366 SANSCULLOTISED LITERATURE IN FRANCE. 



testify to this character — has grackially sHd and deflected towards 

 an aim which was diametrically oi)]>osed to the object he had in 

 view at his starting-point. How true this is may be seen from 

 the fact that in the opening days of the Revolution he strenuously 

 moved the abolition of capital punishment. A\'hen Jacobin dic- 

 tator, he has never been shunted along this wrong track con- 

 sciously luit he was logically bound to go on towards terrorism, 

 which is, and for ever remains, his work. He was a sharply out- 

 lined revolutionary type, and had many imitators. His mysticism, 

 his religiousness, the ideal of lofty morality that he believed 

 himself called upon to incarnat", all this he has in common with a 

 host of politicians who were all more or less disciples of Rous- 

 seau. Rousseau himself, however, would have disowned the 

 slightest share in the Revolution at the very first drop of blood 

 shed in its course ! 



Next to Robespierre, we invariably think of Danton. As an 

 orator Danton is the incarratJDn of the French spirit. His 

 eloquence was of a lively, passionate, thrilling, though sometimes 

 incorrect, character, and flowed from the purest of sources. He 

 refused to follow the fashion then rife among ]:)olitical orators, 

 who, hypnotized by the constant contemplation of ancient history, 

 could not address a meeting without duly alluding to Athens and 

 Marathon, Lacedsemon and tlie Thermopylje, Cato and the 

 Gracchi. He is also free from the blame of bad taste that has to 

 be laid so frequently at the door of his contemporaries, whether 

 orators or journalists, republicans or monarchists, Montagnards 

 or Girondins. With him no fustian, no overstrained, too florid 

 images, no turgidity, no inopportune mysticism, but sound and 

 limpid language, marking the brisk time of the march of the Revo- 

 lution, or sometimes roaring like thunder in the hour of danger ; 

 a language which made the heroic enthusiasm of deep-rooted 

 faith in the destiny of the native country ring out freely beyond 

 the walls of the Convention. It would be easy to give samjile 

 upon sami^le of prose run mad in the mouths of all the political 

 orators of the time. I have been able to discover only one passage 

 of Danton's that is open to ridicule, and for curiosity's sake I will 

 quote it : " Je me suis retranche dans la citadelle de la raiscju ; j'en 

 sortirai avec le canon de la verite et je pulveriserai les 

 scelerats qui ont voulu m'accuser." History keeps Danton and his 

 lieutenant, Camille-Desmoulin, together. There is something 

 in the latter's speeches that makes one inclined to believe that he 

 was as brilliant an orator as he was a smart and clever journalist. 

 He was not, being a stammerer. Besides, it is not as an apostle 

 but as a writer that he exercised his greatest influence, and as 

 such only his name has come down to posterity. As an author, 

 he is chiefly known as the editor of the " Revolutions de France 

 et de Brabant, and of the " Vieux Cordelier." He was the wit of 

 the Revolution. Michelet playfully calls him " le polisson de 

 genie aux plaisanteries mortelles "' ; de Montseignat alludes to 

 him as the " gamin de Paris du j'uirnalisme." His pet foible was 

 to sacrifice everybody and everything to his pleasure of being 



