he has no scruples; and lets people scratch and take。 … He has stolen
as much to give as to keep; to maintain his role as much as to benefit
by it; squaring accounts by spending the money of the Court against
the Court; probably inwardly chuckling; the same as the peasant in a
blouse on getting ahead of his well…duped landlord; or as the Frank;
whom the ancient historian describes as leering on pocketing Roman
gold the better to make war against Rome。 … The graft on this
plebeian seedling has not taken; in our modern garden this remains as
in the ancient forest; its vigorous sap preserves its primitive
raciness and produces none of the fine fruits of our civilization; a
moral sense; honor and conscience。 Danton has no respect for himself
nor for others; the nice; delicate limitations that circumscribe human
personality; seem to him as legal conventionality and mere drawing…
room courtesy。 Like a Clovis; he tramples on this; and like a Clovis;
equal in faculties; in similar expedients; and with a worse horde at
his back; he throws himself athwart society; to stagger along; destroy
and reconstruct it to his own advantage。
At the start; he comprehended the peculiar character and normal
procedure of the Revolution; that is to say; the useful agency of
popular brutality: in 1788 he had already figured in insurrections。
He comprehended from the first the ultimate object and definite result
of the Revolution; that is to say; the dictatorship of the violent
minority。 Immediately after the 14th of July;〃 1789; he organized in
his quarter of the city'63' a small independent republic; aggressive
and predominant; the center of the faction; a refuge for the riff…raff
and a rendezvous for fanatics; a pandemonium composed of every
available madcap; every rogue; visionary; shoulder…hitter; newspaper
scribbler and stump…speaker; either a secret or avowed plotter of
murder; Camille Desmoulins; Fréron; Hébert; Chaumette; Clootz;
Théroigne; Marat; while; in this more than Jacobin State; the model
in anticipation of that he is to establish later; he reigns; as he
will afterwards reign; the permanent president of the district;
commander of the battalion; orator of the club; and the concocter of
bold undertakings。 Here; usurpation is the rule there is no
recognition of legal authority; they brave the King; the ministers;
the judges; the Assembly; the municipality; the mayor; the commandant
of the National Guard。 Nature and principle raise them above the law;
the district takes Marat under its protection; posts two sentinels at
his door to protect him from prosecutions; and uses arms against the
armed force sent with a warrant to arrest him。'64' yet more; in the
name of the city of Paris; 〃chief sentinel of the nation;〃 they assume
to govern France: Danton betakes himself to the National Assembly and
declares that the citizens of Paris are the natural representatives of
the eighty…three departments; and summons it; on their injunction; to
cancel an act it has passed。'65' … The entire Jacobin conception is
therein expressed: Danton; with his keen insight; took it all in and
proclaimed it in appropriate terms; to apply it at the present time on
a grand scale;'66' he has merely to pass from the small theatre to the
large one; from the Cordeliers club to the Commune; to the Ministry;
and the Committee of Public Safety; and; in all these theatres; he
plays the same part with the same end in view and the same results。 A
despotism formed by conquest and maintained by terror; the despotism
of the Jacobin Parisian rabble; is the end to which he directly
marches。 He employs no other means and; adapting the means to the end
and the end to the means; manages the important days and instigates
the decisive measures of the Revolution: the 10th of August;'67' the
2nd of September; the 31st of May; the 2nd of June;'68' the decree
providing for an army of paid sans…culottes 〃to keep down aristocrats
with their pikes;〃 the decree in each commune where grain is dear;
taxing the rich to put bread within reach of the poor;'69' the decree
giving laborers forty sous for attending the meetings of the Section
Assemblies;'70' the institution of the revolutionary Tribunal;'71' the
proposal to erect the Committee of Public Safety into a provisional
government; the proclamation of Terror; the concentration of Jacobin
zeal on useful works; the employment of the eight thousand delegates
of the primary assemblies; who had been sent home as recruiting agents
for the universal armament;'72' the inflammatory expressions of young
men on the frontier; the wise resolutions for limiting the levy en
masse to men between eighteen and twenty…five; which put an end to the
scandalous songs and dances by the populace in the very hall of the
Convention。'73'
In order to set the machine up; he cleared the ground; fused the
metal; hammered out the principal pieces; filed off the blisters;
designed the action; adjusted the minor wheels; set it agoing and
indicated what it had to do; and; at the same time; he forged the
armor which guarded it against strangers and outside violence。 The
machine being his; why; after constructing it; did he not serve as its
engineer?
