Georges Jacques Danton

Danton was born in 1759 in Arcis-sur-Aube in northeastern France to Jacques Danton (a lawyer who would die when he was three) and Mary Camus.  He had an eventful childhood; being gored by a bull across his face and surviving smallpox gave his face a unique look being tall and bordering on the obese added to his distinctive appearance.  He gained his education from the Oratorians and became a lawyer’s clerk in Paris he would pass the advocacy exam in Reims (famed as fair easier than in Paris).  He married Antoinette Charpentier in 1787 (whose father provided money for the purchase of his first advocacy) they had three sons.  

Danton was one of the founding members of the Cordeliers club whilst also being a member of the Jacobins club.  In his early political career he allied himself with the D'Orléans.  He was known to be an opponent of the Mayor of Paris Bailly and General Lafayette.  He was elected to the Directory of the Seine Department which was technically superior to the Commune.

In June 1791 after the King and Queens failed flight and forced return to Paris Danton created a petition against the monarchy.  The document was to be signed at the altar of patriots in July at the site of the previous year’s Festival of the Federation on the Champs de Mars.  However the National Guard fired into the assembled crowd killing fifty people.  Danton fled to London for fear of persecution and stayed for six weeks during which time he had a brief meeting with Charles James Fox opposition leader in Britain.  Upon learning that the National Assembly decided that he was not to be charged over the events surrounding the massacre.

Danton held a legal position as an assistant procurator of the Paris Commune. In the wake of France’s declaration of war against Austria on April 20th 1792 and their subsequent invasion of France the mood of the capital was turning against the monarchy.  He was able to maintain his position when the Insurrectionary Committee took over seeking to coordinate action between the sections of Paris.  It was possible that he had a role in organising the storming of the Tuileries Palace on the 10th of August 1792 which saw the effective end of the monarchy.  Certainly he benefited from this new dawn as he was immediately made Minister of Justice suggesting he had a leading hand in the assault.

With further defeats inflicted upon the French by the allied armies of Prussia and France tensions continued to rise in Paris.  He played a key role in the defence of France, he helped create a surge in recruitment for the army and seized all weapons in private.  He also made house-to-house searches picking up 3000 suspected royalists.  It is unclear as to whether Danton had any hand in organising the September Massacres of perceived counter revolutionaries in the prisons of Paris.  He did however express concern that the “Royalists” may take advantage if more men left for the front.  

Danton took his seat in the newly elected National Convention placing himself in the high seats of “the mountain.”  Danton voted for the death of the King in January 1793.  His response to the question as to what the Kings of Europe response would be said, "The kings of Europe would dare challenge us? We throw them the head of a king!"

Danton took a leading role in the creation of the Revolutionary Tribunal and he was also one of the founding members of the Committee of Public Safety on the 6th of April 1793.  He went on numerous missions to see the French army in Belgium.  Whilst on one of these missions Danton’s wife Gabrielle died in childbirth.  Upon returning to France Danton had her body exhumed in the middle of the night to get sculptor Claude André Deseine create a bust of her.  During this time period the Girondists launched a series of more offensive and frequent attacks on Danton.  There is no evidence that Danton was involved in the events of the 2nd June when 80,000 armed sans culottes surrounded the convention and 29 of the leading Girondins were arrested.

The Committee for Public Safety was the acceleration of the Terror across France. Danton emerged after a period of illness to criticise this at a time when he thought the enemies of France both internally and externally were on the decline.  The group he headed were known as the Indulgents.  Alongside Camille Desmoulins, Danton published the Old Cordelier a newspaper calling for the end of the Terror and an end to dechristianisation and seeking peace with France’s external enemies.

Danton and many of the Indulgents including Desmoulins were arrested on the 30th March 1794 and put on trial from the 3rd to 5th of April.  Danton put on a spirited defence however he was not allowed to bring any witnesses for his defence.  There were a variety of accusations against Danton including a wide range of accusations of corruption, as well as seeking to end the war with the Kings of Europe and seeking to be too soft towards the perceived counter revolutionaries of France.  There had been many suspicions cast towards Danton throughout his career some suggesting he was in the pay of the monarchy and the British and that he had bribed the enemy commander at Valmy with the French crown jewels.  The verdict was read out without the accused present just in case they caused a disturbance.

As the tumbril had made its way through the streets he had apparently called out, “Robespierre is next! Robespierre comes after me!.”  Fifthteen were guillotined on the 5th of April 1794 Danton was last.    His final words to the executioner were "Don't forget to show my head to the people. It's well worth seeing."

Madame Roland discusses Danton and his role after the 10th August 1792.  Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p64

Recalled to the Ministry at that time, he had brave news hopes for liberty.  “But it is a shame, we used to say, that the Council should be tarnished by the presence of the man Danton, who has such an evil reputation.” Friends to whom I whispered this thought took the line that had been useful in the Revolution, that the people loved him, and that there was no point in making an enemy unnecessarily.  They thought we must make the best of him as he was.  This was all very well, but it is easier to avoid giving a man power than to prevent him abusing it.  That is where the patriots started to go wrong.  

