DANTON, GEORGES JACQUES (I 7 794) , French revolutionary leader, was born at Arcis-sur-Aube on Oct. 26, He belonged to a respectable family of Champagne; his father, who died in 1762, was an attorney at the local tribunal, his maternal grandfather the roads and bridges contractor of the province. His mother neglected his upbringing, and the boy was allowed to run wild beside the Seine, finding vent for his animal spirits in rustic games, in wood and field, in wrestling with the beasts on the farm and in defying his schoolmistress, who tried to tame him with the whip. At the age of 14, after a short term at the small seminary at Troyes, this wild young ruffian, with pock-marked face, was entered at the Oratoriens to finish his studies. He won the prize for mythology, accessits for rhetoric and Latin verse, and for French essay. His imagination was fired by republican Rome, and this appeal to the essential part of his nature, was strengthened from day to day by his assiduous study of the ancient historians and moralists.
Deciding to study law he went to Paris in 178o, where, thanks to his confidence in himself, he was admitted to the chambers of Maitre Jean Nicolas Vinot. The manifold sources of interest provided by the courts could not, however, entirely absorb him, and his passion for physical exercise found outlet in swimming, fencing and tennis. Once, in an interval between two cases, we find this high-spirited clerk plunging into the Seine and hurling angry imprecations against the towers of the Bastille as the symbol of oppression. Back at his lodgings he greedily read the Encyclopedie, the writings of Montesquieu and Voltaire, of Rous seau and Buffon, and Beccaria's Traite des delits et des peines, which, as early as 1764, heralded a revolution in European crimi nal law. As a probationer advocate in the parlement, Danton was engaged in pleading; in a case in which a shepherd was in dispute with his overlord, he asserted his love of equality, and obtained the approval of Linguet.
His marriage with Angelique Charpentier forced him to settle down—or to appear to do so. In 1787, therefore, he became advocate in the conseils du roi. This required him to take an oath "to observe and keep strictly the laws and ordinances of the kingdom" and also to deliver a speech in Latin on his admittance. He paid a high price for this post, but it gave him a thorough insight into public law and administration, civil and ecclesiastical affairs, commerce and finance, the whole machinery of monarchy, the intricacies of customary law, and the law of corporations and property. He was elected to the Masonic lodge of the Neuf Soeurs, to which Franklin and Voltaire had belonged, and there met Bally, Desmoulins, Condorcet, Chamfort and Sieyes. He continued his studies, and it should be noted that he read and spoke fluently Italian and English; he had read, in the original, Pope, Shakespeare and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
We may picture him at this time—a broad face with strong features, sharply curved mouth and brilliant eyes, blazing with inward fire and passion.
At the outbreak of the Revolution (1789) Danton belonged to Cordeliers district; his house was exactly where his statue stands to-day. He was as impetuous as he always had been from child hood in Champagne. As captain of the civic guard he attempted, on the night of July 15, to force the gates of the Bastille that he had before defied. He was already taking sides against both the supporters of the old regime and the moderates. He opposed Lafayette, elected to the States General by the nobility of Auvergne, who, after July 14, became chief of the National Guard, but who, on Oct. 5 and 6, defended the royal family. He went further than Bailly, the learned mayor of Paris. Danton's position is clear from the time of the events of October, when the king and the assembly, the only two lawful authorities, became prisoners of the people, when Louis XVI. had to leave Versailles and return to the Tuileries, escorted by a hunger-maddened mob. It was Danton who had the tocsin rung; and Danton who was charged by the general assembly of the Cordeliers to thank the king for having graciously taken up his residence in sa bonne vale. Although on Aug. 13, 1793, he was to affirm before the Convention that "the republic had existed in all men's minds 20 years before its proclamation," he, at this time, professed himself a good Royalist. His record at the Palais Royal, and even more at the Cordeliers, shows him quick in conciliating and incapable of refusing popular favour. At each re-election to the presidency of the district, the assembly "accompanies its unanimous vote with an outburst of enthusiasm." Persuasion and force of char acter made him, the popular tribune, dominant. "Danton, the president of the Cordeliers," writes Taine, "could secure in his district the arrest of any one he pleased. His violence in speech and counsel made him, in the absence of wider opportunities, the ruler of his quarter." After the fall of the Bastille, the commune of Paris displaced the former council and took up its quarters at the hotel de ville. This municipal organization was to play an important part in the Revolution. By the decree of May 21, 179o, it was divided into 48 sections with a mayor, 16 administrators, a municipal council of 32 members, and a general council of 96 notables, a procureur syndic and two deputies. Originally, with Bailly as mayor, the commune maintained a monarchist and moderate tone. Danton was elected to represent his district in Jan. 179o. After May 21, when the districts were suppressed, he founded the Cordeliers club, the Society of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which met in the convent of that name, which stood on the site of the present school of medicine. He also joined in the debates of the Jacobin club, which met in the former library of the convent in the rue St. Honore. His violent and extreme views led to his defeat in the communal elections, but on Jan. 31, 1791, he was appointed administrator of the department. In this year he found a wider scope for his powers. He took a prominent part in events before and after the king's flight. On July 16, mounted on the altar dedicated to la patrie, in the Champ de Mars, he read in his powerful voice, the celebrated petition to the assembly to convoke new constituent