc un plaisanterie. Il n’etait pas soumis au serment, - il m’avait assisté dans mon exil. - - Au 14 juillet, à la Bastille, j’ai eu deux hommes tués à - mes côtés. Maltraité par mes parents, j’ai voyage, j’ai été - incarcéré trois semaines en Sardaigne et je suis revenu. - - _Camille._ Lors de sa dispute avec Saint-Just, celui-ce lui - dit qu’il le ferait périr,—j’ai denoncé Dumourier avant Marat; - d’Orleans, le premier, j’ai ouvert la Revolution et ma mort va - la fermer.—Marat s’est trompé sur Proly. Quel est l’homme qui - n’a pas eu son Dilon? Depuis le nᵒ 4 [that is, of the _Vieux - Cordelier_] je n’ai écris (_sic_) que pour me rétracter. J’ai - attaché le grelot à toutes les factions. On m’a encouragé! - écrit (_sic_) etc. demasque la faction Hébert, il est bon que - quelqu’un le fasse. - - _Lacroix._ Sur la déclaration de Miajenski, rappelle qu’il l’a - confondu, que la Convention a été satisfaite, et qu’il n’a - pas été accusé pour cela. Il dit: je fus envoyé a Liége pour - connaître des reproches faits à la Tresorerie, et vice-versà. - Nous étions trois. Jamais je n’ai vu Dumourier en présence - de Dumourier (au lieu de Miacrinski?). J’ai dit a Miajenski, - sa legion manquant de tout, que je appuyerais devant mes - collègues, mais qu’il etait étonnant que sur le pays ennemi - ou ne décrétât pas que les troupes étrangerès fussent payées. - Je n’ai ni bu, ni mangé avec Dumourier. Vu pendant six à sept - jours toujours ensemble. Danton, Gossuin et moi nous avions - visité toutes les caisses de la Belgique pour examiner les - faits.—Dumourier ne voulait point prêter les mains au decrêt, - je me levai et lui déclarai que s’il ne signait pas à l’heure, - nous le ferions garrotter, etc. Il signa l’ordre à Ronsin.—La - seconde fois nous nous rendîmes à Bruxelles, Dumourier était - en Hollande.—Tous mes collègues ont attesté que je preposai de - me laisser aller auprès de Dumourier l’observer et le tuer mes - collègues ne furent pas de cet avis. - - .. 1900 et 600 livres de linge acheté par Brune en présence - des collègues, pour la table. Il etait à bon marché. Il dut - être chargé sur les voitures que ramenaient en France les - restitutions des effets pillés par les généraux, c’était - contenu dans une malle à mon addresse. Je l’ai declaré alors - au comité de Salut. Alors je l’ai réclamée. Ne confondez pas - la première voiture d’argenterie qui fut pillé, elle etait - expédiée par tous nos collègues. - - _Danton._ J’avais défié publiquement d’entrer en explication - sur l’imputation des 400,000. Il résulte du procès-verbal qu’il - n’y a à moi que mes chiffons et un corset molleton. _Le bas_, - sommé, m’a donné communication. - - Appelé aux Jacobins par mes collègues, je déclarais (_sic_) - que le renouvellement était contre-revolutionnaire: ce - que portait (_sic_) les pouvoirs des envoyés des sociétés - populaires.—Billaud-Varennes m’appuya et je fus chargé de faire - la proposition le 11 à la Convention.—Hébert, le lendemain, me - dénonça dans sa feuille; et voilà le principe de la calomnie. - - Je fus indigné, au 31 mai, de voir un officier qui disait: - il n’y a ni Marais, ni Montagne; qui distribuait de l’argent - au bataillon de Courbevoie; je ... témoin Panis, Legendre, - Robespierre, Pache, Robert-Lindet. Alors je montais (_sic_) à - la tribune, etc. ... que nous n’etions pas libres. Au Comité, - devant Pache, le 2 juin, j’ai improuvé la mesure maladroite de - Hauriot. Nous l’avions prévenu qu’en rentrant nous décréterions - les 32, mais que ce n’était pas assez pour la chose publique, - qu’il fallait purger la Convention, et a proposé 500,000 livres - pour l’armée de Paris que avait sauvé la patrie. Barère s’y - opposa. C’est Barère qui a proposé le décret d’accusation - contre Hauriot; c’est moi qui ai défendu Hauriot contre cela. - Qu’on entende les témoins, la Convention a été trompée. - - —J’ai appelé l’insurrection en demandant cinquante - revolutionnaires comme moi. La Convention m’appuya, l’avais dit - trois mois avant, il n’y a plus de paix avec les Girondins, - ai-je la face Hypocrite? - - Hanriot crut que j’etais opposé à l’insurrection et alors je - lui dis: vas toujours ton train, n’aie pas peur, nous voulons - constater que l’Assemblée est libre. - - —Je n’ai jamais bu ni mangé avec Mirande, et je proposai à mes - collègues de l’arrêter, il s’y opposerent. - - Je pris la main à Hanriot et lui dis: tiens bon. - - _Hérault._ C’est moi qui ai découvert l’ordre signé au crayon - par Hauriot pour laisser passer la Convention, ainsi, etc. - - _Philippeaux._ Arrivé de mon dépt j’ignorais les intrigues, je - fus trompé par Roland. Je me suis rétracté à temps.—Lorsque je - m’aperçus du piége tendu dans l’appel au peuple, je montai à la - tribune et j’abjurai et votai de suite comme la Montagne. J’ai - voté pour Marat (c’est faux, il n’a voté ni pour ni contre). - Le Comité ne répondant point à mes lettres, je suis venu - ici. Le Comité ne m’a point entendu. Alors, pour remplir mon - devoir, j’ai écrit à la Convention, et l’événement, sur Hébert, - a prouvé, etc. On a fait contre moi des adresses contre moi - (_sic_) etc. On a envoyé de chez moi trois commissaires pour - connaître les faits et Levasseur les a fait arrêter. - - _Vesterman._ Lorsque Dumouriez etait en Belgique j’etais au - Hollande. Abandonné entre les ennemis, vivant de pillage, je - suis arrivé à Envers (_sic_) avec ma legion. Le regiment de - cavalrie fut attaqué. Je repoussai l’ennemi. - - Accusé de venir deux et trois fois apporter les dépêches de - Dumourier à Gensonné. - - L’armée manquait de souliers, je fus envoyé par Dumourier au - Conseil, et je les rapportai à l’armée. - - Dumourier lui montra la lettre de roi de Prusse pour son - secretaire, qu’il avait renvoyé, je courus après lui et - l’arrêtai de mon pouvoir. Le second voyage pour porter le pli - des articles arrêté (_sic_) entre les généraux. - - Il a encore été envoyé en otage à Mons, lors de - l’evacuation.—Troisième voyage pour amener Malus et - d’Espagnac, et porta un pacquet (_sic_) au président du comité - diplomatique.—J’ai denoncé au (_sic_) Jacobins, au Comité le - fils naturel de Proly, et on me rit au nez. Il engagea au - déjeuné (_sic_) pour rétablien Dumourier aux Jacobins. Pourquoi - ne m’a-t-on pas appelé lors de la déposition de Miajenski? - J’etais ici, mandé à la barre. Dumourier m’a toujours éloigné - de lui. A protesté sur la capitulation d’Anvers. Sur le fait de - Lille. - - Avant d’arriver à Menhem Proly me denonca. Ici, on me mis - (_sic_) hors de la loi et un officier prussien me montra la - feuille de la Convention et m’engagea à rester, qu’on me - payerait, et chercha à m’effrayer en disant que les autres - généraux avaient été massacrés. Voir au comité militaire. Je - fus à Lille avec ma troupe. Je trouvai Mouton et vint (_sic_) - prendre son ordre pour venir à la barre.—J’ai prêté serment - avant, à Douai. Le décret du 4 mai dit qu’il n’y avait lieu à - m’accuser. J’étais dénoncé aur comités, je ne connais point - Talma. - - _Danton._ C’est Barère qui est patriote à present et Danton - aristocrate. La France ne croira pas cela longtemps. - - _Danton, dans la chambre des accusés._—Moi conspirateur? Mon - nom est accoté de toutes les institutions révolutionnaires: - levée, armée rév., comité rév., comité de salut public, - tribunal révolutionnaire, C’est moi qui me suis donné la mort, - enfin, et je suis un modéré! - -[Topino-Lebrun left no notes of the following day, the 16 Germinal.] - - - - -XI - -REPORT OF THE FIRST COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY - -TREATING OF THE GENERAL CONDITION OF THE REPUBLIC, AND READ BY BARRÈRE TO -THE CONVENTION ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1793 - - -This report is the most important appendix not only to this book, but to -any description of the two days that expelled the Girondins. It is here -published for the first time, and, though of some length, will well repay -the reading for any student of the Revolution. - -I have dwelt sufficiently on its importance in the text, and I can -dismiss it here with a short introduction. - -It is the first great result of the Committee which Danton had helped -to create, and of which he was the soul. It is the first step taken by -this new organ of government towards that dictatorship to exercise which -it had been called into existence. The enormous amount of detailed work -necessary to produce it shows us the number of agents which the Committee -must have possessed, and their activity, as well as the industry of the -members themselves, for it had been at work but eight weeks. - -Danton undoubtedly inspired the tone and direction of the report, but the -somewhat florid style is Barrère’s own. Dr. Robinet thinks, however, that -the last pages, from the section on Public Instruction onwards, are in -Danton’s manner, and M. Boruard would even put it at the section on the -Colonies, two pages earlier. Even if this is the case, some sentences at -least were put in by Barrère, for they betray his inimitable verbiage, to -which Danton was a stranger. - -Of the important part the report played in the complicated history of -the week May 26-June 3, 1793, enough has been said in the text; it is -only necessary to add here that no speech or memoir contains such an -indictment of the Girondin misgovernment as is given indirectly by this -list of ascertained facts in the condition of France. - -The reading of the report is mentioned in the _Moniteur_ of May 31, but, -contrary to their custom, they did not print it on account of its great -length. It seems to have been read in the afternoon from about two to -four, just before Cambon’s motion was put to the vote. I give the more -important passages, about half the full length of the document. - - CONVENTION NATIONALE - - RAPPORT GÉNÉRAL - SUR - L’ÉTAT DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE - - _Fait, au nom du Comité de Salut Public, dans la seance du - mercredi 29 mai, l’an second de la République_: - - _Par Barrère_, - - _Député du département des Hautes-Pyrénées_ - - _Imprimé par ordre de la Convention Nationale_ - - CITOYENS,—Chargés par les représentans du peuple de leur parler - aujourd’hui des grands intérêts qui les rassemblent, et des - moyens que nous avons employés depuis deux mois pour le salut - de la patrie en péril; nous réclamons d’abord de votre justice - de remonter par la pensée, à l’èpoque de notre nomination, et - de vous rappeler en quel état se trouvaient alors la République - et toute les parties d’administration nationale. - - Quoiqu’accablés par la tâche périlleuse et grande que vous nous - avez imposée, nous avons dû obéir. Votre confiance, notre zèle - et l’amour de notre pays ont dû nous tenir lieu de facultés. - - Au-dehors se présentait une guerre terrible à soutenir sur des - frontières d’une étendue immense et sur des côtes indéfendues. - Audedans, se propageaient des dissensions civiles, portant - avec elles les deux caractères les plus funestes, le fanatisme - royal et religieux, secouru par des perfidies multipliées dans - l’intérieur, et par des intelligences combinées audehors. - -What follows is a general indictment of the results of Girondin rule, -with special and particular attacks on the Ministry of War and on their -fear of responsibility. - - On voyait dans toutes nos armées des besoins impérieux et - sans cesse renaissans; des secours nuls ou tardifs; des - approvisionnemens insuffisans ou de mauvaise qualité et des - administrations dévorantes, dont quelques-unes, n’ont d’autre - but réel que d’agrandir la fortune de beaucoup d’agioteurs - et de quelques capitalistes. Dans nos ports des travaux - ralentis et une inertie coupable; partout des trahisons - ourdies et des coalitions préparées; des états-majors à - refaire ou à épurer; des armées à organiser ou à improviser; - des fonctionnaires civils et militaires à surveiller ou à - remplacer; des forces à créer sur tous les points menacés par - les troubles; des armes à fabriquer; des canons à fondre; - la marine à créer; l’esprit public à remonter avec énergie; - l’anarchie à attaquer; la discipline à rétablir; des mouvemens - contra-révolutionnaires à comprimer et un cahos d’intérêts, de - plaintes, de passions, d’abus, de prétentions et de préjugés - à débrouiller, au milieu d’une correspondance journalière et - centuplée par ces circonstances actuelles. Quel vast génie - ou quel courage inépuisable il eût fallu pour répondre tout - à coup à des circonstances aussi extraordinaires ou pour - dominer des évènemens aussi imprévus? Nous avons borné notre - tâche à parcourir d’abord toutes les parties du gouvernement - provisoire, et à nous frayer ensuite une route au milieu de cet - assemblage énorme de forces et de résistances, de bons et de - mauvais principes. - - Le premier obstacle qui s’est présenté à nous, est venu du - changement dans le ministère de la guerre, que avait précédé - notre établissement. - - Le second obstacle était dans le ministère de la marine - négligé, anéanti même, par un série de ministries royaux, - et dont nous avons été forcés de faire changer le chef et - plusieurs adjoints. - - Là s’est rompue, pour nous, la chaîne des opérations de ces - deux départemens, les plus importans dans un temps de guerre - de terre et de mer; et nous nous sommes vus privés, tout à - coup, de toutes les ressources de l’expérience. Nous n’avons pu - recueillir, dans l’agglomération des affaires de cette partie - de l’administration publique, que des états inexacts ou des - lumières incertaines. - - Un aperçu des délibérations du conseil exécutif nous a montré, - d’un côté, des travaux incohérens qui n’ont pu avoir aucune - espèce de succès à cause des évènemens qui les dominaient; - de l’autre, des négligences funestes et des fautes graves - que les évènemens suivants ont mieux fait sentir. Depuis - les bouches de l’Escaut, ouvertes par un usurpation de la - puissance souveraine, jusqu’aux extrémités de la Méditerranée, - qui ont été le théâtre de nos revers, et de la versatilité - ministérielle, nous n’avons vu ni cette suite d’opérations - qui assurent les succès, ne cette prévoyance des mesures qui - diminuent les revers. Point d’ensemble, point de conceptions - vastes, point de vues hardies, point de plan arrêté, point - d’énergie, et partout la terreur de la responsabilité, marchant - en avant du ministère, tandis qu’il s’agit de marcher fièrement - à la liberté, sans regarder en arrière. - - Au mois d’octobre, la résistance à l’ennemi avait donné des - conceptions et des forces au conseil exécutif. - - Les succès du mois de novembre ont amolli le conseil. Jemmappes - a été pour les ministres (_sic_) la Capoue qui a détruit son - énergie et atténué ses travaux. - - Le département de l’intérieur, machine trop lourde, trop - compliquée pour un homme, quand il serait plein de talens - et de moyens d’exécution, avait refroidi pendant longtemps - l’esprit public et engourdi les corps administratifs. Il - était impossible que la main d’un seul homme pût remuer cette - machine énorme surchargée de details, d’une administration - immense, d’opérations mercantiles dont le succès est douteux, - dont le résultat exige de grands sacrifices, et dont le secret - appelle la défiance. La seule ressource que ce ministère - disproportionné pouvait trouver, était dans les administrateurs - départementaires, dont la plupart, insoucians sur les travaux - qui leur sont confiés, négligent de correspondre, ou dont la - conduite exagérée et sans mesure leur faisait méconnaître toute - subordination. - - Le département de la guerre, dans lequel chaque ministre a - porté ses préjugés et ses assertions, ses routines et ses - haînes; le ministère de la guerre désorganisé sans cesse par la - fréquente mutation de ses agens et par la diversité de leurs - principes ou de leurs opinions, présentait et présent encore un - chaos inextricable, des abus sans nombre, et une impuissance - réelle dans tout homme que ne serait pas né très actif dans - la manière d’ordonner et entreprenant sur tous les moyens de - défense. - -In what follows note the hand of Danton, almost his phraseology in the -second paragraph. - - Le ministère des affaires étrangères, couvert d’obscurités - politiques, ne pouvant avoir au milieu des défiances produites - par la révolution et des mouvemens irréguliers de la guerre, - ni fixité dans les opérations, ni vues suivies, ni projets - déterminés, ni secrets dans les plans, a saisi seulement le - fil de quelques affaires importantes, et redonne maintenant - de l’activité aux moyens nombreux dont l’intérêt de plusieurs - gouvernemens prépare le succès. - - C’est de l’audace dans les conceptions politiques, c’est de - l’ensemble dans les mesures, c’est de la promptitude dans les - moyens d’exécution, que dépend la