Because; if competent to construct it; he was not qualified to manage
it。 In a crisis; he may give a helping hand; win the support of an
assembly or a mob; direct; high…handedly and for a few weeks; an
executive committee。 But regular; persistent labor is repugnant to
him; he is not made for bookkeeping;'74' for paper and administrative
work。 Never; like Robespierre and Billaud can he attend to both
official and police duties at the same time; carefully reading minute
daily reports; annotating mortuary lists; extemporizing ornate
abstractions; coolly enunciating falsehoods and acting out the
patient; satisfied inquisitor; and especially; he can never become the
systematic executioner。 … On the one hand; his eyes are not obscured
by the gray veil of theory: he does not regard men through the
〃Contrat…Social〃 as a sum of arithmetical units;'75' but as they
really are; living; suffering; shedding their blood; especially those
he knows; each with his peculiar physiognomy and demeanor。 Compassion
is excited by all this when one has any feeling; and he had。 Danton
had a heart; he bad the quick sensibilities of a man of flesh and
blood stirred by the primitive instincts; the good ones along with the
bad ones; instincts which culture had neither impaired nor deadened;
which allowed him to plan and permit the September massacre; but which
did not allow him to practice daily and blindly; systematic and
wholesale murder。 Already in September; 〃cloaking his pity under his
bellowing;〃'76' he had shielded or saved many eminent men from the
butchers。 When the axe is about to fall on the Girondists; he is 〃ill
with grief〃 and despair。 〃I am unable to save them;〃 he exclaimed; 〃
and big tears streamed down his cheeks。〃 … On the other hand; his eyes
are not covered by the bandage of incapacity or lack of fore…thought。
He detected the innate vice of the system; the inevitable and
approaching suicide of the Revolution。
〃The Girondists forced us to throw ourselves upon the sans…culotterie
which has devoured them; which will devour us; and which will eat
itself up。〃'77' … 〃Let Robespierre and Saint…Just alone; and there
will soon be nothing left in France but a Thebiad of political
Trappists。〃'78' At the end; he sees more clearly still:
〃On a day like this I organized the Revolutionary Tribunal: I ask
pardon for it of God and man。 … In Revolutions; authority remains
with the greatest scoundrels。 … It is better to be a poor fisherman
than govern men。〃'79'
But he has aspired to govern them; he constructed a new machine for
the purpose; and; deaf to its squeals; it worked in conformity with
the structure and the impulse he gave to it。 It towers before him;
this sinister machine; with its vast wheel and iron cogs grinding all
France; their multiplied teeth pressing out each individual life; its
steel blade constantly rising and falling; and; as it plays faster and
faster; daily exacting a larger and larger supply of human material;
while those who furnish this supply are held to be as insensible and
as senseless as itself。 This Danton cannot; will not be。 … He gets
out of the way; diverts himself; gambles;'80' forgets; he supposes
that the titular decapitators will probably consent to take no notice
of him; in any event they do not pursue him; 〃they would not dare do
it。〃 〃 No one must lay hands on me; I am the ark。〃 At the worst; he
prefers 〃to be guillotined rather than guillotine。〃 … Having said or
thought this; he is ripe for the scaffold。
III。 Robespierre。
Robespierre。 … Mediocrity of his faculties。 … The Pedant。 …
Absence of ideas。 … Study of phrases。 … Wounded self…esteem。 … His
infatuation。 … He plays victim。 … His gloomy fancies。 … His
resemblance to Marat。 …Difference between him and Marat。 … The
sincere hypocrite。 … The festival in honor of the Supreme Being; and
the law of Prairial 22。 … The external and internal characters of
Robespierre and the Revolution。
Even with the firm determination to remain decapitator…in…chief;
Danton could never be a perfect representative of the Revolution。 It
is an armed but philosophical robbery; its creed includes robbery and
assassination; but only as a knife in its sheath; the showy; polished
sheath is for public display; and not the sharp and bloody blade。
Danton; like Marat; lets the blade be too plainly visible。 At the
mere sight of Marat; filthy and slovenly; with his livid; frog…like
face; with his round; gleaming and fixed eyeballs; and his bold;
maniacal stare and steady monotonous rage; common…sense rebels; no…one
selects a homicidal maniac as a guide。 At the mere sight of Danton;
with his porte
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