and executive bodies, and to bring the king to trial. After the Varennes affair, the Cordeliers were induced, by the smooth running of the government during Louis XVI.'s absence, to declare for the republic. The attitude of Lafayette and Bailly at the massacres of the Champ de Mars, the shooting down of the petitioners, and the fears of the moder ates, caused the first grave split amongst the revolutionaries. Danton, whose arrest had been decreed, took refuge first with his father-in-law at Fontenay, then at Arcis and Troyes. Thinking it more prudent to quit France, he fled to London, accompanied by his brothers-in-law, who went there to purchase weaving machines. During this period, the Cordeliers, long regarded askance by the Constituent assembly, for the decree of May 21, 1790, was directed against them, became more extreme than the Jacobins. They were accused of demagogy, and Danton was known to be the moving spirit. A split had at least begun to occur between the moderates and democrats. Danton, without hesitation, joined the latter.
His influence was in no way impaired by his exile; in his ab sence the Theatre Francais section appointed him their repre sentative. At the electoral assembly on Dec. 6, 1791, he became assistant deputy to the procureur of the commune. Already, it may be noted, he had to meet murmurs against his wealth and accusations of taking tainted money. In his inaugural speech he laid down his principles, the reasons for his vehemence "how he risked being thought too violent so as never to be weak"; nor was he above self-praise: "I always act in accordance with the eternal laws of Justice." He declared himself in favour of con stitutional monarchy, but in the most threatening terms, and with assurances of devotion to the king that rang like a summons. Aug. Io, '792, was destined to bring him into power at one bound, making him indispensable in the provisional executive committee which the assembly appointed after decreeing the suspension of the king.
The summer of 1792 was also the summer of Danton's career. The war declared by the assembly against the king of Hungary and Bohemia had started disastrously. Louis XVI.'s dismissal of the Girondin ministry led to an insurrection on June 20 and an attack on the Tuileries. Danton opened his campaign; he worked up the feelings of the deputies sent to the festival of the federa tion, persuaded his section to proclaim universal suffrage, excited the mob against the duke of Brunswick's manifesto, served out ball cartridges to the federalist Marseillais and brought them to the Cordeliers. His hurried journey to Arcis "to embrace his mother and settle his affairs" on Aug. 5 shows that he was deter mined to play the supreme part. It was he who on the night of Aug. 9 rang the tocsin and launched the attack; had Santerre appointed chief of the armed forces of Paris, and arrested Man dat, the commander of the king's troops. The revolutionary victory of Aug. f o was his victory—the formation of the Con vention was his work. As minister of justice, he took upon him self the full responsibility- of his office. His circular of Aug. 19, published by Andre Fribourg, in his collection of Speeches, summarizes the tragic situation in terse phrases, each of which strikes home like a sword-thrust. The revolution of July 14 was now completed. Danton asserts the discovery in the archives of the chateau, of a "mass of proof of the most infamous perfidy and the blackest conspiracies," glorifies "holy insurrection," re joices in the murder of Mandat and the king's suspension. He defines his programme. "The tribunals will find me unchanged. My whole efforts are concentrated on political and individual freedom, the maintenance of the laws, public tranquillity, the unity of the 83 departments, the glory of the State, the prosperity of the French people and on the equality of rights and happiness, though not on the chimerical equality of worldly goods." This vigorous and clear conception of political liberty and of the unity of the country was the keystone of Danton's policy, based on an of ten expressed confidence in the people. During the disasters of August, the Prussian invasion of Lorraine, the fall of Longwy, the investment of Verdun, he kept his head against the stream of general panic. Michelet says that "at that sublime and sinister crisis, he was the voice of the Revolution and of France." On the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 28, he made his strenuous appeal in the legislative assembly, for resistance, for the mass levy and a general requisition. "Everything belongs to the country when the country is in danger." It is true that a school of historians to-day denies this reading of the part he played. Albert Mathiez, in his Danton et la paix, will not be moved even by his famous declaration of Sept. 2: ll nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace, et la France est sauvee!—"we must dare, and dare, and dare again— and France is saved!" He will not believe the sincerity of his opposition—spirited as it was—to the removal of the government from Paris. Mathiez would have us believe that while openly prophesying a certain victory, secretly he was negotiating with Great Britain and saved the Prussian army by ill-timed con ferences. But surely there is no contradiction in the fervour of a popular leader keeping up the moral of the nation, and the prudence of a statesman desirous of ending the war as soon as possible. To proceed, on Sept. 21, 1792, Danton resigned the Ministry of Justice to devote himself to his work in the Con vention. On Dec. he was sent on a mission to Belgium, and for several months, by his counsels and example, instilled courage into the army. He advocated the annexation of the Belgian provinces which were clamouring for union. In his view, the Republic should be extended as far as possible; "its frontiers are marked out by nature and we shall attain them on all four cor ners of the horizon—the Rhine, the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, the Alps. These are the natural frontiers of France." Thus Danton showed himself a disciple of Richelieu, and it cannot be denied that his politics were already tinged with imperialism. His speech to the Convention on March f o, 1795, shows that, with Dumou riez, he even favoured the invasion of Holland and the declaration of war on England.