diplomatie nouvelle d’un - peuple qui naît à la liberté. - -Again, a direct attack on the Girondins, especially in the characteristic -phrase, “the paralysis of honesty.” - - Le ministère de la marine enrayé longtemps dans les opérations - par une probité paralytique, et par des sous-ordres - inexpérimentés ou suspects, n’ayant donné ni protection au - commerce, ni défense pour nos côtes, ni moyens au succès de - la course, ni activité aux grands armemens dans nos ports, ni - approvisionnemens suivis pour les flottes, reprend sous un - ministre nouveau son activité, nous promet une défense et une - marine.... - -Here again is a half-concession to the Girondins, which was part of the -policy I have spoken of in the text. - - Le conseil exécutif en sent lui-même la nécessité: et nous lui - devons la justice de dire, que ne se dissimulant pas cette - caducité politique, amenée par les circonstances, par des - dénonciations multipliées, et par la presqu’impossibilité de - tenir régulièrement le gouvernail au milieu de la tempête; - le conseil exécutif désire et sollicite le renouvellement du - ministère.... - - DE L’ETAT MILITAIRE. - - Pressés entre la nécessité de pourvoir sans délai aux besoins - des armées, et l’impossibilité d’approfondir en si peu de temps - des plans généraux, nous avons recherché d’abord des armes.... - - Des arrêtés du comité ont ordonné l’envoi des commissaires pour - dénombrer subitement les armes et les canons qui se trouvaient - dans les fabriques et les manufactures nationales, et pour les - faire transporter aux armées et dans les départemens les plus - dénués de ce genre de secours. Saint-Etienne, Ruel, Mont-Cénis, - Indret, Toulouse, Lyon, Charleville, Sedan, Maubeuge, ont reçu - des ordres pressants sur cet objet.... - - Divers arrêtés ont ordonné le transport de vieilles armes qui - se trouvent dans diverses fabriques ou arsenaux, pour les faire - raccommoder dans les diverses villes dont la population offrait - des ouvriers, et surtout dans les départemens limitrophes des - pays révoltés.... - - Les ministres et les assemblées nationales ont mis trop peu - d’importance à la manufacture de Saint-Etienne, depuis le - commencement de la révolution. - - Les ouvriers brûlaient du désir de travailler pour la - république, mais le prix de l’arme ayant toujours été fixé - au-dessous des déboursés du fabricant, ils ont travaillé pour - les corps administratifs, dont la concurrence a augmenté la - valeur. Le fer et le salarie de l’ouvrier sont augmentés de - prix. - - Des commissaires du pouvoir exécutif viennent de requérir tous - les fabricans de porter à la commission de verification, toutes - les armes qui sont en leur pouvoir, pour être expédies pour - Bayonne, Perpignan, et Tours. Les livraisons se font chaque - jour. - - Les commissaires s’occupent de redonner la plus grande activité - à la manufacture d’armes de Saint-Etienne, qui secondée par - le patriotisme des ouvriers et de la municipalité, portera la - fabrication à quatre ou cinq cents fusils ou pistolets par jour. - - Il y a à Tulle un grand nombre d’armes à réparer, le comité - en a fait distribuer à plusieurs départemens méridionaux; le - ministre de la marine donne de l’activité à la manufacture de - Tulle, pour armer nos marins. Dans ce moment, le commissaire - Bouillet, envoyé par le conseil exécutif, est a Tulle, pour - accélérer la fabrication des armes nécessaires à la marine, et - pour connaître l’état des vieilles armes qu’on a entassés dans - ce dépôt.... - -The following passages indicate the motives of what was to be the Terror, -a system based, of course, upon the necessity for commissariat. - - VIVRES. - - Les vivres sont aussi nécessaires que les armes; on se plaint - dans quelques armées organisées trop lentement, ou improvisées - trop à la hâte, pour que tout ce qui leur était nécessaire - fût préparé, et ces plaintes sont justes; nous accélérons - l’approvisionnement des armées, autant qu’il est en nous, - par le ministre et les administrations qui en dépendent. La - latitude des pouvoirs donnés à vos comités, peut suppléer la - faiblesse du ministère de la guerre l’insuffisance de ses - agens, et la malveillance ou la torpeur de ses régies. Il est - cependant des obstacles éprouvés par les régisseurs et par - leurs agens, à cause des craintes propagées sur le manque de - subsistances, et le comité s’est occupé de faire cesser ces - obstacles. - - L’administration chargée de l’approvisionnement des places de - guerre a présenté au comité des états de situation rassurante - sur l’approvisionnement des places les plus menacées: il lui a - montré les dispositions générales prises pour les fournitures - de subsistances dans toutes les divisions. Il en résulte que - les évènemens imprévus de la Belgique, en ramenant subitement - l’ennemi sur nos frontières, ont contrarié des calculs et - nous ont privé des approvisionnements faits d’après un autre - système; mais le comité presse les directeurs de pourvoir - aux approvisionnements, et avertit sans cesse le ministre - des autres besoins des armées, à mesure que ces besoins se - démontrent ou que les plaintes nous parviennent. Un changement - dans cette administration, dont vous nous avez renvoyé - l’examen, mérite toute notre sollicitude, et se trouve être la - suite inévitable des changements perpétuels dans le ministère - de la guerre; changement qui entraîne celui de ses principes et - de ses moyens.[165] - - Le partie de l’habillement et de l’équipement, qui a coûté tant - de trésors à la nation, a été mal fournie, mal administrée, et - pillée dans la Belgique avec autant d’impudeur que de trahison. - - Les fournisseurs, plus avares que patriotes, ont distribué à - toutes les armées des étoffes de mauvaise qualité. Un force de - prodigalité nationale payait les habits à l’avarice agioteuse - qui les fournissait, et le soldat, au milieu des fatigues et - des perils de la guerre, était sans habits ou en portait qui - n’étaient pas de long usage. - - Ces jours derniers il a défilé devant vous un détachement de - braves soldats du régiment ci-devant Conti, qui allait vers les - départemens révoltés. On n’aurait pas présenté au plus petit - prince d’Allemagne, ou au plus pauvre de l’Italie, des troupes - aussi mal vêtues; elles ont paru devant les représentans - d’une nation qui dépense pour la guerre, chaque mois, plus de - millions que plusieurs rois de l’Europe n’ont de revenu dans un - an.... - - L’armée des Ardennes, réunie à celle du Nord, se forme sous les - regards de commissaires actifs, et les recrues y abondent à - un point que votre comité a cru devoir les faire refluer vers - l’armee du Nord. - -The next allusion is interesting as showing us the appreciation of what -was to be the reinforcement of the army of Sambre-et-Meuse. - - L’armée de la Moselle a pris des positions avantageuses. Réunie - à celle du Rhin, elles annoncent que Mayence pourra devenir - le tombeau des hordes prussiennes. L’esprit est bon dans - cette armée, distinguée par la discipline, et les recrues s’y - encadrent tous les jours. - - On s’occupe à faire camper et exercer l’armée des Alpes, - dont le recrutement est entièrement effectué. On fortifie - tous les points de défense, et on augmente la garnison des - places. Les recrues nombreuses qui y sont arrivées ont fourni - un excédant de vingt-un mille hommes; vous avez disposé de - huit mille contre les départemens révoltés. Les treize mille - restans renforceront l’armée d’Italie, diminuée pour servir à - la défense de la Corse, formeront une réserve ou renforceront - l’armée des Pyrénées orientales. - - Le département du Mont-Blanc s’est empressé d’organiser - plusieurs bataillons et de prouver ainsi son attachement à la - République; ils réclament des armes, et nous espérons qu’avec - des moyens mis déjà en activité ils seront bientôt armés. - - La révolte de Thonnes est appraisée et les coupables jugés. - C’était la mêche d’une mine préparée sous le Mont-Blanc, et - dont l’explosion était combinée avec la prochaine attaque des - Piémontais et des Autrichiens. - - L’armée d’Italie se prépare à défendre ce que la valeur et la - liberté ont conquis à Nice. Mais des agitateurs y ont causé de - la fermentation, comme dans l’armée des Alpes; ils y tenaient - des propos injurieux à la Convention nationale; ils y parlaient - de royauté, et se servaient du moyen de la paye en assignats - pour altérer le bon esprit des troupes; des alarmes ont été - jetées sur les subsistances, dont le comité s’occupe dans ce - moment. - - Le général de l’armée d’Italie a pris les moyens propres à - découvrir les agitateurs et à les faire conduire au tribunal - extraordinaire. - - L’armée des Pyrénées a été la plus négligé et la plus mal - pourvue en armes et en munitions, et c’est contre les troupes - les plus féroces et les plus fanatiques qu’elles doivent - défendre les plus belles contrées de la République. - - Aussi nous sommes accablés tous les jours par des relations - malheureuses qui ne sont que le triste résultat de la - négligence de deux anciens ministres de la guerre qui n’ont - jamais su penser qu’il existât une armée des Pyrénées.... - -The whole of the above is an interesting example of the detailed methods -of the Committee, with its reiteration against the Girondin management of -the war. It continues in much the same spirit. - - Du côté de l’Océan, la trahison de quelque chef des Miquelets - et la lâcheté d’une partie du régiment vingtième ont livré un - point de la frontière. Une terreur panique produite par le mot - de trahison et par des malveillans semés dans les petits camps - formés sur l’extrème frontière, a désorganisé le peu de force - qui y étaient arrivées, a découragé ceux qui y accouraient et - forcé d’abandonner Andaye et tout le pays qui se trouve entre - la rivière de Nivelle et la frontière pour ne former qu’un seul - camp à Bidarre. - - La discipline à rétablir, le courage à relever, étaient les - premiers besoins de cette armée. - - Nos commissaires se sont vus forcés d’établir provisoirement un - règlement sévère de discipline. Ils nous disent que l’ennemi - abat partout l’arbre de la liberté, fait les incursions sur les - maisons des patriotes dans la partie française abandonnée; mais - les habitans des campagnes ont le courage de ne pas obéir aux - requisitions du général espagnol. - - Il paraît qu’il n’est fort que de notre faiblesse, et que si - des secours d’armes et d’artillerie sont portés a nos frères, - notre territoire sera bientôt évacué. Le commandement de - Bayonne est confié au patriote Courpon, et la citadelle de - Saint-Esprit est défendue par des républicains. Vingt canons - et quatre compagnies des canonniers de Paris y ont été envoyés - en poste, et doivent avoir secouru cette frontière le 14 de ce - mois; le camp de Bidarre se forme avec succès. - - La division de l’armée des Pyrénées en deux grands parties, - nous donnera plus de force pour une défense active au besoin: - la terre y produit des bataillons d’hommes libres; nous leur - devons des secours abondans, car ils ont été oubliés jusqu’à - présent. On eût dit, en voyant l’état de ces frontières, que - le complot était prêt, que la force devait envahir le Nord, - tandis que la perfidie et l’indéfense livreraient le Midi. - Mais l’intrépidité et l’enthousiasme des Méridionaux pour la - liberté, est un obstacle invincible au succès des négligences - ministérielles, des trahisons intérieures, et des succès que - le perfide Pitt a promise à l’Espagne. Le camp se forme devant - Bayonne et il a repris du terrain du côté d’Andaye; l’armée - reprend l’attitude qui convient à des phalanges républicaines, - et l’artillerie commence à y arriver avec des provisions. - - L’affaire de la Vendée n’a été envisagée trop longtemps que - comme une affaire de police, ou une querelle élevée dans un - coin d’un département. - -There follows a further indictment based upon a special case. - - L’armée des côtes n’a jamais existé; l’état-major n’avait pas - même été formé; quelques chefs militaires avaient été envoyés - avec de faibles moyens et de simples requisitions. On avait - donné des ordres pour que des cadres y fussent transportés; - ils ont été arrêtés dans leur marche par la crainte ou - l’impuissance momentanée que nous avait donné la trahison de - Dumouriez. Des recrues y ont été rassemblées, sans y trouver - ni cadres, ni armes, ni un nombre suffisant d’officiers - généraux.... - - Voilà l’état où se trouvaient les armées au 10 mai, époque à - laquelle le comité a demandé inutilement la parole.... - -Then a summary, the detail of which is well worth following. - - VOICI LE DERNIER ÉTAT. - - Il arrive des troupes à Bayonne ainsi que des canons. Le camp - qui était à Bidard entre Bayonne et Saint-Jean de Luz a été - porté, depuis vendredi, entre Saint-Jean de Luz et Andaye. - - L’armée des Pyrénées orientales qu’on espérait, au moyen des - recrutemens, mettre en état de contenir au moins l’Espagnol, a - essuyé presque consécutivement deux échecs qui compromettent la - sûreté de cette partie de la frontière. Cette défaite n’est due - qu’à la gendarmerie nationale; mais un exemple prompt et sévère - mettra un terme à cette lâcheté ou à cette trahison. - - Aux Alpes nous venons d’être menacés d’une attaque très - prochaine exécutée par des forces très considérables, surtout - dans la partie du Var, débouché par lequel l’ennemi peut - menacer aussi Marseille et Toulon. Le comité de salut public - a dû prendre la seule mesure qui était en son pouvoir; il a - ordonné au général Kellerman, le seul qui eût une connaissance - suffisante des points de défense et de nos moyens militaires - dans cette partie, de s’y rendre avec la plus grande diligence, - afin de prévenir, s’il est possible, les malheurs que le - moindre retard pourrait amener. Le général de l’armée d’Italie - a paru craindre que la cour de Naples ne vienne renforcer - la coalition dans le midi. Mais le ministre des affaires - étrangères vient de communiquer des dépêches qui détruisent ces - nouvelles. - - Kellerman s’est fait précéder par un courrier extraordinaire - qui a porté à ses lieutenans les ordres préparatoires des - opérations auxquelles l’ennemi peut le forcer. Ce général, - investi de votre confiance et de celle des troupes, ne pouvait - être remplacé. On vous avait annoncé d’abord qu’il se rendrait - dans la Vendée; mais les avantages remportés un instant sur - les révoltés, et la certitude de la prochaine arrivée de Biron - dans les départemens révoltés, ont du faire changer la première - destination de Kellerman. L’armée d’Italie a des subsistences - assurées pour quelque temps. On a pris des mesures pour la - mettre à l’abri de la disette. - - Au Rhin, une action qui n’a servi qu’à la destruction des - hommes, sans avancer les affaires d’aucun parti, y laisse - les choses à peu près dans la même situation qu’auparavant, - avec cette différence, que le changement de général qui a - été en partie forcé, peut influer sur nos succès. Il est bon - d’observer que nos armées dans cette partie se trouvent avoir - en tête des forces les plus manœuvrières, et commandées par les - généraux les plus accrédités de l’Europe. - - Nos généraux, au contraire, portés au commandement pour la - première fois, ne peuvent avoir la même habitude et les mêmes - avantages que ceux auxquels les grands mouvemens de guerre - sont familiers. Les approvisionnemens dans cette partie et les - subsistances sont bien assurés. - - Dans le Nord, notre situation est très alarmante, et la - Convention doit connaître tous ces maux; elle a besoin d’être - instruite par le malheur, et de sentir les tristes effets de - ses divisions. - - Notre armée, repoussée entre Combrai et Bouchain, quittant - son camp de Famars pour prendre plus loin celui de Coefar, - abandonnant à leurs propres forces Condé et Valenciennes, - perdant ses communications avec Douay et Lille d’un côté, et de - l’autre avec Maubeuge et le Quesnoy, est exposée à de nouveaux - revers, si la présence du général Custine, qui a dû y arriver - le 25, ne lui rend pas la discipline qui lui manque et la - confiance sans laquelle il n’est point de succès à obtenir dans - la guerre. - - Si les efforts de ce général ne sont pas promptement secondés - par l’union des représentans du peuple, la Convention doit - s’attendre à tomber dans une situation plus embarrassante - qu’au moment où, pendant la dernière campagne, les esclaves - allemands entraient en Champagne, et menaçaient Paris et la - liberté. Alors d’heureux hasards, ou plutôt cette destinée - qui semble conduire la France, ont disparaître des dangers - aussi imminens; mais doit-on compter sur une nouvelle faveur - de l’aveugle fortune? ne devons-nous pas craindre une nouvelle - invasion, et pouvons-nous nous flatter que toutes nos villes - imiteront