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DANTON, GEORGE JACQUES (1759-1794)
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See also:DANTON, See also:GEORGE JACQUES (1759-1794) , one of the most conspicuous actors in the decisive episodes of the See also:French Revolution, was See also:born at Arcis-sur-See also:Aube on the 26th of See also:October 1759. His See also:family was of respectable quality, though of very moderate means. They contrived to give him a See also:good See also:education, and he was launched in the career of an See also:advocate at the See also:Paris See also:bar. When the Revolution See also:broke out, it found Danton following his profession with apparent success, leading a cheerful domestic See also:life, and nourishing his intelligence on good books. He first appears in the revolutionary See also:story as See also:president of the popular See also:club or See also:assembly of the See also:district in which he lived. This was the famous club of the See also:Cordeliers, so called from the circumstance that its meetings were held in the old See also:convent of the See also:order of the Cordeliers, just as the See also:Jacobins derived their name from the See also:refectory of the convent of the Jacobin See also:brothers. It is an See also:odd coincidence that the old rivalries of See also:Dominicans and Franciscansin the democratic See also:movement inside the See also:Catholic See also: In the beginning of 1791 he was elected to the See also:post of See also:administrator of the See also:department of Paris. This See also:interval was for all See also:France a barren See also:period of doubt, fatigue, partial reaction and hoping against See also:hope. It was not until 1792 that Danton came into the prominence of a great revolutionary See also:chief.
In the spring of the previous See also:year (1791) See also:Mirabeau had died, and with him had passed away the only See also:man who was at all likely to prove a See also:wise See also:guide to the court. In See also:June of that year the See also: Between See also:January and See also:August 1792 the want of sympathy between the aims of the popular assembly and the spirit of the king and the queen became daily more flagrant and beyond See also:power of disguise. In See also:April See also:war was declared against See also:Austria, and to the confusion and See also:distraction caused by the immense See also:civil and See also:political changes of the past two years was now added the ferment and agitation of war with an enemy on the frontier. The distrust See also:felt by Paris for the court and its See also:loyalty at length broke out in insurrection. On the memorable See also:morning of the loth of August 1792 the king and queen took See also:refuge with the Legislative Assembly from the apprehended violence of the popular forces who were marching on the Tuileries. The See also:share which Danton had in inspiring and directing this momentous rising is very obscure. Some look upon him as the See also:head and centre of it. Apart from documents, support is given to this view by the fact that on the morrow of the fall of the See also:monarchy Danton is found in the important post of See also:minister of See also:justice. This sudden rise from the subordinate See also:office which he had held in the See also:commune is a See also:proof of the impression that his See also:character had made on the insurrectionary party. To passionate fervour for the popular cause he added a certain broad steadfastness and an energetic See also:practical judgment which are not always found in See also:company with fervour. Even in those days, when so many men were so astonishing in their eloquence, Danton stands out as a See also:master of commanding phrase. One of his fierce sayings has become a See also:proverb. Against See also:Brunswick and the invaders, "il nous fact de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace,"—we must dare, and again dare, and for ever dare. The tones of his voice were loud and vibrant. As for his bodily presence, he had, to use his own See also:account of it, the athletic shape and the stern See also:physiognomy of the See also:Liberty for which he was ready to See also:die. Jove the Thunderer, the See also:rebel Satan, a Titan, See also:Sardanapalus, were names that See also:friends or enemies borrowed to describe his mien and See also:port. He was thought about as a coarser version of the great See also:tribune of the Constituent Assembly; he was called the Mirabeau of the sans-culottes, and Mirabeau of the markets. In the executive government that was formed on the king's dethronement, this strong revolutionary figure found himself the colleague of the virtuous See also:Roland and others of the Girondins. Their strength was speedily put to a terrible test. The alarming successes of the enemy on the frontier, and the surrender of two important fortresses,had engendered a naturalpanicin the capital. But in the breasts of some of the See also:wild men whom the disorder of the time had brought to prominent place in the Paris commune this panic became murderously heated. Some hundreds of captives were barbarously murdered in the prisons. There has always been much dispute as to Danton's share in this dreadful transaction. At the time, it must be confessed, much odium on account of an imputed direction of the massacres See also:fell to him. On the whole, however, he cannot be fairly convicted of any See also:part in the See also:plan. What he did was to make the best of the misdeed, with a See also:kind of sombre acquiescence. He deserves See also:credit for insisting against his colleagues that they should not flee from Paris, but should remain See also:firm at their posts, doing what they could to See also:rule the fierce See also:storm that was raging around them. The elections to the National See also:Convention took place in September, when the Legislative Assembly surrendered its authority. The Convention ruled France until October 1795• Danton was a member; resigning the See also:ministry of justice, he took a foremost part in the deliberations and proceedings of the Convention, until his See also:execution in April 1794. This short period of nineteen months was practically