Meanwhile, Danton was continually attacked by his adversaries. They accused him of offering to save Louis XVI. in exchange for some millions of francs; of having secretly protected the emigres. The statement of Theodore Lameth, the conversations with the duke of Chartres, the letters of the agent Miles, the assertions of Lord Acton carry no convincing proof. One may be shocked by his needlessly brutal words in casting his vote for death; one may consider that he stifled his real opinions in bidding for popular favour, without believing that Danton offered his influ ence for money. Many have accused him of prevarication; it seems certain that his financial affairs were in great disorder, and it cannot be denied that he increased his fortune during the Revolution. But venality has not been proved.
In April 1793, he was again called to a post of the gravest responsibility. The king's execution provoked the insurrection in the Vendee and the formidable coalition against France. Du mouriez was preparing his coup d'etat. The Convention, thus defied, created the Committee of General Security, the Revolu tionary Tribunal, and the Committee of Public Safety, of which Danton was the real head. Once again his role had increased thanks to that secret logic which, since the days of 1789, had constantly increased his influence and, so to speak, his force of expansion. There is no cause for surprise that Danton should, even to this day, be subject to suspicion—the very fervour of his opinions made enemies on every side. Far from hiding or exonerating himself, he summoned his adversaries to come out into the open. In the convention on March 3o, 1793, he declared: "To-day I invite all sorts of doubts and suspicions, all manner of accusations, for I am resolved to state everything. . . . If any one of you entertains the slightest suspicion about my conduct as minister, if any one wishes for detailed accounts . . . let him rise and say so." On April i he again attacked his slanderers. If he really was corrupt, it must be admitted that his enemies were singularly wanting in clearness of vision or courage. He tried in vain to reconcile the two hostile sections of the assembly. The tribune, in his words, had become "an arena of gladiators." When he rose to speak he was greeted with murmurs, altercations and threats, and at times, e.g., April 1 o, 1793, there was tumultuous disorder. The Montagnards and the Girondins attacked one another incessantly; the commune attempted to impose its wishes by force.
Amid these storms, Danton's sole concern was to organize the new regime which was to transform France. Never was his reason ing more lucid. He wanted complete religious liberty, subject only to the ordinary law. He championed a programme of public education for the children "whose fathers have leapt to arms for the defence of the frontiers," for "our chief need is enlighten ment in the country and sounder patriotism in the towns." He asked that the nation "should be endowed as soon as possible with a republican constitution with settled laws." He determined to exploit all the benefits of the Revolution; his lucid reasoning led him straight to the kernel of the problem, and he appealed for rapidity of execution and, above all, for national unity for the sake of which he urged all Frenchmen to sink their differences. He never lost the revolutionary sense ; his aim was to discipline the spirit of liberty—in no way to weaken or restrict it. When the Girondin, Isnard, president of the convention, seemed to threaten Paris because the commune sent a deputation to plead for the liberation of Hebert, Danton, in a heated extempore speech, defended and exalted the capital against the accusations brought by the counter-revolutionaries. "Paris," he cried, "will always be a worthy setting for the national representative body." In these impassioned struggles an event occurred, clearly illus trating the clash of ideas. On the night of May 30-31, the tocsin roused Paris yet again, and the alarm cannon was heard. The Gironde had demanded the appointment of a "Committee of Twelve" to enquire into the acts of the commune. Danton de manded the suppression of this committee to which arbitrary powers had been given, arguing that the ordinary tribunals were competent and that Paris, the advance guard of the Revolution, should be exempt from accusation.
