It must, however, be remembered that a theory exists, by no means untenable, which would make Danton argue something in this fashion: “Once let the popular fury have full rein against what it regards as the internal enemy, and I shall have the disappearance of that disturbing factor of royalist reaction in Paris, while on the part of the mob I shall have the lassitude and shame that follow excess; they are not difficult to govern.” It is only a personal opinion, but it seems to me that in a mind of Danton’s type, downright and practical to excess, such a far-reaching and subtle idea as the last would hardly occur, and that the massacres must have produced on him an especial annoyance, because they were the breakdown of a system the support of which occupied his every effort. Secondly, Danton’s allusions to the massacres of September were always of a more definite and more reasonable nature than those of his colleagues. The attitude which he adopts with regard to them after their occurrence is this: “There was no public force, none of that disciplined government which I postulate as the first necessity of the Revolution; nothing on earth could prevent them, and they occurred in spite of every governing power.” So much for generalities. Now let us turn to one or two points which have been made the basis of a definite accusation against Danton in this matter. Firstly: that he knew that the massacres were coming, and withdrew from prison more than one of his friends on the eve of the uprising. This I take to be true, or rather I am certain of it; but one would have to be very ignorant of the time not to know that all Paris expected the massacres, and that those who were at all in touch with the Commune knew two or three days before that anything illegal might be done. To have worked to prevent them, in which Danton might have employed his energy, would, as I have said in the text, have been to risk that which he most desired, and to risk it for the sake of saving the prisoners. Certainly he did not desire to save them as passionately as he desired to remain at the helm and build up a government; he preferred to keep his influence over the city. That accusation is just.