the life of Danton, so far as the See also:world is concerned with him. He took his seat in the high and remote benches which gave the name of the See also:Mountain to the thoroughgoing revolutionists who sat there. He found himself See also:side by side with Marat, whose exaggerations he never countenanced; with See also:Robespierre, whom he did not esteem very highly, but whose immediate aims were in many respects his own; with Camille See also:Desmoulins and Phelippeaux, who were his See also:close friends and See also:constant partisans. The foes of the Mountain were the See also:group of the Girondins,—eloquent, dazzling, patriotic, but unable to apprehend the fearful nature of the crisis, too full of vanity and exclusive party-spirit, and too fastidious to strike hands with the vigorous and stormy Danton. The Girondins dreaded the people who had sent Danton to the Convention; and they insisted on seeing on his hands the See also:blood of the prison massacres of September. Yet in fact Danton saw much more clearly than they saw how urgent it was to soothe the insurrectionary spirit, after it had done the See also:work of abolition which to him, as to them too, seemed necessary and indispensable. Danton discerned what the Girondins lacked the political See also:genius to see, that this See also:control of Paris could only be wisely effected by men who sympathized with the vehemence and See also:energy of Paris, and understood that this vehemence and energy made the only force to which the Convention could look in resisting the Germans on the See also:north-See also:east frontier, and the friends of reaction in the interior. " Paris," he said, " is the natural and constituted centre of See also:free France. It is the centre of See also:light. When Paris shall perish there will no longer be a See also:republic." Danton was among those who voted for the See also:death of the king (January 1793). He had a conspicuous share in the creation of the famous revolutionary tribunal, his aim being to take the weapons away from that disorderly popular vengeance which had done such terrible work in September. When all executive power was conferred upon a See also:committee of public safety, Danton had been one of the nine members of whom that See also:body was origin-ally composed. He was despatched on frequent See also:missions from the Convention to the republican armies in See also:Belgium, andwherever he went he infused new energy into the work of national liberation. He pressed forward the erection of a See also:system of national education, and he was one of the legislative committee charged with the construction of a new system of government. He vainly tried to compose the furious dissensions between Girondins and Jacobins. The Girondins were irreconcilable; and made Danton the See also:object of deadly attack. He was far too robust in character to losehimself in merely See also:personal enmities, but by the See also:middle of May (1793) he had made up his mind that the political suppression of the Girondins had become indispensable. The position of the See also:country was most alarming. See also:Dumouriez, the See also:victor of Valmy and Jemmappes, had deserted. The French arms were suffering a See also:series of checks and reverses. A royalist See also:rebellion was gaining formidable dimensions in the See also:west. Yet the Convention was wasting time and force in the vindictive recriminations of See also:faction. There is no See also:positive See also:evidence that Danton directly instigated the insurrection of the 31st of May and the 2nd of June, which ended in the purge of the Convention and the proscription of the Girondins. He afterwards spoke of himself as in some sense the author of this revolution, because a little while before, stung by some trait of factious perversity in the Girondins, he had openly cried out in the midst of the Convention, that if he could only find a See also:hundred men, they would resist the oppressive authority of the Girondin See also:commission of twelve. At any See also:rate, he certainly acquiesced in the violence of the commune, and he publicly gloried in the See also:expulsion of the men who stood obstinately in the way of a vigorous and concentrated exertion of national'power. Danton, unlike the Girondins, accepted the fury of popular See also:passion as an inevitable incident in the work of deliverance. Unlike Billaud Varenne or See also:Hebert, or any other of the Terrorist party, he had no wish to use this frightful two-edged weapon more freely than was necessary. Danton, in short, had the See also:instinct of the statesman. His object was to reconcile France with herself; to restore a society that, while emancipated and renewed in every part, should yet be See also:stable; and above all to secure the See also:independence of his country, both by a resolute See also:defence against the invader, and by such a mixture of vigour with humanity as should reconcile the offended See also:opinion of the See also:rest of See also:Europe. This, so far as we can make it out, was what was in his mind. The position of the Mountain had now undergone a See also:complete See also:change. In the Constituent Assembly its members did not number more than 30 out of the 578 of the third See also:estate. In the Legislative Assembly they had not been numerous, and none of their chiefs had a seat. In the Convention for the first nine months they had an incessant struggle for their very lives against the Girondins. They were now (June 1793) for the first time in See also:possession of See also:absolute power. It was not easy, how-ever, for men who had for many months been nourished on the ideas and stirred to the methods of opposition, all at once to develop the instincts of government. Actual power was in the hands of the two committees—that of public safety and of See also:general See also:security. Both were chosen out of the body of the Convention. The See also:drama of the nine months between the expulsion of the Girondins and the execution of Danton turns upon the struggle of the committee to retain power—first, against the insurrectionary commune of Paris, and second, against the Convention, from which the committees derived an authority that was