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 con

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 mean

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, h

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

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

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 pass

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 hundre

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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. Th

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 q

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 t

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

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

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 Monta

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 fir