Madame Roland discusses Danton and his role after the 10th August 1792.  Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p66

One of the first measures proposed by the Council was to send commissioners into the departments to enlighten the people about the events of 10th August and above all to encourage defence preparations and raise recruits for our armies at the frontiers.  When the question of selecting these men came up, Roland asked for a twenty four hour delay in which to make proposals.  Danton leapt to his feet.  “I will undertake the whole thing,” he cried.  “The Paris Commune will supply true patriots for this job.”  With fatal indolence the Council authorised him to find the men and the next day he turned up with the commissions all complete, ready to be filled in with the names suggested by himself and signed.  There was no discussion, no examination; they just signed.  So now you had a swarm of unknown adventurers, tavern brawlers, fanatic patriots and riff raff making profit out of the public disorder, united only in their loyalty to Danton whose coarse behaviour and licentious doctrines they adored.  These were the men who were to represent the Council in the departments of France.

Circular on sent the 3rd of September by the Committee of Vigilance of the Commune to all the departments featuring the signature of Danton.  Taken from Madame De Lamballe by Georges Bertin, Godfrey A. S. Wieners, New York (1901)  p294-295

The Commune of Paris hastens to inform its brothers and all the departments that some of the ferocious conspirators shut up in the prisons have been put to death by the people, an act of justice which seemed necessary to terrify, and so to restrain those legions of traitors hidden within the walls at the moment when they themselves were about to march against the enemy j and no doubt the whole nation, after the long continuance of the treacherous acts which led it to the brink of the abyss, would hasten to adopt this means so essential to the public safety, and all Frenchmen would cry out as the Parisians had done: " ' We are marching against the enemy, but we will not leave behind us brigands to cut the throats of our wives and children. . .

Letters from Helen Maria Williams detailing her thoughts on the September Massacres.  Taken from Letters Written in France, Broadview Literary Texts Ormskirk, (2002) p160

At the head of this band of conspirators is Robespierre- gloomy and saturnine in his disposition, with a countenance of such dark aspect as seems the index of no ordinary guilt-fanatical and exaggerated in his avowed principles of liberty, possessing that species of eloquence which gives him power over the passions, and that cool determined temper which regulates the most ferocious designs with the most calm and temperate prudence.  His crimes do not appear to be the result of passion, but of some deep and extraordinary malignity, and he seems formed to subvert and to destroy.  “One next to him in power, and next in crime,” is Danton, who, though not inferior to his associate in vice, and superior in ability, having less self command, is consequently less dangerous.-This man, at the period of the massacres, was Minister of Justice, and, being conjured to exert his authority in putting a stop to these horrors, coolly answered, “Quand le people ont exerce leurs droits, je reprendrai les miennes” (When the people have exerted their rights, I will resume mine).

Marat, though sometimes spoken of as one of the leaders of this faction, is in reality only one of its instruments…….

This triumvirate, resembling the celebrated triumvirate of Rome in everything that bears the marks of baseness and of crimes, had associated in their guilt a number of lesser chiefs, who in their turn had enlisted others as instruments of the same horrid purpose….

Madame Roland was briefly released and then rearrested.  Taken from The Memoirs of Madame Roland a Heroine of the French Revolution, Barrie & Jenkins, London (1989) p113

Vile Danton! Sharpen the knife for your victims! Strike! One more murder will hardly add to your crimes.  You cannot escape eternal infamy for what you have done.  Cruel as Marius, more frightful than Catiline, you surpass their crimes without having their greatness.  History will spew up your name with horror when it records the butcheries of September and the savagery of 2 June.

Gouverneur Morris comments on the end of Danton.  Taken from Witnesses to the Revolution American: American and British Commentators in France 1788-1794, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London (1989) p185

Danton, when condemned, or shortly before it, told his judges that he had observed in reading history that men generally perished by the instruments of destruction which they themselves had created. ‘I’ (says he) ‘created the Revolutionary Tribunal by which I am shortly to be destroyed.’  Shakespeare had made Macbeth pronounce the same dreadful sentence on the wickedly ambitious long ago.

Gouverneur Morris comments on the crushing of the Dantonists and Hébertists.  Taken from Witnesses to the Revolution American: American and British Commentators in France 1788-1794, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London (1989) p190

Both the Dantonists and Hébertists are crushed.  The fall of Danton seems to terminate the idea of a triumvirate.  The chief who would in such case have been one of his colleagues has wisely put out of the way a dangerous competitor…. It is a wonderful thing sir that four years of convulsion among four and twenty millions of people has brought forth no one, either in civil or military life, whose head would fit the cap which fortune has woven.  Robespierre has been the most consistent.