le généreux dévouement de celle de Maubeuge, qui - nous écrit le 26 de ce mois:—“Ici on bat la générale dans cet - instant: on a envoyé une partie de notre garnison dans la - Vendée; nous restons; nous déjouerons nos ennemis extérieurs et - intérieurs, ou nous mourrons libres. La ville sautera si nos - murs abattus permettent à l’ennemi de souiller notre enceinte.” - - Quant aux besoins de cette armée du Nord, peut-être croira-t-on - difficilement que, malgré toutes nos dépenses, la demande - qui vient d’être faite au comité, qui a été arrêtée par le - commissaire général de l’armée du Nord, et visée par les - commissaires de la Convention, monte à la somme de 49 millions. - - L’armée qui doit anéantir les révoltés s’organise; il arrive - un grand nombre de bataillons à Tours; les postes de la rive - droite de la Loire se renforcent, et l’on fait défiler des - troupes en poste. Si les rebelles menacent cette rive, ils sont - hors d’état d’exécuter ce project; leurs forces ce divisent, - mais ils rentrent dans les pays couverts. Les principaux chefs - des révoltés sont subordonnés aux prêtres; c’est une véritable - croisade; mais les habitans des campagnes commencent à se - lasser de cette horrible guerre, et murmurent. - - D’un autre côté, on nous écrit qu’il est parti, depuis notre - dernier succès, un courier de Bruxelles à Londres, pour engager - le cabinet de Saint-James à accélérer un armament tendant à - porter sur les côtes de Bretagne des troupes, des armes, des - munitions, et à vomir sur nos rivages un corps considérable - d’émigrés de Jersey et Guernsey. - - Le transfuge Condé a envoyé à Jersey tous les émigrés bretons - pour être déposés sur nos côtes et y seconder un des rejetons - de la famille de nos tyrans. - - On se plaignait presque partout des commissaires des guerres - ce corps essentiel des armées va être changé, amélioré sur de - nouvelles bases et épuré par des choix patriotiques. - - Quant à la suppression de la paie en numéraire, toutes - les armées de la République l’ont reçue sans peine; ils - sacrifient à chaque instant leur vie à la liberté, comment - s’occuperaient-il d’intérêts pécuniaires? mais aussi ils ont - droit à plus de surveillance pour les approvisionemens et pour - les subsistances. Quelques compagnies de l’armée d’Italie - seulement ont montré de la résistance; mais les agitateurs - seront déjoués par la surveillance qui y a été établie, et par - les soins de vos commissaires. - - Dans le choix des officiers généraux, nous avons dû quelquefois - obéir aux défiances populaires et aux dénonciations - individuelles; mais c’est là un des maux attachés à la - révolution, qui use beaucoup d’hommes, qui en éloigne un - plus grand nombre, et qui présente plus d’accusations que de - ressources. Sans doute après les odieuses trahisons qui ont - affligé et qui affligent encore la république et désorganisé - deux fois les armées, on peut, on doit même devenir défiant - et soupçonneux; mais la ligne qui sépare la défiance et la - calomnie, est trop facile à dépasser; et si la dénonciation - juste est une action civique, l’accusation intéressée est la - honte de nos mœurs et la ressource de la haine.... - - Le comité, pour ne rien négliger dans cette terrible partie - de la guerre, a interrogé des militaires instruits; il s’est - environné de leur expérience pour faire un plan de guerre - auquel se rattacheraient des plans de campagne pour chacune des - armées. Jusqu’à présent la guerre de la liberté a été faite - sans plans, sans suite, sans prévoyance même; il est plus que - temps de tracer les limites dans lesquelles la guerre sera - soutenue, dans quelle partie elle sera défensive, dans quelle - autre elle sera offensive, assigner à chaque armée la portion - de frontières qu’elle a à défendre, les points des ennemis - qu’elle doit attaquer ou couvrir. - -In what follows regarding the Navy, we see the attempt of the Committee, -which we know was foredoomed to failure, but which was a fine one, to -meet the English Power. The “error,” as English critics have called it, -of rapidly putting in new officers was an unfortunate necessity. - - DE LA MARINE. - - Ici nous devons accuser ce système perfide de Bertrand et - de ses semblables, qui, depuis plusieurs années, semblait - préparer, de concert avec l’Angleterre, l’abaissement de la - France, et assurer à nos plus constans ennemis l’empire des - mers.... C’est par la réunion des forces navales, que nos - ennemis out espéré d’attaquer plus sûrement notre indépendance, - et de nous dicter de lois. Quoique par cette coalition l’on - ait tenté aveuglement de faire passer la balance du pouvoir - à une nation maritime, déjà trop puissante pour l’intérêt - du continent; ... quoique, par la désorganisation passagère - de notre marine, par le dénuement de nos ports, par le - ralentissement des travaux, on ait espéré de changer la - destinée de la république française, ne craignons pas que l’on - parvienne à faire rétrograder la plus belle des révolutions. - - La surveillance constante du comité, le zèle du ministre, et le - dévouement de l’armée navale qui se forme, feront oublier tant - de trahisons ou de négligences, mais les moyens ne peuvent être - que lents. - - Des expéditions hardies, et confiées à des hommes courageux - sont préparées; les plaintes du commerce ont été enfin - entendues d’après le dernier rapport du ministre, le cabotage - va être protégé dans l’Océan par 34 canonnières, 12 corvettes, - 18 lougres, cutters ou avisos, et dans la Méditerranée, par - 18 corvettes, ou cannonières et 5 avisos, indépendamment des - frégates dont il est inutile de faire connaître le nombre et - les stations, sans trahir les intérêts de la défense de la - république.... - - Il existe beaucoup d’officiers capables; l’abaissement des - vains préjugés qui séparaient l’armée commerciale de l’armée - navale, nous assure des ressources, mais il faut les surveiller - et punir sévèrement la désobéissance ou la malversation; avant - de choisir les officiers, examen et impartialité; après le - choix, confiance entière, mais responsabilité impérieuse. Le - secret accompagnera nos opérations, si les inquiétudes du - commerçant ou les soupçons du zèle patriotique ne viennent pas - les altérer ou les contrarier; les corps civils ne doivent pas - s’immiscer dans le secret des opérations navales, ou bien nos - ennemis le sauront bientôt, et nous vaincrons sans nous laisser - sortir de nos ports. - - Le comité s’occupe des lois répressives que la discipline - navale réclame avec plus d’intérêt que jamais. Une grande - force s’organise dans les ports de la Méditerranée, qui par - notre position, doit être le canal de navigation du commerce - français.... - - On s’occupe des moyens les plus propres à retirer les colonies - de l’état malheureux où elles se trouvent, depuis qu’une cour - perfide voulait faire la contre-révolution en France, par les - malheurs de l’Amérique; et si, à côté de nous, des Français - veulent se rappeler qu’ils descendant de Guillaume, tous les - calculs de la politique insulaire pourront être dérangés. - - Le comité ne peut vous offrir aucun résultat précis et détaillé - dans ce moment; il serait même impolitique de la publier. Mais - tout se prépare, et quoique les forces de la république soient - très inférieures à celles des ennemis coalisés, le patriotisme - les dirigera de manière à rappeler le courage des filibustiers, - et les exploits des Bart et des Dugay-Trouin.... - -In foreign affairs we have the Dantonesque idea of pitting the Powers -against one another, which, unfortunately for France, fanatics who were -in power later abandoned. The remark on the impolitic nature of the -decree of the 19th of December should be specially noted: it comes direct -from Danton. - - DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES. - - ... Le ministère anglais est forcé, malgré son influence et - son orgueil avare, de voir Dantzick passer au pouvoir de la - Prusse, sans réclamation; de voir la Pologne, se partager sans - sa participation; et de se compromettre vis-à-vis la morale - et l’esprit public de la nation anglaise. Aussi l’intrigant - Pitt, qui ne peut se dissimuler que le ministre qui fait la - guerre, traite rarement de la paix, surtout chez une nation - éclairée et trompée sur cette guerre par l’astuce profonde de - son gouvernement, ne cesse d’invoquer sans cesse auprès de la - ligne, la cause générale des cours.... - - Le comité a cherché à resserrer le lien qui attache déjà, - par les relations commerciales, le peuple suisse et le - peuple français; et l’ambassadeur que la Suisse a reçu suit - constamment le vœu témoigné par la Convention nationale, de - s’allier avec les gouvernemens justes et les peuples libres. - - Nous apprenons que les peuples neutres et amis reçoivent avec - reconnaissance le décret du 15 avril, qui eut servi plus - utilement la liberté, s’il eut été d’une date plus reculée, - et si le décret impolitique du 19 décembre n’eût pas donné un - nouveau prétexte à la perfidie des cours étrangères. - - Ce décret par lequel vous aviez déclaré que la France - ne souffrirait jamais qu’aucune puissance semélât de sa - constitution et de son gouvernement, et qu’à son tour, elle ne - s’immiscerait en rien sur les autres gouvernemens; ce décret a - augmenté subitement le nombre de nos partisans dans la Suisse; - et le témoignage d’un peuple simple et libre a son prix auprès - des républicains. - - Des négociations d’alliance ne sont plus des chimères pour - la France libre. Il est des puissances qui ont senti que - l’élévation ou la ruine d’une nation intéressent toutes les - autres et que celles même qui sont le plus éloignées du théâtre - de la guerre, sont souvent les victimes de leur modération - ou de leur indifférence. Il est des alliés pour leur propre - sûreté, peuvent soutenir nos intérêts, avec autant de chaleur - que de bonne foi. Il est d’autres alliances que la politique - doit vous assurer, et d’autres qui seront dues en grande partie - à votre état républicain; votre commerce ne peut que s’en - féliciter. - - L’Italie voit avec intérêt le signe de la République arboré - dans ses villes, si j’excepte les villes gouvernées encore par - un prêtre et par la maison d’Autriche.... - - Nous apprenons que la Russie a fait faire à la Porte la demande - officielle du passage d’une flotte, menaçant de regarder le - refus qu’on pourrait lui en faire comme une déclaration de - guerre. La réponse a été dilatoire et sera négative; les - usurpations de la Russie trouveront enfin des bornes. C’est à - la politique européenne à aider le maître des Dardanelles à les - poser.... - - Une suite de coalisation faite contre la France, avait jeté des - obstacles à l’arrivée des chebecs à Alger. On voulait encore - vous aliéner cette puissance, amie de la République; mais - nous recevons la nouvelle que le dey a reçu, avec le plus vif - intérêt, les deux chebecs que la République lui a renvoyés, - et qu’il a témoigné les dispositions les plus favorables à la - France.... - -There follows the French criticism of the Alien Bill. - - Un bill infâme, qui insulte à l’humanité et aux droits des - nations, a été promulgué par le gouvernement anglais, et - traduit en espagnol à Madrid et dans les villes hanséatiques, - par les intrigues de l’ambassadeur anglais. Ce bill, dont - la haine pour la convention a dicté les clauses horribles - contre les Français, vous portera sans doute à user du droit - de représailles. Le comité vous fera un rapport sur cet - objet, ainsi que sur les diverses mesures à prendre contre la - gouvernement anglais. Des agens nombreux sont disséminés dans - l’Europe, pour connaître les complots de nos ennemis au dedans - et au dehors, et pour s’assurer des véritables amis de la - république. - - Il résulte enfin, de toutes nos relations, que Dumouriez et ses - aides-de-camp, chassés du Stoutgard, n’ont pas reçu un meilleur - accueil à Vursbourg, par ordre de l’électeur, quoique évêque. - Ainsi, les traîtres ne trouvent pas d’asyle même chez les - despotes à qui ils se sacrifient. - -Matters concerning the Interior are comparatively vague, for here the -Committee wished to compromise with the Gironde; but they are strong -against civil war. - - DE L’INTÉRIEUR. - - ... Quant aux approvisionnemens des armées et de la marine, les - commissaires éprouvent des obstacles, en ne pouvant, d’après le - dernier décret, acheter que dans les marchés. - - Le comité s’est occupé ensuite de sonder la plaie et de - connaître la source de toutes les agitations qui tourmentent la - république. - - Ici des vérités doivent nous être déclarées; car, vous êtes - sur le bord d’un abyme profond, et la Convention Nationale, au - milieu de ses divisions, a oublié qu’elle marchait entre deux - écueils, et qu’elle était conduite par l’aveugle anarchie. - - D’un côté, l’exécrable plan de la guerre civile, secondé par - l’Anglais, et sans doute dirigée de Londres, de Rome et par - des agens correspondans à Paris, étendait ses ramifications - sur toute la France, et principalement dans les pays qui - étaient, depuis la révolution, infestés de fanatisme, ou qui - avaient été le théâtre des troubles fanatiques et des complots - contre-révolutionnaires. - - D’un autre côté, une alarme générale s’est répandue parmi - les propriétaires d’un territoire de vingt-sept mil de - lieues quarrées, et ces craintes ont eu pour base des - motions exagérées, des journaux feuillantisés et des propos - sauguinaires; le mécontentement né de nos discussions - personnelles a altéré la confiance, mais vous êtes nécessaires: - les aristocrates, redoutant les passions des patriotes, ont - excité les hommes énergiques contre les modérés auxquels - ils se rattachent sourdement; ils ont préparé des mouvemens - contraires.... - - Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Rouen, prenez garde, la liberté - vous observe sur votre marche dans la révolution; elle ne - vous croira jamais contraire à ses vues; mais craignez d’être - stationnaires dans le mouvement de l’opinion publique; écrasez - avec nous les révoltés, les anarchistes et les brigands; - mais aussi craignez le modérantisme et les intrigues de - l’aristocratie qui veut vous effrayer sur les propriétés et sur - le commerce, pour vous redonner des nobles, des prêtres et un - roi.... - - Au moment où le comité a été formé, presque partout les - administrations trop faibles ou trop au dessous des - circonstances se ressentaient de l’influence meurtrière des - passions particulières qui y correspondaient... - - A Lyon, l’aristocratie a un foyer plus profond qu’on ne peut le - penser; elle est secondée par l’égoïsme et l’indifférence.... - - Mais les campagnes et les villes de department de Rhône et - Loire, surtout Villefranche, présente un autre esprit, et là - surtout paraissent ces signes heureux, là sont entendues ces - acclamations énergiques qui caractérisent le patriotisme. - - A Marseille où tout annonce l’ardeur républicaine, à Marseille - où l’on voit presque à chaque pas un arbre de la liberté ou - une inscription civique, à Marseille où le pain, égal pour - tout et de mauvaise qualité, se vend sept sols la livre, cette - calamité est supportée sans murmurer, où l’on entend des - plaintes contre les traîtres, les égoïstes, les intrigans; - où les seuls malheurs dont on soit afflige sont ceux qui - frappent la République entière, Marseille a éprouvé des - convulsions violentes; mais si la répression de quelques excès - de la démagogie a fait craindre à de bons citoyens que le - modérantisme ne prévalût, le républicanisme n’en triomphera pas - moins des passions individuelles. Croyons que cette grande cité - ne dégénérera pas de sa renommée. - - Nous avons à gémir sur des excès commis à Avignon et à Aix; - ce qui s’est passé d’irrégulier à Toulon, relativement aux - officiers de la marine, vous sera rapporté quand le comité aura - fait le travail de cette partie. - - Le meilleur esprit règne dans ce moment à Perpignan; la vieille - antipathie nationale contre l’Espagnol, y réchauffé l’esprit - républicain que le département des Pyrénées orientales avait - déjà montré avec tant d’énergie le 21 Juin 1791. - - Bayonne se rattache aux bons principes. Les trahisons lui - ont donné de l’énergie; mais si cette place est dans ce - moment menacée de près par l’ennemi, le zèle des républicains - méridionaux la défendra contre les ennemis du dedans et du - dehors. - - Bordeaux ne cesse de fournir à la liberté et a ses armées des - trésors et des soldats; elle va défendre en même temps les - Pyrénées et les Deux-Sèvres. - - Les intentions manifestées à Nantes ne se ressentent pas assez - de l’enthousiasme civique qui doit animer dans ce moment tous - les citoyens. Ses moyens auraient pu être plus efficaces; - il y a du mécontentement et des