Such are the contemporary accusations. There are the following points to be noted with regard to them. No one says that he himself paid money; the sums of money are very various. They are paid, according to some, on a few definite occasions; according to others, upon all occasions. Finally, every accusation that has any definite basis at all pivots round the name of Montmorin. “Montmorin held the receipt,” “Montmorin told me,” and so forth. Now, if we remember that Montmorin held the receipt for a legitimate and open reimbursement (see Appendix VI.), and then compare the accusations with what we know of the men and of the time, if we then proceed to check these merely general conclusions by matters of absolute knowledge drawn from the valuations upon Danton’s estate at various moments of his life, we shall agree with the more modern authorities who have worked with the documents before them, that Danton is innocent of actions to the charge of which his uncertain temper and his lack of solid social surroundings laid him open. In the first place, let us consider the words of the accusations which appear above, and which include all those of any importance. That of Mirabeau is what you would expect from such a man; it is quiet, contemptuous, treating of Danton as something on the very last level of the time. But if we take the specific accusation and separate it from all general points of view, we find this much: that Montmorin has been talking to him with regard to what “those fellows” were doing. “In connection with this,” says Mirabeau, “Danton got 30,000 yesterday” to work such and such a political move. The grave feature in the quotation is the way in which Mirabeau, who understood men and who had a good grasp of Paris, treats Danton’s venality as being something well known, gives a particular example of it, and passes at once to other things. But the specific accusation is hearsay from Montmorin, and, as I have said, it is always Montmorin’s name which crops up when this gossip is on foot. I would, therefore, sum up the value of Mirabeau’s accusation somewhat as follows:—If we could prove that Danton was a spendthrift, and that large sums of money passed through his hands for his personal pleasures, then Mirabeau’s chance remark, while it would be worthless in a court of law, ought to have some small weight before history. Mirabeau was (on a higher plane) a _bon viveur_ such as Danton was reputed to be, and the circles in which the men moved touched each other especially in the point of their good living; but if we can find that Danton did not, as a fact, spend nor invest great sums of money, then the accusation is simply a common error based upon a remark of Montmorin’s, suited to the current impression of Danton’s character, but disproved by the known facts of Danton’s life.