Well, Danton and the Committee being so nearly identical, can we make a description of the motive that urged him? I think we can. Desmoulin’s “Histoire des Brissottins” was certainly not of Danton’s inspiration. Camille wrote that deadly pamphlet under the eye of Robespierre. But Fabre d’Eglantine at the Jacobins, on May the 1st, calling on the Girondins “to go, and return when all is settled,” is almost using Danton’s own phrase—“Qu’ils s’en aillent, et qu’ils revennent profiter de notre victoire.” All that he and Barrère say, from then to the day of June the 2nd, seems to fall under this formula. He permits the attack of the Commune, while he does everything to moderate its force. He speaks continually for the defence, but he and his Committee refuse to act, and if ever he has spoken a little too strongly, has given the Girondins a little too much power, he retreats somewhat towards the Commune. He resembles a man who is opening a sluice in a dyke of the fen country: behind him is the sea; he admits and plays with its power, but unless his calculation is just it may rush in and overwhelm him. He permitted Paris to strike, and he created a tyranny; both the mob of the capital and the dictatorship were destined to break from his hands. These are, as I read them, the causes of the fall of the Girondins. I have dealt with them at this length because the passage from the 31st of May to the 2nd of June 1793 is not only one of the most fiercely debated, but also one of the most important in the history of the Revolution. I have not given it too much space, for upon the understanding of what led to and what permitted the insurrection depends, without any question, our final judgment on Danton’s position. Here, then, the Committee, even in its infancy, furnishes the clue to a difficult passage in the Revolution. It is becoming more and more necessary as research progresses to refer the mysteries of the period to that central body; and, as it seems to me, we have in its first general report the first explanation of that most complex movement, the insurrection of the 2nd of June.