regularly renewed on the expiry of each short See also:term. Danton, immediately after the fall of the Girondins, had thrown himself with extraordinary energy into the work to be done. The first task in a great See also:city so agitated by anarchical ferment had been to set up a strong central authority. In this genuinely political task Danton was prominent. He was not a member of the committee of public safety when that body was renewed in the shape that speedily made its name so redoubtable all over the world. This was the result of a self-denying See also:ordinance which he imposed upon himself. It was he who proposed that the See also:powers of the committee should be those of a See also:dictator, and that it should have copious funds at its disposal. In order to keep himself clear of any personal suspicion, he announced his See also:resolution not to belong to the body which he had thus done his best to make supreme in the See also:state. His position during the autumn of 1793 was that of a powerful supporter and inspirer, from without, of the government which he had been foremost in setting up. Danton was not a great practical administrator and contriver, like See also:Carnot, for instance. But he had the See also:gift of raising in all who heard him an heroic spirit of patriotism and fiery devotion, and he had a clear See also:eye and a cool judgment in the tempestuous emergencies which arose insuch appalling See also:succession. His distinction was that he accepted the insurrectionary forces, instead of blindly denouncing them as the Girondins had done. After these forces had shaken down the See also:throne, and then, by See also:driving away the Girondins, had made See also:room for a vigorous government, Danton perceived the expediency of making all haste to an orderly state. Energetic See also:prosecution of the war, and See also:gradual conciliation of civil hatreds, had been, as we have said, the two marks of his policy ever since the fall of the monarchy. The first of these See also:objects was fulfilled abundantly, partly owing to the energy with which he called for the arming of the whole nation against its enemies. His whole mind was now given to the second of them. But the second of them, alas, was desperate. It was to no purpose that, both in his own See also:action and in the writings of Camille Desmoulins (Le Vieux Cordelier), of whom he was now and always the intimate and inspirer, he worked against the iniquities of the See also:bad men, like See also:Carrier and See also:Collot d'Herbois, in the provinces, and against the severity of the revolutionary tribunal in Paris. The See also:black See also:flood could not at a word or in an See also:hour subside from its storm-lashed fury. The commune of Paris was now composed of men like Hebert and See also:Chaumette, to whom the restoration of any sort of political order was for the time indifferent. They wished to push destruction to limits which even the most ardent sympathizers with the Revolution condemn now, and which Danton condemned then, as extravagant and senseless. Those men were not politicians, they were fanatics; and Danton, who was every See also:inch a politician, though of a vehement type, had as little in See also:common with them as See also: A new policy would have to be carried out by new men, and this meant the resumption of power by the Convention, and the death of the Terrorists. In See also:Thermidor 1794 such a revolution did take place, with those very results. But in Germinal feeling was not ripe. The committees were still too strong to be overthrown. And Danton seems to have shown a singular heedlessness. Instead of striking by vigour in the Convention, he waited to be struck. In these later days a certain discouragement seems to have come over his spirit. His wife had died during his See also:absence on one of his expeditions to the armies; he had now married again, and the rumour went that he was allowing domestic happiness to tempt him from the keen incessant vigilance proper to the politician in such a crisis. He must have known that he had enemies. When the Jacobin club was " purified " in the See also:winter, Danton's name would have been struck out as a moderate if Robespierre had not defended him. The committees had deliberated on his arrest soon afterwards, and again it was Robespierre who resisted the proposal. Yet though he had been warned of the See also:lightning that was thus playing See also:round his head, Danton did not move. Either he felt himself powerless, or he rashly despised his enemies. At last Billaud Varenne, the most prominent spirit of the committee after Robespierre, succeeded in gaining Robespierre over to his designs against Danton. Robespierre was probably actuated by the motives of selfish policy which soon proved the greatest blunder of his life. The Convention, aided by Robespierre and the authority of the committee, assented with ignoble unanimity. On the 3oth of March Danton, Desmoulins and others of the819 party were suddenly arrested. Danton displayed such vehemence before the revolutionary tribunal, that his enemies feared lest he should excite the See also:crowd in his favour. The Convention, in one of its worst fits of cowardice, assented to a proposal made by St Just that, if a prisoner showed want of respect for justice, the tribunal might pronounce See also:sentence without further delay. Danton was at once condemned, and led, in company with fourteen others, including Camille Desmoulins, to the guillotine (April 5th, 1794)• " I leave it all in a frightful welter," he said; " not a man of them has an See also:idea of government. Robespierre will follow me; he is dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman than meddle with the government of men!" Events went as Danton foresaw. The committees presently came to See also:quarrel with the pretensions of Robespierre. Three months after Danton, Robespierre fell. His assent to the execution of Danton had deprived him of the single great force that might have supported him against the committee. The man who had " saved France from Brunswick " might perhaps have saved her from the See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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