craintes sur les effets des - divisions intestines. - - A Orléans, l’esprit public s’améliore, depuis que - l’aristocratie a été frappée par la loi révolutionnaire; mais - cette ville a le droit d’obtenir que les procédures faites par - les commissaires soient bientôt jugées, les coupables punis et - les bons citoyens rassurés. - - Dans le département de l’Allier, une correspondance interceptée - a fait découvrir des traînes contre la liberté, elles étaient - ourdies par des prêtres déportés, de concert avec leurs agens - à Moulins. Les corps administratifs, qui vivent dans la plus - heureuse harmonie, ont mis en lieu de sûreté les ci-devant - que leur conduite avait rendus suspects et les y font garder - avec soin et humanité, jusqu’à ce que la République n’ait plus - rien à craindre de ses ennemis intérieurs et de ces enfans - dénaturés. Le peuple a partout applaudi à cette énergie de ses - magistrats, et il les a secourus, parce que le peuple veut - franchement la liberté. - - A Roanne, le modérantisme est réduit en système, et dans la - crise où nous sommes, cette apathie politique est le plus - grand fléau de la République, qui ne peut s’établir que par le - développement de toute l’énergie nationale. - - A Tain, dans le département de la Drôme, des patriotes, que - n’étaient qu’aisés dans leur fortune (le patriotisme se trouve - rarement avec la fortune), se sont cotisés, et, de concert avec - le Maire, ont fait, sans y être contraints par la loi, mais par - amour pour la patrie, une cotisation, dont le produit a été - employé à fournir du pain à un prix modéré, pour les citoyens - peu fortunés. C’est ainsi que dans les provinces méridionales, - les mœurs et l’humanité font plus que les lois et le cœur des - riches dans les grandes cités.... - - A Tours, l’administration d’Indre et Loire, apprenant que - les ennemis étaient à Loudun, et marchaient à Chinon, a pris - la résolution, par un mouvement civique et spontané, de se - transporter toute entière au milieu des dangers qui les - menaçaient, et décidée à s’ensevelir sous les ruines de la - ville, plutôt que de se rendre. Une commission y est restée. - Loudun a demeuré sans défense. Quelques aristocrates en ont été - heureusement chassés. - - Poitiers, trop influencé par des fanatiques et par des hommes - de l’ancien régime, peut donner des espérances aux révoltés, - et déjà l’administration nous a fait craindre le résultat du - mauvais esprit d’une partie de ses habitans, malgré l’énergie - connue des patriotes qu’elle renferme. - - Paris qu’on accuse sans cesse, qu’on agite presque toujours, - tantôt par des crimes, tantôt par des intrigues, tantôt par - des passions personnelles, tantôt par des intérêts secrets et - étrangers, et plus souvent encore par l’action prolongée ou - l’exaltation des passions révolutionnaires; Paris, réceptacle - de tant d’étrangers, de tant de conspirateurs, doit attirer vos - regards. - -The following passage on the Commune of Paris is noteworthy for its -non-committal character, in keeping with the attempt to get rid of the -Gironde, if possible, without an insurrection. - - Vous devez contenir le conseil général de la commune de - Paris dans les limites que l’unité et l’indivisibilité de - la République exigent et que la loi lui prescrit. C’est à - vous qu’il appartient seul de dominer toutes les ambitions - politiques, de détruire toutes les usurpations législatives; - c’est à vous de répondre à la France du dépôt de pouvoir qui - vous a été religieusement confié. - - Vous devez aviser aux movemens inégaux et anarchiques que des - intrigans font passer dans plusieurs sections peuplées de bons - citoyens, et aux mouvemens aristocratiques qu’on pourrait - cependant leur communiquer. - - Vous devez surveiller également le moderantisme qui paralyse - tout et prépare la perte de la liberté, et les excès le la - démagogie dont les émigrés et les ambitieux, déguisés parmi - nous, tiennent le secret et le prix journalier. - - L’esprit des habitans de Paris est bon, malgré les vices de - l’égoïsme, de l’avarice et de l’apathie d’un certain nombre de - ses habitans. L’amour de la liberté, qu’on a voulu tant de fois - y neutraliser, sort victorieux de toutes les épreuves; et nous - pensons que Paris n’appartiendra jamais qu’à la liberté; Paris - qui à détruit le trône, ne souffrira pas qu’aucune autorité - usurpe le pouvoir national, qui est la propriété de tous, et - qui est le véritable lieu de tous les départemens. - - Malgré toutes les intrigues par lesquelles on a cherché à - empêcher Paris de prononcer son patriotisme en marchant contre - les révoltés, chaque section a fourni ou s’occupe de fournir - son contingent pour former douze ou quatorze bataillons de - mille hommes.... - -I quote certain portions which show the fear of the Committee, so often -justified, with regard to foreign intrigue. - - FINANCES. - - Il a agioté le numéraire pour avilir l’assignat; il a fait - hausser les changes, par ses opérations à la bourse. - - DISSENTIONS CIVILES. - - Il a alimenté le fanatisme de la Vendée; il a fourni des - hommes, des armes et des munitions.[166] - - ROYALISME. - - C’est l’anglais, qui a combiné les regrets et ravivé les - espérances, par l’excès du républicanisme qu’il a fomenté, par - les motions des lois agraires, dont il cherchait ensuite à - faire imputer les projets à des patriotes connus.... - - GÉNÉRAUX. - - Celui qui avait acheté Arnold en Amérique, a acheté Dumouriez - en Europe, et il a dû traiter de même les militaires qui - n’aiment pas la république.... - - DE L’ORGANISATION SOCIALE. - - L’anglais a semé l’effroi dans l’âme des propriétaires par - des motions sur les partages des terres, et dans le cœur des - commerçans par le pillage des magasins.... - - L’anglais a imaginé de la bloquer, de l’affamer, de l’incendier - dans ses ports, dans ses édifices publics; de détruire son - industrie; il armé tour à tour l’aristocrate contre le - patriote, et le patriote contre l’aristocrate; enfin, le peuple - contre le peuple, espérant que le spectacle de nos troubles - ôtera au peuple anglais le courage de détruire chez lui le - despotisme royal. - - PERTE DE PARIS. - - C’est au cœur que les assassins frappent; c’est sur les - capitales que les conquérans dirigent leurs coups. On ne - pouvait perdre Paris par les armés; on a voulu perdre Paris par - les départemens; on y a semé dès terreurs pour le ruiner par la - fuite des propriétaires et des riches; on a semé des idées de - suprématie, pour séparer, pour isoler les départemens de Paris. - -The danger of civil war and vigorous methods for meeting it are the -subject of the passages that follow. - - DIVISION DU TERRITOIRE. - - L’anglais enfin a espéré diviser la France pour la morceler ou - la ruiner. Dans son délire, il a espéré de voir une monarchie - impuissante s’établir dans le nord, et des républiques - misérables et divisées se former dans le midi. - - J’ai dévoilé le gouvernement britannique; il n’est plus à - craindre. - - Dans un très grand nombre de départemens on a procédé à la - réclusion des personnes notoirement suspectes d’incivisme et - soupçonnées d’entretenir des intelligences avec les émigrés - et les contre-révolutionnaires. On en accuse généralement les - prêtres et les moines, les émigrés rentrés impunément sur notre - territoire, et les correspondants qui les soutenaient de leurs - fortunes et de leurs espérances. - - On a dû prendre des mesures sévères, alors que tous les - aristocrates correspondaient à la Vendée, et que des lettres - interceptées annonçaient un rassemblement à Nantes. - - Des arrestations nombreuses ont dû être la suite de ces - méfiances, de ces trahisons disséminées dans toute la France; - l’autorité, dans les temps de révolution, a plus d’yeux et - de bras que d’entrailles; mais le législateur doit à tous - les citoyens cette justice exacte qui vient régulariser les - premiers mouvemens et faire statuer sur la liberté individuelle - avec les précautions que les circonstances peuvent admettre. - Vous devez abattre également toutes les aristocraties et toutes - les tyrannies; vous devez approuver vos commissaires s’ils ont - bien fait, les blâmer et les punir s’ils ont violé les droits - des citoyens. Le comité pense que le comité de législation et - de sûreté générale doivent proposer incessamment une loi qui - règle le mode de jugement de la légitimité de ces arrestations, - et qui renvoie aux tribunaux les coupables ou laissât en - réclusion ceux qui ne sont que notoirement suspects. - - Le département de l’Ain voit l’esprit public se rétablir - parmises habitans. - - La conspiration qui a éclaté dans l’Ouest semblait se montrer - dans les départemens de l’Ardèche, du Gard, de la Haute Loire - et du Cantal; mais les administrateurs et vos commissaires - sont parvenus à les réprimer. Ces troubles de la Lozère ont un - caractère plus fort; mais le patriotisme de ce département et - de ses voisins y mettra bientôt un terme. - - Les tribunaux ont sévi contre les coupables; nous avions craint - que vos commissaires n’eussent dépassé leurs pouvoirs dans le - département de l’Ardèche, et nous les aurions déféré à votre - sévère justice pour donner l’exemple de la punition de ceux - qu’on affecte d’appeler des proconsuls, pour empêcher le bien - qu’ils peuvent faire ou en empoisonner les résultats; mais un - décret avait déjà mis hors de la loi les coupables complices de - Defaillant. - - La trahison de Dumouriez que tout annonce avoir eu des branches - très étendus, a été un trait de lumière; elle a frappé es - administrations et les citoyens d’un coup électrique. Tous nos - moyens ont centuplé par cet évènement destiné à les paralyser; - mais de tous les maux préparés insensiblement dans les - départemens frontières comme dans le centre, comme au milieu - de nous le plus grand, le plus effrayant par ses progrès, est - la marche imprévue des contre-révolutionnaires nobiliares, - sacerdotaux et émigrés qui, du fond de la Vendée et du Morbihan - remontent la Loire, menacent nos cités de l’intérieur, et - emploient à la fois, des moyens de terreur et de persuasion.... - - Les révoltés ont plusieurs corps de rassemblement. Le principe - qui s’était porté a Thouars, était, suivant les uns, de - quinze mille suivant la dernière relation envoyée par un de - nos commissaires, il était de vingt à vingt-cinq mille hommes - armés, partie de piques, partie de fusils; ils traînent avec - eux, treize pièces de canon, selon les uns, et d’après le - dernier succès de Thouars, trente pièces d’artillerie. - - Ils sont commandés par des ci-devant nobles et accompagnés par - des prêtres; toutes leurs femmes leur servent d’espions; ils - se battent pour des fiefs et des prières. Les agriculteurs - fanatiques combattent avec fureur et ne pillent pas; ils - composent la moitié de la troupe. - - Un quart est composé de gardes-chasses, d’échappés des galères - et de faux sauniers. Ils pillent, dévastent, égorgent, et sont - bien dignes de leurs chefs. - - L’autre quart est formé d’hommes pusillanimes ou indifférens, - que la violence force de marcher, mais qui, à la première - défaite des brigands, se retireraient, et forment, pour ainsi - dire, la propriété du premier occupant. C’est à la liberté de - s’en emparer par des succès. - - Il n’y a que les émigrés, les ci-devant, et les prêtres qui - voudraient mettre de l’ordre dans les rassemblemens, et de la - tactique dans cette guerre. Ils paient, les rebelles deux tiers - en numéraire. - - Les chefs connus sont les ci-devant de Leseur, - Laroche-Jacquelin, Beauchamp, Langrenière, Delbecq, - Baudré-de-Brochin, Debouillé-Loret, un abbé appelé Larivière. - Domengé est colonel-général de la cavalerie; Demenens et - Delbecq commandent l’armée catholique-royale. - - Le comité a pourvu journellement par des arrêtés pressans, à ce - que cette guerre intestine fût efficacement comprimée.... - - Déjà l’armée s’organise à Tours; une commission centrale est - établie à Saumur; déjà des troupes de ligne ont dépassé Paris - pour s’y rendre, et le renfort considérable que le comité avait - requis, est en route pour s’y rendre. Les voitures des riches, - les équipages du luxe, auront du moins servi une fois à la - défense de la patrie et de la liberté. Une armée est dirigée - en poste sur les rives de la Loire. C’est ainsi qu’un des plus - fameux guerrieurs du nord alla écraser en 1757 les autrichiens - à la bataille de Liffa ou Leuten, avec une armée arrivée en - poste sur le champ de bataille.... - - Le comité prépare un rapport sur les agens périodiques de - l’opinion publique, et sur les arrêtés violateurs de la liberté - de la presse. - - Tel est le tableau de l’intérieur de la république, d’après les - rapports et la correspondance des commissaires et des corps - administratifs. Nous devons le terminer par une réflexion sur - les commissaires, dont on cherche trop à effrayer les citoyens, - et même plusieurs membres de la convention.... - -The influence of Cambon is apparent in what follows. - - DES CONTRIBUTIONS PUBLIQUES. - - Quant aux contributions, rien ne prouve mieux le désir de voir - fonder la République, et de voir renaître l’ordre social le - paiement des impositions, au milieu des ruines et de débris - de l’ancien gouvernement; s’il y a de l’arriéré, ce n’est - que par les fautes des administrations qui n’ont pas encore - terminé la confection des rôles; quelques-unes ont arrêté tout - envoi de fonds. Mais un moyen de salut public, appartient à - cette partie de l’administration, c’est de vous occuper sans - relâche, des lois concernant les contributions publiques, de - l’accélération de la vente des biens d’émigrés, et des maisons - ci-devant royales, objets qui semblent encore attendre leurs - anciens et coupables possesseurs; et des moyens de retirer de - la circulation, une certaine masse d’assignats. Vous devez - cette loi au peuple, qui a vu s’augmenter par une progression - effrayante et ruineuse, le prix des subsistances; vous le - devez à tous les créanciers de la République et à tous ceux - qu’elle salarie, afin de rétablir la balance rompu trop - rapidement, par la masse énorme de cette monnaie. La portion - du peuple qui mérite avant toutes les autres l’attention de - ses représentants, est celle qui souffre tous les jours au - surhaussement du prix des denrées. - - Les contributions indirectes, perçues au milieu des mouvemens - de la révolution, et des défiances semées sur son succès, par - des mécontens et des ennemis publics, alimentent abondamment le - trésor national. Déjà dans les trois derniers mois de Janvier, - Février et Mars, la perception des impôts indirects excède de - plusieurs millions l’estimation qui en a été faite. Le total - des trois mois, se porte a 52,182,468 livres en y comprenant - 5,400,000 livres, de l’adjudication des bois. Que serace - dans un temps de paix et de prospérité? Quelle confiance la - République doit avoir de ses forces et de ses moyens? - - Nous avons vu avec regret, parmi les produits de l’imposition - indirecte, des droits qui devraient être inconnus à des peuples - libres, des droits de bâtardise et de déshérence, et que les - sauvages de l’Amérique repousseraient. - -From henceforward Danton’s hand is apparent throughout the report. Some -matters on the Constitution and on Public Construction, which have little -to do with the insurrection of June 2nd, have been omitted, but the -Dantonian policy of framing a constitution which should reconcile enemies -is printed in full. - - DES COLONIES. - - Nous ne disons encore rien des colonies, quoique nous ayons - reçu des mémoires et des vues sur cet objet important - et malheureux, d’où dépend la prospérité publique, et - l’agrandissement de la marine française. Peut-être eût-il mieux - valu de ne pas plus parler dans les assemblées nationales, des - colonies que de la religion, jusqu’à ce que la révolution du - continent eût été à son terme. Perfectionner dans ces contrées - lointaines le commissariat civil, adoucir les effets du régime - militaire, détruire insensiblement le préjugé des couleurs, - améliorer par des vues sages et des moyens progressifs le sort - de l’espèce humaine dans ces climats avares, etait peut-être - la mesure la plus convenable; mais la révolution a fait des - progrès terribles sous ce soleil brûlant. Saint-Domingue - est aussi malheureux que les îles des vents sont redevenues - fidèles, et ses malheurs ne paraissent pas rès de leur terme. - - On examinera un jour s’il est des moyens de rattacher les - colonies à la France, par leur propre intérêt, c’est-à-dire, - par la franchise absolue de leur commerce avec nous, et - une disposition générale des droits perçus sur le commerce - étranger, dans ces mêmes colonies. De pareilles lois qui nous - défendraient mieux que des escadres, demandent d’être méditées. - - Cette