The insurrection of May 31, the appointment of Hanriot by the commune, to command the army of Paris, the rising of June 2, when the Convention was forced to expel 27 Girondins, consti tute a definite set-back to Danton's policy. Robespierre's star was rising. On July 10, he superseded Danton on the Committee of Public Safety, who, only the previous day, had seemed to be its master. Yet Danton eulogized "the holy insurrection of May 3" which, he maintained, had saved the republic. His sang-froid, and his confidence in the Revolution were unimpaired. On Thurs day evening, Aug. 1, though it was no longer to his personal advancement, he pressed for the strengthening of government authority, and the constitution of a powerful central body. The course of events was rousing all Danton's passion. The adoption of a constitution granting universal suffrage increased his fer vour ; he was anxious, it would seem, at seeing the legislative gain power at the expense of the executive, and apprehensive of the dangers threatening the country since, at several points, the frontiers had been violated. Danton reverted to his policy of the past year. He became more and more vehement, clamoured for a "war of lions," enunciated the necessary measures for the war in which the whole forces of the nations were now engaged, and urged the mobilization, as we should say to-day, of men, grain and money. He maintained that in such times of crisis, the gov ernment had need of secret funds—proof of his corruption, it will be said ; proof of his patriotic courage, it might be urged. At the most tragic moment of this crisis he was able to look ahead, and to resume his persistent advocacy of the cause of public education.
On July 25 the convention elected him president. Although he refused to serve again on the Committee of Public Safety, his influence, which dominated all the debates, remained formidable. When he spoke, it was to the applause of the assembly and the tribunes. His demands for vigorous action were carried out, and even exceeded. The convention decreed that the provisional government of France should continue to be revolutionary until the peace ; in spite of gaps in the constitution, an executive power was formed, more powerful than it had ever been. But the stage was already set for Danton's fall.
On Oct. 12 he went for a holiday to Arcis-sur-Aube to restore his health. This was an excellent opportunity for his enemies— for Billaud Varenne and Robespierre—to prepare his downfall. When he returned to Paris in November, it was soon obvious that quitting his post had cost him his position. Henceforward the Committee of Public Safety was the dictator, and Robespierre dictator to the Committee. The Terror was established. In truth Danton's withdrawal seems hard to account for, and it has been said that he opened negotiations with insurgents in Normandy; be that as it may, he was accused once more of taking money.
Having decided to put an end to the Terror, could Danton lay the monster low? No. The movement he had helped to un chain was to pursue its course with pitiless logic. Robespierre and Danton hated each other. Danton was superseded. In Nivose 23, his friend, Fabre d'Eglantine, was arrested. In Ventose the Hebertists were imprisoned. Robespierre, who was marching toward the dictatorship, attacked both the Indulgents and the Enrages. Danton maintained his courage. He again denounced "the false patriots in red bonnets," but his very successes only compromised him the more. Hebert's execution brought him but an apparent triumph. Robespierre meant to deal quickly with the formidable adversary who, at one moment, seemed beaten, only to leap up again, and who in the midst of all his perils seemed calm, even to the point of light-heartedness.
Danton neglected to attack in self-defence. On Germinal ro, Robespierre had him arrested, impeached him before the intimi dated Convention and cowed the Assembly. The decree for his trial was voted without one dissentient voice. Danton succumbed less to the ferocity of his enemies than to the pusillanimity of his friends. We do not possess his defence before the Revolutionary Tribunal ; there seem to have been only a few indignant out bursts, haughty remonstrances against the accusation of having betrayed the people. Danton did not plead, he defied. He well knew that the crimes of which he was accused before the judges were not those that were really driving him to his death. "I have lived," he declared, "entirely for my country." "I am Danton till my death; to-morrow I shall sleep in glory." On April 6 (Germinal 16) Danton was guillotined. His age was 34 years and six months. (E. HE.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-A. Bourgeat, Danton: documents authentiques Bibliography.-A. Bourgeat, Danton: documents authentiques (1861) ; Discours de Danton (ed. A. Fribourg, 191o) ; A. H. Beesly, Life of Danton (1899) ; Hilaire Belloc, Danton (1899) ; A. Aulard, Les Grands Orateurs de la Revolution (1914) ; L. Madelin, Danton (Eng. tr., 1921). See also FRENCH REVOLUTION.