Meanwhile, what had occurred at the Hotel de Ville? The testimony is contradictory and the whole story confused, but the truth seems to have been something of this kind. Lafayette certainly called on the administration of the Department and asked for martial law. Bailly as certainly was willing to grant it. Danton was called from his rank and came to oppose it; but did he end the matter by his speech? Camille Desmoulins[88] says so, and draws a fine picture of Danton carrying the administration with him, as he carried the club or the street. But Desmoulins is often inaccurate, and here his account is improbable. Danton’s own note of the circumstance (which he thought worthy of being pinned to his family papers) runs: “I was present at the Department when MM. the commandant and the mayor demanded martial law.” Nothing more. Desmoulins makes another mistake when he attributes to Danton the letter which was written to the King, and which was sent on the night of the 18th; it reproached him for his action, sharply criticised his rejection of constitutional priests. It was not Danton, it was Talleyrand (a member also of the Department) who wrote this letter. It is probable that Danton and Talleyrand knew each other. Talleyrand was a good judge of men, and would have many strings to his bow—we know that he depended upon Danton’s kindness at a critical moment in 1792—but the style of the letter is not Danton’s, and the document as we find it in Schmidt is definitely ascribed to Talleyrand. This is all we can gather as to his place in the popular uprising to prevent the King’s leaving Paris. A placard of some violence issued from the Cordeliers, saying that he had “forbidden Lafayette to fire on the people;” but Danton disowned it in a meeting of the Department. This much alone is certain, that the 18th of April had finally put Danton and Lafayette face to face, and that in the common knowledge of Paris they would be the heads of opposing forces in the next crisis. But their rôles turned out to be the very opposite of what men would have predicted. It was Lafayette who shot and blustered, and had his brief moment of power; it was Danton who made a flank movement and achieved a final victory. For the next crisis was the flight of the King. It would be irrelevant to give the story of this flight in the life of Danton. Our business is to understand Danton by following the exact course of his actions during June and July, and by describing exactly the nature of the movement in which his attitude took the form which we are investigating.