partie de l’intérêt national, doit être traitée - séparément et avec une forte sagesse; le comité est chargé - de préparer en attendant ce rapport, des mesures propres à - diminuer les maux que cette belle colonie souffre encore. - - DE LA FORCE PUBLIQUE DE L’INTÉRIEUR. - - Elle se ressent partout de l’anarchie que règne. Là, elle - délibère; ici, elle agit au gré des passions. Disséminée - dans toutes les sections de l’empire, elle semble avoir une - versatilité de principes et d’actions, qui peut effrayer la - liberté. Dans une ville, les citoyens riches et les égoïstes, - se font remplacer; défendre ses foyers, semble être encore une - corvée plutôt qu’un honneur, une charge plutôt qu’un droit. - Dans une autre cité, le service public frappe des artisans peu - aisés ou des ouvriers, qui ont besoin du repos de la nuit, pour - le travail qui alimente leur famille, il est plus que temps - d’effacer ces lignes de démarcation intolérable dans un régime - libre. La nature seule a décrit des différences; elle est dans - les âges; les jeunes citoyens depuis seize ans jusqu’à 25, - sont les premiers que la patrie appelle; moins occupés et plus - disponibles, c’est à eux de voler aux premiers dangers. Cette - première force est-elle insuffisante (car il ne faut pas penser - à la défection) l’autre âge plus fort et plus sage, présente - à la société ses moyens, c’est l’âge de 25 à 35; la troisième - classe sera de 35 à 45; la dernière réquisition doit frapper - tout ce qui peut porter les armes. Alors, la société appelle - à son secours, tous ceux qui partagent la souveraineté; une - exception favorable se présente pour les pères nourrissant leur - famille du produit de leur travail. Une exception contraire - doit frapper les célibataires et les hommes veufs sans enfans. - - C’est à la législation et à la morale à flétrir ceux qui ne - paient cette dette ni à la nature ni à la République. - - C’est ainsi qu’il convient aux Français, d’organiser le - droit de réquisition. Cet exemple est sorti des besoins de - la liberté, dans les terres américaines. La réquisition est - l’appel de la patrie aux citoyens; cet appel peut être fait par - les généraux, quand la loi le leur a confié momentanément, et - dans les cas de guerre; cet appel peut être fait par le pouvoir - civil dans toutes les autorités constituées, et encore plus par - les assemblées nationales, qui sont à la fois pouvoir civil, - législatif et national. - - Le comité a pensé qu’il devait présenter un mode uniforme, - de requérir la force publique dans toutes les parties de la - République, et de la part de toutes les autorités, afin que - chaque fonctionnaire et chaque citoyen, connaisse l’étendue de - son pouvoir ou de son obligation.... - - D’ailleurs, on trouverait plusieurs avantages à borner ainsi la - constitution aux articles nécessaires. - - (1ᵒ) Une plus grande espérance qu’elle sera acceptée par le - peuple. - - (2ᵒ) Une plus grande espérance encore que les citoyens - ne demanderont point si promptement, une réforme de la - constitution. - - (3ᵒ) On détruirait par cette seule résolution, même avant que - la constitution fût faite, une partie des espérances de nos - ennemis, parce qu’alors, ils commenceraient à croire que la - Convention donnera une constitution à la France, ce que jusqu’à - présent ils ne croient pas. - - En effet, il est difficile de ce tromper dans des articles - généraux importants, sur ce qui convient véritablement à la - nation française, et l’on n’a pas à craindre ces difficultés, - cette presqu’ impossibilité d’exécution qui, si on se livre - aux détails, pourraient faire désirer la réforme d’une - constitution, d’ailleurs bien combinée. - - On pourrait donc proposer de borner la constitution à ces - articles essentiels, dans le nombre desquels on sent que doit - être compris le mode de réformer la constitution, lorsqu’elle - cessera de paraître, à la majorité des citoyens, suffisante - pour le maintien de leurs droits; et si l’assemblée adoptait - cet avis, elle chargerait quatre ou cinq de ses membres, - adjoints au comité de salut public de lui présenter un plan - de constitution, borné à ces seuls articles, et combiné de - manière que ces articles puissent être soumis immédiatement à - la discussion. - - Le travail de ce comité ne prendrait qu’une semaine, - et l’assemblée pourrait suivre ses discussions sur la - constitution, car rien ne serait plus facile que de placer dans - ce plan, les points déjà arrêtés par la Convention. - - Ce travail même serait utile, quand même l’assemblée voudrait - se livrer ensuite à plus de details: - - (1ᵒ) Parce qu’il en résulterait un meilleur ordre de - discussions; - - (2ᵒ) Parce qu’on aurait toujours alors, un moyen d’accélérer le - travail, selon que des circonstances impérieuses l’exigeraient. - C’est d’après cette idée simple que nous vous proposerons de - décréter que la Convention charge une commission, composée de - cinq de ses membres, adjoints au comité de salut public, de lui - présenter dans le plus court délai, un plan de constitution, - réduit aux seuls article qu’il importe de rendre irrévocables - par les assemblées législatives, pour assurer à la République - son unité, son indivisibilité et sa liberté, et au peuple - l’exercice de tous ses droits. - - Reprenons donc avec constance le travail de la constitution, - et discutons-en le petit nombre d’articles vraiment - constitutionals, avec cette sagesse qui n’exclut pas - l’énergie, et avec ce talent qui ne flétrisse pas les défiances. - - Songez que le dernier article de la constitution sera le - commencement du traité de paix avec les puissances. Il leur - tarde de savoir avec qui elles peuvent traiter, quelle que soit - la forme de notre gouvernement.... - -There follows a strong attack upon the Federal idea, showing the -Committee to be definitely anti-Girondin in its sociology. - - Mais cette inscription sera-t-elle donc toujours mensongère? - verra-t-on sans cesse, dans le palais de l’unité, les fureurs - de la discorde, et 44 mille petites républiques y agitant leurs - dissensions par des représentans?... - - Il faut qu’à votre voix, tous les Français se prononcent, - que l’égoïste et l’avare soient flétris par l’opinion, et - punis dans leurs richesses. Ne vous y méprenez pas, il n’y a - plus de gloire et de bonheur pour vous, que dans le succès - de la liberté, dans le rétablissement de l’ordre, et dans - l’affermissement des propriétés. - - Voilà la base de toutes les sociétés politiques, et le - législateur qui la méconnaîtra, sera en horreur à ses - contemporains et à la postérité. - - Il sera aussi exécré le législateur qui aura méconnu les droits - du peuple, et qui n’aura pas écouté la plainte des malheureux. - - Si vous perdez cette occasion d’établir la république, vous - êtes tous également flétris, et pas un de vous n’échappera aux - tyrans victorieux, quelle que soit la nuance de votre opinion - ou le principe de vos actions. Le glaive exterminateur frappera - les appelans au peuple, et les votans pour la mort du tyran; - et c’est la seule égalité que vous aurez fondée. Vos noms ne - passeront à la postérité que comme ceux des rebelles et des - coupables: vous aurez reculé le perfectionnement des sociétés - humaines; vous aurez perdu les droits des peuples, vous aurez - fait périr 300 mille hommes, et dilapidé des trésors que la - liberté avait déposés dans vos mains pour son affermissement; - vous aurez rétrograder la raison publique; vous serez complice - de la tyrannie des rois et de la barbarie de l’Europe, et l’on - dira de vous; la convention de France pouvait donner la liberté - à l’Europe, mais par ses dissensions, elle riva les fers du - peuple, et servit le despotisme par ses haines.... - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] C. W. Oman, “History of England,” p. 581. - -[2] Taine, “La Révolution,” preface. - -[3] Victor Hugo, “Quatre-vingt-treize.” Illustrated edition of 1877. -Paris, pp. 136-150. - -[4] _E.g._ he says the “gentry” of France should imitate the gentry -of England. But to do this it is necessary to own the houses of the -peasantry; and even then the system does not always suit the Celtic -temperament, they say. - -[5] For example, the island of Serque. - -[6] Bonaparte may have had a noble ancestry. But so had more than one -true bourgeois whose family had had neither the means nor the desire to -insist upon the privileged rank in the past. - -[7] For the sake of clearness I do not mention the large class who had -purchased fiefs, all technically noble, many practically bourgeois. - -[8] Lyons was, of course, a frontier town of the empire, but locally it -is the centre of its own country the “Lyonnais.” - -[9] All biographers agree. The first publication of the extract from the -civil register was obtained by Bougeart in August 1860. It was furnished -to him by M. Ludot, the mayor at the time. There is a ridiculous error in -the _Journal de la Montagne_, vol. ii. No. 142, “né à _Orchie_ sur Aube.” - -[10] The date is given in the extract mentioned in the preceding note. - -[11] See the action of the relatives in No. VI. of the Appendix. - -[12] Bougeart, p. 12. A Danton, who was presumably the son of this -brother, was an inspector of the University under the second Empire. - -[13] See Appendix No. V.; also _Théâtre de l’Ancien Collège de Troyes_, -Babeau, published by Dufour-Bouquet, Troyes, 1881. - -[14] See list of his library, Appendix VIII., and his interview with -Thomas Payne, at the beginning of Chapter VII. - -[15] Speech of August 13, 1793. Printed in _Moniteur_ of August 15. - -[16] M. Béon. - -[17] _Danton, Homme d’État_, p. 29. - -[18] See “Notes of Courtois de l’Aube” in Clarétie’s “Desmoulins.” - -[19] _Danton, Homme d’État_, p. 30. - -[20] An excellent reading is afforded by the _Avocat aux Conseils du Roi_ -of M. Bos (Machal & Billaud, Paris, 1881), quoted more than once in this -work. - -[21] Since 1728 membership of this body had been purchasable and -hereditary; a striking example of how wrongly society was moving. - -[22] See Appendix VI. - -[23] M. Bos, quoted above. - -[24] Ibid., p. 520. - -[25] See Appendix V. - -[26] See Appendix II. on Danton’s lodgings in Paris. - -[27] See Robinet, _Danton vie Privée_, p. 284. - -[28] See Appendix VI. - -[29] By nature his nose was small. His was one of those faces rarely -seen, and always associated with energy and with leadership, whose great -foreheads overhang a face that would be small, were it not redeemed by -the square jaw and the mouth. Thus Arnault, “une caricature de Socrate.” - -[30] I refer to the English reformer who, on taking ship at Bristol, cast -his perruque into the water, crying, “I have done with such baubles,” and -sailed bald to the New World. - -[31] See Appendix VIII. - -[32] See Appendix IX. - -[33] From the _Almanack Royal_ of 1788. Dr. Robinet, whose opportunities -of information are unique, tells us that he first moved into the Rue des -Fossés St. Germains, and later into the Cour du Commerce, some time in -1790. The statement as to the first direction is unaccompanied by any -authority, but Dr. Robinet possesses a letter with this address on it; -now here the definite information of an official list seems to me of the -greatest weight. - -[34] See Appendices II. and VII. Some rooms look on the Rue des -Cordeliers, some on the Cour du Commerce. - -[35] De Barentin. See preceding chapter and Appendix V. He became -Danton’s client just before the decree that summoned the States-General. - -[36] Sécretaire du Sceau. - -[37] See Appendix V., Rousselin. The anecdote is little esteemed by -Aulard, but is admitted to be of value by other biographers. Aulard -relies for his opinion upon the undoubted errors in the matter of date. -But Rousselin may have been right in the main, though (writing many years -after) mistaken in the matter of a month or so. - -[38] E. Champion, _La France en 1789._ _Esprit des Cahiers_ in _La -Révolution_ (_Hist. Générale_, viii.). - -[39] Ibid. - -[40] Aulard, who quotes Chassin, _Les Elections de Paris_, vol. ii. p. -478. M. Aulard tells us that M. Chassin saw the document himself before -the war. - -[41] Less than six hundred. - -[42] Appendix V. - -[43] This description is taken from a contemporary water-colour sketch -which I have seen in the collection of Dr. Robinet. - -[44] See Appendix I. - -[45] See the discussion of the somewhat meagre authorities in Robinet, -_Danton, Homme d’État_, pp. 37-40. - -[46] _Documents authentiques pour servir à l’Histoire de la Révolution -Française Danton_, par Alfred Bougeart. Brussels, 1861 (La Croix, Van -Meenen & Cie.). - -[47] Aulard, who quotes Charavay, _Assemblée electorale de Paris_. - -[48] Chassin, _Les Elections et les Cahiers de Paris_, iii. 580-581, on -which this whole scene is based. - -[49] Aulard, _Revue de la Révolution Française_, February 14, 1893. - -[50] See the figures given in the petition against Danton’s arrest, p. -108. - -[51] This decree was passed by the Cordeliers on Tuesday, July 21, 1789. -It is not so unreasonable as it might seem, for but two days afterwards -(July 23rd) the informal municipal body recognises the necessity of new -city elections. - -[52] Signed 21st September; promulgated 3rd November. - -[53] An excellent example is on p. 45 of _Danton, Homme d’État_. - -[54] Their names were Peyrilhe, De Blois, De Granville, Dupré, Croharé. -They can be found, with all the decrees touching this business, in -_Danton, Homme d’État_ (Robinet, 1889), p. 248. Printed, like all the -Cordeliers’ decrees, by _Momoro_ in the Rue de la Harpe, and signed, -“d’Anton.” - -[55] It may be remembered that Bougeart (p. 69) claims the presidency for -Danton at the very beginning of ’89. The error of this has been pointed -out. On the other hand, Aulard says he was not President till October. -This is another error. There is at least one earlier document, that of -September, quoted on the preceding page. - -[56] They had sat for a while at the Evéché; on the Island of the Cité, -while the Manège was being prepared. - -[57] _Rev. de Paris_, xxiii. p. 20. - -[58] November 11th and 12th. - -[59] 22nd of December. - -[60] 12th November and 14th of December. - -[61] 31 against 20 (Aulard, from _Journal de la Cour et de la Ville_, p. -518). - -[62] _Danton, Homme d’État_, pp. 256, &c. Signed, “d’Anton.” - -[63] Danton, his friend Legendre, Testulat, Sableé, and Guintin. Several -authorities have placed Danton’s election in September 1789 instead of -January 1790, an error due (probably) to following Godard’s list, which -was published in 1790, but bore the title, “Members of the Commune -elected since September 1789.” - -[64] Marat’s presses were hidden in a cellar of the Cordeliers now -situated under the house of the concierge of the Clinique. - -[65] January 19th. - -[66] The Rue des Fossés was (and is, under its new name) remarkably -straight for an old street. Cannon could be used. - -[67] Their names were Ozanne and Damien; the same Damien, I believe, who -committed the blunder of September 13, 1791. See p. 150. - -[68] Article 9 of the decree of October 8 and 9, 1790. - -[69] “Notables-adjoints,” to the number of seven in each district. Danton -himself was elected on to such a body in May or June 1790, and served for -a few months. - -[70] That is, till his election as substitute to the Procureur in -December 1791. - -[71] January 25, 28; February 4, 16; March 3, 5, 13, 19; June 15, 19, 23. -Aulard, _Rev. Française_, February 14, 1893, pp. 142, 143. - -[72] It is this warrant which has probably misled one biographer as to -the date of the “Affaire Marat.” (_Danton, Homme d’État_, p. 67: “En -_mars_ survint l’affaire Marat.”) - -[73] That is, of course, the inclusion of Paris into the general scheme -of December 1789—a scheme that enfranchised the peasants, but created an -oligarchy in the towns. See above, pp. 21, 22, and 93. - -[74] He received 12,550 votes, the great bulk of the limited suffrage. -Forty-nine odd votes were cast for Danton, but he was obviously not a -candidate (Aulard). - -[75] _Ami du Peuple_, No. 192. - -[76] _Révolutions de France et Brabant_, tom. x. p. 171. - -[77] There is a misprint (a very rare thing with this careful historian) -in footnote No. 3, p. 231, of M. Aulard’s article on Danton in the _Rev. -Française_ for March 14, 1893. For “November” we should read “September,” -for we know that the voting was over on September 16. See Robiquet, -_Personnel Municipal_, p. 373, and the evidence on all sides that a new -poll was ordered on September 17 in his Section. - -[78] This big building in the island next Notre Dame disappeared in the -restorations of Viollet le Duc. It was often used in the revolutionary -period for public meetings, and even the Assembly sat there for a few -days after entering Paris in October, and while the Riding-School was -being prepared for it. - -[79] _Moniteur_, Old Series, No. 316 (1790). - -[80] M. Aulard says “somewhere between the 10th and the 15th,” and -“nous n’avons pas la date precise.” He has probably overlooked _L’Ami -du Peuple_, No. 290, “Le 14 de ce mois Danton a été nommé à la place du -Sieur Villette.” - -[81] Aulard. The other biographers all assume that he did not resign. - -[82] _Orateur du Peuple_, vol. iii. No. 24. - -[83] Ibid., vol. vi. No. 27. - -[84] The letter will be found in M. Etienne Charavay’s _Assemblée -Electorale_, p. 437. - -[85] I quote from M. Aulard, _Rev. Française_, March 14, 1893. - -[86] Note that Lafayette in his Memoirs (vol. iii. p. 64) talks of Danton -“at the head of his battalion.” I doubt an error on the part of a soldier -whose business it was to know his own command. - -[87] _e.g._ that of the quarter of the Carmelites (ibid.). - -[88] _Révolutions de France et Brabant_, No. 74. - -[89] See his Collected Works, vol. xii. pp. 264, 265. - -[90] M. Aulard points out an error in Condorcet’s own note (xii. p. 267), -where it is mentioned as the 12th of July; but the _Bouche de Fer_ of the -10th gives us the above date over these two speeches. - -[91] He wrote a funny little letter (among other things) to the -_Républicain_ of July 16, describing a “mechanical king,” “who is -practically eternal.” - -[92] See _Société des Jacobins_, vol. ii. p. 541. - -[93] _Moniteur_, July 16, 1791. - -[94] _Ami du Peuple_, June 22, 1791. - -[95] _Révolutions de France et de Brabant_, No. 82. - -[96] This is not a rhetorical exaggeration. It indicates, as will be seen -later in the chapter, the very number that finally formed the garrison -of the palace—a point not hitherto noticed, and well worth remembering, -for it shows how Lafayette’s accusations are half the truth. He had -approached Danton, and he had told him many of his plans. Danton had not -acceded, but he used the knowledge. - -[97] _Révolutions de France et de Brabant_, No. 82. - -[98] Appendix II. - -[99] On June 24. - -[100] I follow Aulard in this as to the general scheme, and largely as to -authorities also. - -[101] Aulard is my authority for the fact that the actual text of this -second petition disappeared in 1871, when the Hotel de Ville was burnt -by the Commune, but that Berchez saw it before that event, and carefully -drew up a list of the principal names. Danton is not among them. - -[102] The _Courrier Français_ of July 22 asks if “the man in holland -trousers and a grey waistcoat was Danton,” but says nothing more. - -[103] See the letter published in the _Rev. Française_, April 1893, p. -325. - -[104] _Orateur du Peuple_, viii. No. 16. Not over-trustworthy. - -[105] Possibly later. Beugnot seems to speak as though Danton was still -in Troyes on at least as late a date as the 6th of August (_Mémoires_, i. -pp. 249-250). - -[106] Since writing the above I notice that M. Aulard in the same article -quotes a remark of Danton’s in the Electoral Assembly of September 10th. -This is taken from the _procès verbal_ of the Assembly, and M. Charavay -communicated it to M. Aulard. - -[107] His election was not declared till the 7th, but was known on the -6th. - -[108] January 20, 1792. - -[109] I see in that phrase all Danton’s attitude upon the war. - -[110] There was a minority of seven. - -[111] Perhaps as early as the evening of the 28th. - -[112] This account is translated from the _Moniteur_, August 3, 1792. - -[113] _Journal des Débats_, 183. - -[114] I take this document from Robinet, _Danton, Homme d’État_, pp. 109, -112; but neither he nor Aulard (who quotes it) gives the authority. The -circular is quoted often under the date of August 19; it was issued on -that Sunday, but was drawn up and dated on the Saturday to which I have -assigned it. - -[115] Aulard, who quotes from the _Moniteur_, xii. 445. - -[116] The scene can be reconstructed from his testimony at the trial of -the Girondins and from his speech at the Jacobins on the 5th of November. - -[117] I take all this from Aulard’s article in the _Révolution Française_ -of June 14, 1893. - -[118] The votes of the 30th, 31st, and 2nd. - -[119] The word “illegally” is just, for the constitution of the Commune -and all its acts were legally dependent on the Assembly. On the other -hand, the Commune had given this committee right to add to its numbers, -but such men as Marat, who was not a member of the Commune, were surely -not intended. - -[120] First _La Poissonnière_, then the _Postes_ and the _Luxembourg_. - -[121] It is possible that this sentence, including the preceding phrase, -“le tocsin qui va sonner,” &c., are the only part of the speech that -has been literally reported. The _Logotachygraphe_ was not founded till -January, and while the _Moniteur_ and the _Journal des Débats_ give much -the same version, the latter calls it a “summary.” - -[122] “Appel à l’impartiale posterité.” Madame Roland had the great -historical gift of intuition, that is, she could minutely describe events -which never took place. I attach no kind of importance to the passage -immediately preceding. If Danton and Pétion were alone, as she describes -them, her picture is the picture of a novelist. The phrase quoted above -may be authentic—there were witnesses. - -[123] _Moniteur_, January 25, 1793. Speech of January 21st. - -[124] Speech of January 21, 1793. - -[125] The accusations against Danton in this matter are given and -criticised in Appendix IV., where the reasons are also given for omitting -any mention of Marat’s circular in the text. - -[126] For the figures and very interesting details as to Egalité’s -election see _Révolution Française_ August 14, 1893, second note, page -129. - -[127] More than 700 and less than 1000 died. The common exaggeration is -Peltier’s 12,000. - -[128] As a fact, his successor, Garat, was not elected till the 9th of -October, and did not begin to act till the 12th. Danton seems to have -remained at the Ministry till the evening of the 11th. - -[129] October 23. - -[130] _Michelet_, 1st edition, vol. iv. pp. 392-394. - -[131] October 10 and 11. - -[132] He made a speech on the 6th of November demanding (of course) -the trial of the King, but not with violence. He left for Belgium with -Delacroix on the 1st of December. - -[133] This Dannon was a friend of Danton’s. He began, but did not -complete, a collection of his speeches, &c., and an inquiry into his -accounts. He was a member for Pas de Calais. It is not easy to get his -name accurately spelt. I follow the spelling of a list of the Convention -published in 1794. Dannon voted for banishment. - -[134] I must not omit to mention one phrase which is far more -characteristic of him—that spoken after Lepelletier’s assassination: “It -would be well for us if we could die like that.” - -[135] The proofs of the connection with Talleyrand are based only on -inference. They will be found discussed in Robinet’s _Danton Emigré_, -pp. 12-16 and pp. 270, &c. As for Priestley’s correspondence, it was -sympathetic and deep, and continued in spite of the massacres of -September. There is a draft of a Constitution in the French archives -which some believe to be Priestley’s, but I am confident it is not in his -handwriting. - -[136] _Moniteur_, March 9, 1793. - -[137] _Ibid._ March 10, 1793. - -[138] See _Patriote Français_, No. 1308. - -[139] See _Moniteur_, March 13, 1793. - -[140] Paine’s ignorance of French was such that his speech on Louis’s -exile was translated for him. - -[141] La Roche du Maine. - -[142] Levasseur tells us that Delmas spoke first, and that his remarks -took the form of a definite motion for the appearance of the Committees -to account for their action. Legendre is mentioned here because he -alone is agreed upon by all the eye-witnesses (and by the _Moniteur_) -as being the principal defender of Danton. We must not underestimate -his courage; it was he who with a very small force shut the club of the -Jacobins on the night of the 9th Thermidor, and so turned the flank of -the Robespierrian faction. - -[143] “Quand les restes de la faction ... ne seront plus ... vous n’aurez -plus d’exemples à donner ... ils ne restera que le peuple et vous, et le -gouvernement dont vous êtes le centre inviolable.” - -[144] “Mauvais citoyen, tu as conspiré; faux ami, tu disais, il y a deux -jours, du mal de Desmoulins que tu as perdu; méchant homme, tu as comparé -l’opinion publique à une femme de mauvaise vie, tu as dit que l’honneur -était ridicule ... si Fabre est innocent, si D’Orléans, si Dumouriez -furent innocents tu l’est sans doute. J’en ai trop dit—tu repondras à la -justice.” - -[145] Robespierre’s notes for St. Just’s report were published by M. -France in 1841 among the “Papiers trouvés chez Robespierre.” - -[146] “La Convention Nationale après avoir entendu les rapports des -Comités de Sureté générale et du Salut Public, décrète d’accusation -Camille Desmoulins, Hérault, Danton, Phillippeaux Lacroix ... en -conséquence elle declare leur mise en jugement.” These were the last -words of St. Just’s speech, and formed his substantive motion. - -“Ce décret est adopté à l’unanimité et au milieu des plus vifs -applaudissements.”—_Moniteur_, April 2, 1794 (13th Germinal, year II.). - -[147] Couthon was a cripple. Once (later) in the Convention it was -called out to him “Triumvir,” and he glanced at his legs and said, “How -could I be a triumvir?” The logical connection between good legs and -triumvirates was more apparent to himself than to those whom he caused to -be guillotined. - -[148] We have the fragments of this “No. VII.,” which was not published. -See M. Clarétie’s _C. Desmoulins_, p. 274 of Mrs. Cashel Hoey’s -translation. - -[149] Danton would have been thirty-five in October. Desmoulins had -been thirty-four in March—_not_ thirty-three, as he said at the trial. -I give this on the authority of M. Clarétie, who in his book quotes the -birth-certificate, which he himself had seen (March 2, 1760). - -[150] March 10, 1793. Exception has been taken to the whole sentiment -by Dr. Robinet, but great, or rather unique, as is his authority, I -cannot believe that an appeal—especially an exclamatory appeal of this -nature—was foreign to his impetuous and merciful temper. - -[151] Wallon, _Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, vol. iii. p. 156. - -[152] It is known that Fleuriot and Fouquier were alone when the jury -were “chosen by lot.” This appeared at the trial of Fouquier. For the -notes of Lebrun, see Appendix X. - -[153] Wallon, _Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, vol. iii. p. 155. - -[154] See Appendix X. The speeches which I have written here are -reconstructed from these notes, and I must beg the reader to check the -consecutive sentences of the text by reference to the disjointed notes -printed in the Appendix. - -[155] See p. 199. - -[156] Wallon, _Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, iii. 169, quotes _Archives_, W. -342, _Dossier_ 641, 1st Part, No. 34. - -[157] Fouquier had written a letter to his distant relative Desmoulins, -begging for some employment, on August 20, 1792, just after the success -of Danton’s party, in which Desmoulins had of course shared. It is by no -means dignified and almost servile. See Clarétie, _Desmoulins_, English -edition, p. 318. - -[158] This is M. Wallon’s opinion, who gives both versions, and from whom -I take so much of this description. See _Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, iii. -177. - -[159] All this appears in the trial of Fouquier. - -[160] They are given in Clarétie’s _Desmoulins_ in the Appendix. - -[161] See the list of the prisoner’s effects in Clarétie’s _Desmoulins_. - -[162] This gate may be seen to-day just to the right of the great -staircase in the court of the Palais de Justice. It has an iron grating -before it. - -[163] The original of this I take from Clarétie, who quotes P. A. -Lecomte, _Memorial sur la Révolution Française_. - - “Lorsqu’arrivés au bords du Phlégéton - Camille Desmoulins, D’Eglantine et Danton, - Payèrent pour passer ce fleuve redoutable - Le nautonnier Charon (citoyen équitable) - A nos trois passagers voulait remettre en mains - L’excédant de la taxe imposée aux humains. - ‘Garde,’ lui dit Danton, ‘la somme toute entière; - Je paye pour Couthon, St. Just et Robespierre.’” - -[164] It was Madame Gély who told this to Despoi’s grandfather. Clarétie -has mentioned it. But Michelet must have heard from the family about this -same priest (Kerénavant le Breton), for according to Madame Gély it was -he who married Danton for the second time. - -[165] Ce qu’il y a de certain d’après le résultat donné par la commission -des subsistances militaires, c’est que les armées sont approvisionnées -jusque vers le premier octobre; l’armée d’Italie, la plus mal -approvisionnée, a des subsistances pour quelques mois, et l’on a déjà -préparé pour elle d’autres approvisionnements. - -[166] Des traîtres se sont mêlés dans les rangs des patriotes et dans les -convois de l’artillerie qui allaient combattre les révoltés; le comité -en a fait arrêter la marche, et le comité de surveillance retient les -principaux auteurs de ce nouveau complot. Malgré tant de surveillance, -quelques soldats français, indignes de ce nom, ont trahi leur devoir -et sont allés grossir la horde des rebelles. Partout les obstacles se -multiplient; partout les administrations veulent régler les mouvemens des -troupes et les commissaires veulent faire les fonctions de généraux, des -communes arrêtent à leur gré des armes qui ont une autre destination, et -c’est ainsi que toutes les forces s’atténuent et que les brigands ont des -succès. - -Mais du moins les rives qui correspondent aux perfides de George III. -sont garanties. Les trois divisions commandées par le général Canclaux, -qui occupent les ports intermédiaires entre les Sables et Nantes, -entretiennent la communication entre ces deux villes, et contiennent les -brigands à une certaine distance des côtes. - -La communication par terre, entre Nantes et Angers, est libre, on -travaille à rétablir la libre navigation de la Loire entre ces deux -villes. Quelques bateaux armés de canons sont préparés, et suffiront pour -cette protection. - -Déjà une victoire signalée vient de raviver toutes les espérances de -la patrie. A Saint-Mexent, l’artillerie et les approvisionnemens des -révoltés sont le prix de la première victoire signalée que les patriotes -viennent de remporter. - - - - -INDEX - - - Agriculture, depression of, before Revolution, 16. - - Amelinau case, Danton’s opinion in, 51. - - Antoinette, Marie, _see_ “Marie Antoinette.” - - Arcis-sur-Aube, Danton born at, in 1759, 40; - position of, 40; - effect on Danton’s politics, 42; - visited by Danton in 1791, 148; - again in August 1792, 166; - last retirement of Danton to, 237. - - Army, condition of, at Valmy, 192; - Danton’s first mission to, 199; - second mission, 204; - third, 209; - position of on Sambre in June 1793, 297; - of “Sambre et Meuse,” 298; - attitude towards Robespierre, 299, 300. - - Arnault, witness of Danton’s death, 278. - - Arrest of D’Eglantine, 246; - of Hébert, 247; - of Desmoulins and Danton, 248, 249. - - Artisans, loss of influence of Church on, 21; - their disfranchisement, 22; - causes of their discontent, the guild, the octroi, 20; - character of before Revolution, numbers, influence of, 19. - - Assembly, National, _see_ “States General.” - - - Bailly, of the professional class, 24; - opposition of Cordeliers to, 82; - elected mayor of Paris, 112; - resignation of, 152. - - Barbarian invasions of ninth century, 13. - - Barentin, de, intimacy with Danton, 51, 60. - - Barrère, a Bourgeois, 23; - his action on first committee with Danton, 220; - Report against Robespierre, 305, 306. - - Bastille, fall of, 73-74; - effect of this, 78-80. - - Battles, of Valmy, 192, 193; - of Jemappes, 196; - Neerwinden, 208; - Turcoing, 293; - Fleurus, 298. - - Belgium, Danton proposes annexation of, 204. - - Bourgeoisie or middle class, effect of Revolution on, definition of, - 22, 23; - produces most of the revolutionaries, 23. - - Brienne, de, client of Danton’s, 51. - - Brissot, draws up petition of Jacobins, 146; - attacked by Desmoulins, 226. - - Brunswick, Duke of, his manifesto, 161-166; - his hesitation, 177. - - Burning at stake in United States, 5; - by Parliament of Strasbourg in 1789, 5. - - - Cahiers, their nature, 62, 63; - that of Cordeliers destroyed, 63. - - Carnot, a Bourgeois, 23; - in first Committee of Public Safety, 210; - Robespierre’s attack on, 304. - - Centralisation, of pre-revolutionary France, 10; - quality of, 10; - before Revolution, examples of, 16; - pre-revolutionary fails to raise revenue, 26; - used as a practical engine of reform, rapid raising of armies, 28. - - Charlemagne, marks the end of settled Roman order, 12; - Imperial tradition of in France, 15. - - Charleroy, stronghold of Coburg, 297; - captured, 298. - - Charpentier, his Café des Écoles, 52; - his daughter marries Danton, Mlle., _see_ “Wife.” - - Châtelet, impossibility of reforming it, 7; - nature of, 98; - issue warrant against Marat, 99; - against Danton, 107. - - Church, its loss of power in villages during eighteenth century, 17; - loss of influence over citizens, 21; - not main cause of egalitarian feeling in France, 32; - intention of making Danton a priest in, 44. - - Cicé, de, Danton as orator of municipal deputation demands - resignation of, 129, 131. - - Civil constitution of clergy, _see_ “Clergy.” - - Class system, vigour of, before Revolution, 16. - - Classes, social, five principal, before Revolution, 16. - - Clergy, Danton’s defence of, 198; - civil constitution of, 118; - its vast importance, 119, 120; - its details, 121; - passes the Assembly, 122; - Louis ratifies, 123. - - Coburg, his position on Sambre, 297; - is defeated at Fleurus, 298. - - Collot d’Herbois, attacked by Danton in Jacobins, 136; - beaten by Danton in election for Substitute Procureur, 152. - - Committee of Public Safety, first, proposed by Isnard, Danton - elected, 210; - determines overthrow of Girondins, 223; - Danton resigns from, 234; - Robespierre elected on, 234; - powerful force in winter of 1793, 240; - determination to continue Terror in spite of Danton, 240; - abandons Robespierre, 301. - - Commune (before August 1792, _see_ “Municipality”), insurrectionary - of, August 1792, 161; - increases in power, 172; - Marat joins its “Comité de Surveillance,” 183; - its quarrel with Gironde, 216-228; - opposes committee in winter of 1793, 240; - attacked by Danton, 243; - captured by Robespierre, 293; - attempts to save him and fails, 310-314. - - Condorcet, of the professional class, 24; - example of balance of two French tendencies, 27; - demands Republic, 141, 142. - - Conseils du Roi, Old Court of Appeals, nature of, 48; - Danton enters at Bar of, 49. - - Contrat social, written just after Danton’s birth, 41. - - Convention, elections of Paris to, Danton elected to, 188; - its parties, 189; - its appearance on first meeting, 190; - declares Republic, 191; - debate on king’s death in, 201, 202; - votes arrest of Girondins, 202; - Legendre defends Danton in, 253; - St. Just attacks Danton in, 254, 255; - subservience to Robespierre, 296; - outlaws him, 307-310. - - Cordeliers, district of, social character, 64; - position of Convent Hall in, 65; - meets after elections, importance of this, 69; - petitions against Danton’s arrest, 108; - merged in section of Théâtre Français, 112. - - Cordeliers, club of, contrasted with Jacobins, 80; - their numbers and character, 81; - opposition to new municipality, 82; - determine on independent use of their guard, 83; - attack municipality again, 88, 89; - create _Mandat Imperatif_, 89; - manifesto to march on Versailles, 91; - oppose Lafayette’s discipline in National Guard, 93; - oath of their deputies, 94; - victory of club over municipality, 96; - campaign against restriction of suffrage, 110-113; - Danton leaves them for Jacobins, 135; - Republican declaration of, on king’s flight, 142; - petition of, on king’s flight, not signed by Danton, 146. - - Cordelier, Vieux, published by Desmoulins to protest against Terror, - 244. - - Court, relations of nobles to, 24; - form party to influence king at Versailles, 85, 86; - last stand in the Tuilleries, 167, 168. - - Courts of Law, before Revolution, 48. - - Couthon, a Bourgeois, 23; - proposes law on worship of God, 290; - supports Robespierre in committee, 303. - - - Dannon, his name mistaken for Danton’s, Le Gallois’s misprint, - Michelet’s error based on this, 200, 201. - - Danton, a Bourgeois, 23; - very typical of nation, his attitude towards Paris, 36; - his rise during the war, 37; - preliminary summary of his career, 35-39; - forerunner of Napoleon, 38; - retirement and death, 39; - born at Arcis-sur-Aube, 1759, age compared with contemporaries, 40; - effect of birthplace on his politics, 42; - his father Procureur at Arcis, 42-43; - family of, house of, social position of father, death of father, - fortune of, his mother and aunts, 43; - to be made a priest, 44; - educated by Oratorians, their influence, destined for Bar, 45; - character as boy, 46; - coronation of Louis XVI. seen by, 46-47; - his stepfather Recordain, apprenticed to Vinot, solicitor in Paris, - called to Bar at Rheims, 47; - practice in lower courts, 48; - at bar of Conseils du Roi, 49; - his Latin oration, 50; - his opinion in Montbarey case, Du Barentin his client, and De - Brienne, his income at Bar, 51; - frequents Charpentier’s Café des Écoles, marriage, dowry of wife, - 52; - physical appearance, 53; - energy, style of oratory, knowledge of English and Italian, 54; - reading, pre-revolutionary politics, 55; - private life, 56; - goes to live in Cour du Commerce, 59; - Barentin’s offer of post to, 60; - his relation to masonic lodges, 65; - summary of his condition on outbreak of Revolution, 56-67; - Primary of his District convened, 68; - not president of District during elections, 69; - at Palais Royal, 71; - possibly present at fall of Bastille, 74; - action night after, clashes with Lafayette, 75; - in Club of Cordeliers, 81; - as President of Cordeliers attacks Municipality, 88; - creates _Mandat Imperatif_, 89; - placards manifesto for march on Versailles, 91; - nature of action supporting _Mandat Imperatif_, 95; - his success, 96; - elected to municipality, 97; - defends Marat, 101-107; - discovers error in warrant against Marat, 102; - appeals to assembly, 103; - false effect of his attitude, 104-105; - sworn in to municipality, 105; - with Legendre, 106; - goes in deputation to Louis XVI., 106; - warrant for arrest of, issued by Châtelet, 107; - district in his favour, 108; - his proposition for grand jury, appeal to Assembly, decision in his - favour, 109; - his policy at close of 1790, 123-125; - rejected at municipal elections of 1790, 125; - moderation during affair of Nancy, 126; - rejected as candidate for Notables, 127; - orator of city deputation (November 1790), 128-131; - elected head of his battalion, 131; - elected to administration of city (1791), 132; - letter to De la Rochefoucald, 134; - appears in Jacobins, 135; - attacks Collot d’Herbois in Jacobins, 136; - speech on death of Mirabeau, 137; - action on April 18, 1791, Desmoulins’ testimony untrustworthy, 138; - attitude during Louis XVI.’s flight, 140-141; - attacks Lafayette at Jacobins on king’s flight, 143-145; - reads Jacobin petition on Champ de Mars, absence from Cordeliers’ - manifestation there, 147; - Lafayette orders arrest of (August 4, 1791), 148; - his flight to England, 148-149; - his return, sent by his section to electoral college, 149; - attempted arrest of, 150; - elected substitute to Procureur of Paris (November 1791), 152; - his chances of a prosperous municipal career, 155; - opposes war policy, 156; - speech at Jacobins describing himself, 157; - justice of his opposition to war, 158; - retained on committee of insurrection (July-August, 1792), 161; - goes to Arcis to see his mother, 166; - leads insurrection of August 10, 167; - his position after 10th of August, Minister of Justice, 172; - his determination to form a strong government after fall of - monarchy, only practical man in executive in August, 1792, 173; - addresses Assembly as Minister of Justice, his circular to - tribunals, 175; - defence of himself in the circular, his power over cabinet, 176; - he and Dumouriez see chance of repelling invasion, 177; - his interview with Roland and ministers on news of invasion - reported by Fabre d’Eglantine, 180-181; - his political attitude just before massacres, 182; - he orders domiciliary visits and collection of arms, 183; - his speech, the volunteers, its success, 184; - why he did not interfere during massacres, 185; - anecdote of him during massacres, his future comment on, 186; - elected to Convention by Paris, 188; - his false position in the Mountain, accused of planning massacres, - 189; - his appearance on first meeting of Convention, 190; - resigns Ministry of Justice, 191; - repudiates Marat, 192; - his diplomacy secures Prussian retreat after Valmy, 194; - his attitude towards Dumouriez, partial reconciliation with - Gironde, 195; - anecdote of theatre and Madame Roland, of meeting with Marat, 196; - his reticence after Jemappes, 197; - speech on Catholicism opposing Cambon, 198; - attempt to reconcile Girondins in meeting at Sceaux, Guadet’s - opposition, 198-199; - starts on his first mission to army, 199; - debates on Louis XVI.’s death, misprint of Danton for Dannon, 200; - what he really did in the debate, 201; - unusual violence, 202; - caused by his wife’s illness, 203; - intimacy with Priestley, Talleyrand, his diplomacy spoiled by his - own violence on king’s death, demands annexation of Belgium, - 204; - second mission to army in Belgium, change of his politics on his - return, despairs of reconciling Girondins and Paris, 205; - accounted for by death of his wife, 206; - his military policy and appeal to Paris, 207; - creates Revolutionary Tribunal, 208; - violently attacked for his intimacy with Dumouriez, 209; - supports Isnard’s proposal of Great Committee, is named on it, 210; - compared with Mirabeau, 213; - summary of Danton’s position in Committee, as it changes, 215; - his practical policy impossible with Girondins, 217; - difficulty of following his action in April and May, 1793, speech - on acquittal of Marat, 218, 219; - curious action half in favour of Girondins, proposes committee of - twelve through Barrère, 220; - but prevents formation of special guard, 221; - Danton, through the Committee, overthrows the Gironde, 226; - his phrase with regard to Girondins, 227; - his difficulty in controlling forces after June 2, 1793, 228; - begins to lose his power, 229; - still retains enough power at end of June to produce Constitution, - 230; - and to persuade Convention to his policy, his second marriage, 231; - reasons for it, he loses power still more in July, 232; - puts his name reluctantly to St. Just’s report attacking fallen - Girondins, he resigns his place on Committee, 234; - his brilliancy whilst standing alone, great speeches in August, on - army, on strengthening government, 235; - his despair and illness, Garat’s interview with him, Desmoulins, - 236; - retires to his home at Arcis, 237; - his rest at Arcis, its effects, 237-240; - regret for execution of Girondins, returns to the Convention, 239; - his new politics against the Terror, 241, 242; - his defence of religious liberty and attack on Commune, 243; - Robespierre defends him in Jacobins, Desmoulins helps him, - publication of “Vieux Cordelier,” 244-245; - his first check, D’Eglantine arrested, he knows his attempt has - failed, 246; - still speaks in Convention, last interview with Robespierre, 247; - Panis comes to warn him, he is arrested, 248; - his trial and death, 249-281; - taken to the Luxembourg with Desmoulins, meets Paine, 249; - policy of his defence, of Committee, 251, 252; - Legendre defends Danton in Convention, 243; - St. Just’s report and vote against Danton, 254-255; - his remarks in the prison, 250, 257, 258; - trial begins, 259; - fear of an armed attempt to save him, his reply to the judges, 261; - charges against Danton, 262; - Westermann’s replies, 263; - Danton’s speech in his own defence, 264, 265, 266; - collusion of judge and prosecutor, 267; - Renault’s defence, 268; - judge and prosecutor appeal to Convention, 269; - St. Just’s second speech to Convention against Danton, 270; - Billaud-Varennes, 271; - taken back to Conciergerie, condemned, his action in prison, 272; - passage to guillotine, 273-279; - passes David, 275; - passes house of Duplay and Robespierre’s window, 276; - he rallies Fabre d’Eglantine, 277; - rhymes sold in Paris same night, 278; - his execution, 279-281; - effects of his death, 282, 283, 284; - contrasted with Robespierre, 285. - - Danton, Madame, _see_ “Wife.” - - David, artist, portrait of Danton (_frontispiece_); - animosity against Danton, 271; - sketches the condemned, 275; - false promise to Robespierre, 307. - - De Barentin, _see_ “Barentin.” - - De Brienne, _see_ “Brienne.” - - De Cicé, _see_ “Cicé.” - - D’Eglantine, _see_ “Fabre.” - - De Séchelles, _see_ “Hérault.” - - Decree of Dec. 1788, elections, 61. - - Desmoulins, Camille, house in Cour du Commerce, 59; - brings news of Necker’s dismissal, 73; - member of Cordeliers, 81; - testimony as to Danton’s action on April 18, 1791, 138; - Danton sleeps in his flat before insurrection of Aug. 10, 1792, 167; - his “Histoire des Brissottins,” allied to Robespierre, 226; - publishes “Vieux Cordelier,” 244; - arrested, 249; - his answer to his judges, 261; - his examination in court, 268; - tears up his written defence, 271; - his frenzy going to guillotine, 275, 276; - his death, 279. - - Districts, Paris divided into sixty, 64. - - District of Cordeliers, _see_ “Cordeliers.” - - Duke of Brunswick, _see_ “Brunswick.” - - Dumouriez, outflanked before Valmy, 192; - fears to attack, 193; - his political motives, his work with Danton after Valmy, 194, 195; - incident in theatre with Danton, 195, 196; - treason of, 209; - Danton attacked for friendship with, 209, 210. - - - Education, French, effect of, due to Jesuits, 45; - effect of on Robespierre and Desmoulins, 46; - of Danton, 44-47. - - Egalité elected for Paris, 188. - - Eglantine, d’, _see_ “Fabre.” - - Elections to, States General decreed, 61; - to first municipality, elected by Cordeliers, 88; - of priests and bishops, 121; - to Legislative, 150; - of Paris to Convention, 188; - of Danton, Bailly, &c., _see_ under their names. - - England, Danton’s flight to, 148, 149. - - English constitution, flexibility of, 6; - its vices described by Marat, 104. - - English language, Danton’s acquaintance with, 54, 249. - - English society, homogeneity of in eighteenth century contrasted with - the Continent, 73. - - - Fabre d’Eglantine, poet, member of Cordeliers, 81; - escorts officers of Châtelet through mob, 103; - reports Danton’s interview with other ministers, 180, 181; - arrested, 246; - trial of with Danton, 249-272; - his luxury in prison, 272; - his illness and despair on way to guillotine, 274, 275; - his “Maltese orange,” 276; - rhymes on him and Danton, 278. - - Fear, _see_ “Great.” - - Feudalism, founded in troubles of ninth century, 13; - fall of, in July, August, 1789, 83-85. - - Feuillants, club of, represents Lafayette’s supporters in - Legislative, 151. - - Flanders, regiment of, arrives to strengthen court in 1789, 90. - - Fleurus, battle of, 298. - - Fouquier-Tinville, public prosecutor, his action in Danton’s trial, - 267-271. - - France, centralisation of, before Revolution, 10; - egalitarianism in, is not due to Roman law or Church, 32; - material state of, prior to Revolution, 10; - before Revolution, character of centralisation in, 11; - imperial tradition in, 16; - origins of social constitution in, 12; - specially suited to growth of Roman law, 15; - Paris the bond of, 31; - re-made by the Revolution, 35; - effect of Rousseau upon, 28, 29; - united by monarchy, led by Paris as the king’s town, 33. - - Français, Théâtre, _see_ “Section.” - - Franchise, loss of, by artisans, 21, 22. - - French, character of, in pursuing political theories, 26, 27, 28, 29; - courts of law, nature in Ancien Régime, 48; - education, effect of Jesuit influence on, 45; - education, effect of on Robespierre and Desmoulins, Danton’s speech - on, 46; - peasantry, owners of land before Revolution, 18; - peasantry, effect of Revolution on, 18; - peasantry, condition before Revolution, 17; - village community, decay of, in eighteenth century, 18; - loss of Church in, 17; - nobility, origin of, as a definite class in ninth century, 13. - - French Revolution, _see_ “Revolution.” - - - Garat, his interview with Danton, 236, 237. - - Garran Coulon, Danton’s return from England on election of, 149. - - Girondins, represent the professional class, 24; - declare war, 15-18; - opposition to Danton from the beginning of the Convention, 192; - momentary reconciliation with, 195, 196; - failure of, meeting at Sceaux, Guadet rejects him, 199; - outbreak of quarrel with Paris, 208; - expulsion of, 216-228; - description of their character, excess of idealism, unworkable with - Danton’s practical policy, 217; - their misgovernment, opposition of Paris, 218; - bad news from Vendée weakens them in May 1793, 219; - Isnard’s menace to Paris, 212; - firmness during attack, Lanjuinais’ proposal to “break the - Commune,” 221; - vote of the twenty-nine arrests, 222; - confusion of their fall to be explained by great Committee, 223; - Danton’s phrase concerning, 227; - Vergniaud and Guadet attacked in St. Just’s report, 234; - Danton’s pity for, 236, 239. - - Gobel, schismatic Bishop of Paris, trial under Robespierre, 291. - - Great fear, peasants’ rising destroys feudality, 83, 84. - - Guadet, Girondin, rejects Danton at Sceaux, 199; - St. Just’s report on, 234. - - Guard, National, _see_ “National Guard.” - - Guard, Swiss, their defence of the Tuilleries, 166-169; - demand for vengeance against, by Parisians, 179; - special, proposed for the Convention, 191; - weak demand for, by Girondins, 220. - - - Hébert, member of the Cordeliers, 81; - his character, 220; - with Commune against Committee in winter, 1793, 240; - Danton’s opposition to his religious persecution, 243; - his arrest and execution, 247. - - Henriot, illegally given command of the city forces by the Commune, - 219; - at head of attack of Convention, 221, 222; - note sent to, by Committee on Danton’s trial, to prevent a rescue, - 261; - attempt to save Robespierre, 311. - - Hérault de Séchelles, present at taking of Bastille, 74; - added to Committee, 229; - expelled from Committee, 247; - trial of, 268, 269; - his death, 279. - - Herbois, d’, Collot, _see_ “Collot.” - - Herman, judge at Danton’s trial, 260-271. - - - Income, of Danton at Bar, estimated, 51. - - Institution, the, importance of, to France, 211, 213; - provided by the Committee, 214. - - Insurrection, of July 14, 1789, 72, 74; - of August 10, 1792, 166, 170; - of June 2, 1793, 221, 222; - attempted to save Robespierre, 311, 313. - - Invasions, siege of Verdun by Brunswick, 177; - Beaurepaire’s suicide, capitulation of Verdun, ferment in Paris, - 178; - causes massacre of September, 180; - Valmy, 192, 193; - Jemappes, 196; - defeat of Neerwinden, 1793, allies cross the Rhine, Alps, and - Pyrenees, take Valenciennes, 233; - Turcoing, 293; - battle of Fleurus, 298. - - Isnard, Girondin, proposes Committee of Public Safety, 210; - his threat to destroy Paris, 221. - - - Jacobins, character of, 135; - Danton’s speech in, on death of Mirabeau, 137; - Danton attacks Lafayette in, 143, 145; - moderate petition of, to Assembly on king’s flight, 146; - read by Danton in Champs de Mars, 147; - joined by radicals in Legislative, 151; - debate on war, 155, 156; - Robespierre reads his last speech in, 307; - Legendre closes, 312. - - Jemappes, battle of, 196. - - Judge, in Danton’s trial, _see_ “Herman.” - - Just, St., _see_ “St. Just.” - - Justice, Ministry of, Danton put into, 172; - his circular from, 175, 176. - - - Kersaint, associated with Danton at period of the flight of the king, - present at interview of Danton with other ministers in August, - 1793, he believes that Brunswick will reach Paris, 181. - - King, _see_ “Louis.” - - - Lafayette, a seceding noble, 25; - first clash with Danton, 75; - opposition of Cordeliers to, 82; - follows the mob to Versailles, 91; - his discipline of National Guard opposed by Cordeliers, 93; - sends National Guard to arrest Marat, 101; - attacked by Danton on flight of the king, 143, 145; - his accusation of Danton’s venality, 145; - his massacre of the Champs de Mars, 147; - again attacked by Danton, 159; - threatens civil war, 160. - - Law, Roman, twelfth century, renaissance of, study of, rise of the - universities, 14. - - —— Courts in France, Conseils du Roi, 48. - - Lawyers, action of, in preventing reform, 4; - become conservative as a body, 18. - - Legendre, a Bourgeois, 25; - a member of the Cordeliers, 81; - defends Danton before the Convention, 243; - shuts the Jacobins, 312. - - Legislative, elections to, 150; - reconciliation with monarchy, 150, 151; - parties in, 151; - Lafayette’s letter to, 159; - receives the Royal Family, 168; - quarrels with Commune just before massacres, 183; - Danton’s great speech in, 184; - close of, 188. - - Louis XVI., age of, compared with Danton, 40; - his coronation seen by Danton, 46; - his attitude to Assembly, 85; - his character, 86; - brought back to Paris from Versailles by mob, 91; - his attitude after this, 92; - thanks presented to, by Danton, 106; - accepts Civil Constitution of clergy, 123; - lost by death of Mirabeau, 137; - his attempt to go to St. Cloud, 137; - effect of his flight, 139, 140; - depends on success of August 10 to receive allies, 168; - takes refuge in Parliament, 168; - his secret payments, 179; - execution of, 202; - effect of, on America, 203. - - - Mandat Imperatif, 89, 95. - - —— head of National Guard, his death, 167. - - Manifesto of Brunswick, _see_ “Brunswick.” - - Manor or village community alone survives ninth century, 13; - its survival and power, 14. - - Manorial relations, their decay, 5. - - Manuel, Danton’s chief in municipality of 1791, 153. - - Marat, a Bourgeois, 23; - incident of, 97-104; - his character, 98; - warrant for arrest of, 99; - National Guard sent to arrest, 100; - importance of issues involved, Lafayette’s action, 101; - defended by Danton at Bar of Assembly, 103; - his escape, 104; - elected to “Comité de Surveillance” before massacres, 183; - puts Roland on his list of proscribed, 187; - his appearance in the Convention, 192; - accused by Girondins, acquitted, 218; - stabbed by Charlotte Corday, growth of Terror, 233. - - Marie Antoinette, age of compared with Danton, 40; - forms a court party against the Parliament, 85; - power over Louis after Mirabeau’s death, 137; - her determination to hold the Tuilleries, 167; - she alone realises the fall of the monarchy, 169; - effect of her death on Danton, 241; - her shocking trial and its influence on Danton, 242. - - Marseillais, their march on Paris, 160. - - Marseillaise, 160. - - Massacres of September, 178, 187; - precipitated by Montmorin’s acquittal, 179; - refusal of National Guard to interfere, 180; - Danton keeps Ministers at their posts just before, 181; - the Comité de Surveillance joined by Marat, 183; - begin at the Carmes, 184; - causes of Danton’s neutrality during, 185-187; - close of the massacres, 188; - effect of on politics, 189. - - Medieval Reform, continuity of, 3; - failure of after fifteenth century, 4. - - Middle class, _see_ “Bourgeoisie.” - - Mirabeau, age of compared with Danton, 40; - calls August 4 “an orgy,” 84; - his reasons for supporting the “Civil Constitution of the clergy,” - 121; - death of, 136; - Danton’s sympathy with, and speech on death of, 137; - compared with Danton, 213. - - Monarchy, French, causes Paris to become head of towns, realises - national unity, 33; - character of just before Revolution, 11; - clogged by local survivals, 12; - election of Hugh Capet, 14; - examples of pre-revolutionary centralisation in, 16; - gradually ceases to be national, 15; - origins of its action, 12; - reaches power through local institutions, 15; - why it could not reform, 12; - Danton’s attitude towards in crisis of the king’s flight, 140-145; - the fall of, 169, 170; - importance of, evident after fall, 171. - - Montmorin, evidence of Danton’s venality quoted by Lafayette in - Memoirs, really a receipt for Danton’s reimbursement, 145. - - —— Lucien de, acquittal of, hurries on massacres of September, - 179, 180. - - Mountain, party of Paris in the Convention, Danton’s false position - in, 189; - appearance of members of, 190; - attacked by Robespierre, 300. - - Municipal, system of France, 32, 33; - Revolution, 79. - - Municipality, of Paris, first insurrectionary, 76; - its weakness, 77; - reconstitution of, 87, 88; - quarrel with Cordeliers, 93-97, 110-113; - Danton elected to, 105-106; - Bailly elected mayor of, 124; - petitions against ministers, 129-131; - insurrectionary Commune plot against, 161; - dissolved by insurrectionary Commune, 166; - (after Aug. 10, 1792, _see_ “Commune”). - - - Nancy, affair of, Danton’s moderate action, 126. - - Nationality, differentiation of, in ninth century, 13. - - National Guard, formed, 77; - Lafayette’s plan of, 83; - Danton elected head of his battalion, 131; - clash with people, 126; - divided on April 18, 137; - fire on people in Champ de Mars, 147; - divided on Aug. 10, 160; - Santerre put at head of by Danton, 167; - refuse to interfere with massacres, 187; - Henriot succeeds Boulanger at head of, 219; - attack Convention, 221, 222; - do not rise for Robespierre, 213. - - Necker, position of, in 1789, his dismissal, 73. - - Nobles, origin of, as a definite class in France in ninth century, 13; - great numbers of, definition, relation to court, place in - Revolution, 24; - poverty of, did not at first oppose reform, 25; - why they could not rule France, 32. - - Notables, Danton rejected as candidate for, 127. - - - Octroi, effect on artisans, 20. - - Oratorians, educated principal revolutionaries, 45. - - Osselin, his courage after Montmorin’s acquittal, 180. - - - Paine, named in Committee with Danton, 197; - meets Danton in prison, 249. - - Panis, warns Danton before his arrest, 248. - - Paris, the bond of France, 31; - cause of headship, effect of Revolution on, 30, 31; - head of urban system because seat of monarchy, 33; - makes Danton’s career, 58; - first elections in, 69; - solidarity of, in early Revolution, 70; - provisional government during attack on Bastille, 76; - organises National Guard, 77; - model of municipal movement in France, 79; - restriction of suffrage in, 110; - restrained by Assembly, 111; - Bailly elected mayor of, 112; - effect of municipal system on, 114; - petitions for dismissal of ministers, 129; - effect of king’s flight on, 141; - Pétion, elected mayor of, 152; - anger at first disasters of war, 158; - effect of Brunswick’s manifesto on, 161; - ferment on news of invasion, 178; - clamours against arrested monarchists, 179; - Danton will not oppose, 182; - anarchy in, during massacres, 187; - elections to the Convention in, 188; - eulogy of by Danton, 191; - anger against Girondins, 208; - conflict of, with Girondins, 217; - Isnard’s threats against, 221; - used by Committee to expel the Gironde, 223; - refuses to rise for Robespierre, 313. - - Parliament of Paris, nature of, 48. - - Parliaments (representative), _see_ “States General,” “Legislative,” - “Convention.” - - Peasantry, French, condition of, before Revolution, 17; - ownership of land by, before the Revolution, 18; - effect of Revolution on, 18. - - Pétion, elected mayor of Paris, 152; - unable to interfere with the massacres, 187; - gets some hold on the city at their close, 188; - attempt of Danton to get him elected for Paris, 189; - named on Committee with Danton, 197. - - Petition, of municipality against ministers, 109; - of Jacobins on king’s flight, 146; - of Cordeliers, 147; - - Pitt, his reforms, 6. - - Priestley, Danton’s relations with, 149, 204. - - Procureur, definition of the office in the old regime, 42, 43; - of Paris, during Revolution, 153; - Danton elected substitute to, 152. - - Professional class, its character, numbers, constitution, 24. - - - Recordain, stepfather of Danton, 47. - - Reform, mediæval, continuity of, 3; - action of lawyers in preventing failure of, after fifteenth - century, 4; - Pitt’s attempt at, 6; - impossibility on Continent, 7; - impossible to French monarchy, 12; - its rapidity helped by centralisation, 28. - - Religious liberty, Danton’s speech in favour of, 243. - - Republic, not originated by Danton, 140; - demanded by Condorcet, 141, 142; - declared by Convention, 181. - - Revolution, French, nature of, 1, 2; - necessity for, on Continent, 7; - its violence, 8; - questions raised by, 9; - material causes of, 10; - main causes not economic, 11; - classes it dealt with, 16; - it revives religion in villages, 17; - effect on peasantry, 18; - on artisans, 19, 20, 21; - on Bourgeois, 22; - on professionals and nobles, 24; - theory of, 26; - effect of Rousseau on, 28, 29; - place of Paris in, 30; - summary of politics at outset of, 34; - its task, the re-creation of France, 35; - two periods of, 117, 118; - transformation of, in 1790, 114, 123; - summary of its results, 314-318. - - Revolutionary Tribunal, created by Danton, 208; - Marat acquitted by, 218; - Hébert tried by, 245; - Danton tried by, 249-272; - enslaved by Robespierre, 295. - - Robespierre, a Bourgeois, 23; - age of, 40; - effect of education on, 46; - joins Committee of Public Safety, 234; - his position in winter of 1793, clash with Danton, 241; - last interview with Danton, 247; - speaks against Danton in Convention, 253; - demonstration of condemned before his house, 276; - his character, 285; - his aims, 286; - his misreading of Rousseau, 287; - causes of his ascendency, 288-290; - abandons Danton’s diplomacy, 292; - heads feast of Supreme Being, 294; - proposes virtual abolition of trials, 295; - destroys independence of Convention, 296; - attacks Mountain, 300; - abandoned by Committee, 301; - causes of his fall, 302-304; - his last speech, 306-307; - outlawed by Convention, 309-310; - his last rally and execution, 310-314. - - Roland, a professional, 24; - Danton’s power over, in August 1792, interview with, in garden of - ministry, 180-181; - calls on Santerre to stop the massacres, 187; - prosecuted, 222. - - —— Madame, her hatred for Danton, 176; - she rejects his overtures to Girondins, 196. - - Roman Law, its fundamental ideas of ownership and sovereignty, 14; - suited to France, 15; - not main cause of egalitarian feeling in France, 32. - - Rome, transformation of her system in ninth century, 12; - the origin of French urban system, 32. - - Rousseau, his effect on France, 28, 29; - his genius and deficiencies, 29; - his faith the source of his power, essentially a reactionary, 29, - 30; - Robespierre’s view of his system, 286, 287. - - Rousselin, our authority for Danton’s boyhood, 46. - - - Saint Just, age of, compared with Danton, 40; - joins great Committee, 229; - report on Girondins, 234; - speech against Danton, 254-255; - second speech against Danton, 270; - proposal for bringing prisoners to Paris, 292; - with army on Sambre, 297; - fails to warn Robespierre, 299; - outlawed with Robespierre, 310; - joins Robespierre at Hotel de Ville, 312. - - St. Priest, his dismissal demanded by Paris, 128-131. - - Santerre, a Bourgeois, 23; - in the attack on Tuilleries, 161, 167; - fails to call out National Guard during massacres, 187. - - Sections, replace districts of Paris, forty-eight in number, 112; - Danton demands force to be raised from, 207; - convened by Robespierrians in Thermidor, 311. - - Section du Théâtre Français, replaces Cordeliers, 112; - battalion of, Danton elected commander, 131; - of Mauconseil begins agitation against ministry, 129; - begin insurrection of August 1792, 161. - - September, _see_ “Massacres of.” - - Social divisions, five principal, before Revolution, 10. - - Stake, burning at, in United States, by Parliament of Strasbourg in - 1789, 5. - - States General (or National Assembly), term Assembly first used, 26; - elections to, in Paris, 68; - reaction against, in early 1789, 72; - success of, after fall of Bastille, 78; - night of August 4 in, 85; - queen forms party against, political attitude of Louis towards, 85; - plotted against, by court, 90; - come to Paris, 91; - appealed to, in Marat incident, 103; - action to restrain Paris, 111; - establish Civil Constitution of clergy, 120-123; - debate on petition of Paris, 130-132; - indecision of, on king’s flight, 146. - - Suffrage, _see_ “Franchise.” - - - Talleyrand, Danton meets, at municipality, writes letter to Louis, - 138; - connected with Danton’s diplomacy, opposes Chauvelin in London, 204. - - Taxes, failure of, before Revolution, 26. - - Thermidor, attempted insurrection to save Robespierre in, 310-314. - - Tour du Pin, La, dismissal demanded, 128-131. - - Towns, nuclei of France, 36; - condition of small, 46. - - Turcoing, battle of, 283. - - - Vergniaud, orator of Girondins, understands Danton, 192; - present at incident in theatre, 196; - his simile in king’s trial, 202; - explanation of his vote, 203; - his oratory, 217; - prosecuted by Convention, 222; - St. Just’s report against, 234; - Danton’s regret for, 242. - - Versailles, Cordeliers’ manifesto for march on, 91; - king brought back to Paris from, 91. - - Village community, French, decay of, loss of religion in, 17. - - Vinot, solicitor in Paris, Danton apprenticed to, 47. - - - Wife, of Danton, _first_ (Charpentier) married, his devotion to her, - 52; - her illness and its effect on Danton, 201, 203; - her death, its effect on Danton, he exhumes her body, 206; - _second_ (Gély) married, 232. - - - Young, Arthur, his comments on pre-revolutionary France, 10. - - - -THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANTON *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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