To all this, however, which was but the relaxation of an abundant spirit, must be added days of continual and serious work on the other side of the river. If his nights were in the Latin Quarter, his days were in the office of the Rue de la Tixanderie. A minister of the crown[35] does not intrust his family affairs to such a wastrel as the chance memoirs of opponents would make of Danton at this period, nor a lawyer who is never in his chambers, but gadding about politicising, get the conduct of one of the most important Chancery cases of his day. There is one matter in these pre-revolutionary months which is of no very great importance, but which is well worth noticing, though the confusion apparent in our one account of it has lessened its value. There can be no doubt that Barentin, apart from his business relations, was personally intimate with Danton; and when that careful and moderate man had succeeded Lamoignon in September 1788, there was some kind of informal offer made to Danton of what we should call an official secretaryship to the minister[36]—or rather we have no name for it, for the ministry in France was not associated with legislation, but only with executive power, and therefore positions in its gifts had not the political importance they have with us. As to the precise date of the offer, how far it was pressed, or how seriously it was made, we can have no exact knowledge. But it seems to me unwise to reject so characteristic an anecdote, and one which fits in so well with Danton’s known position, merely on the somewhat strained theory that documentary evidence alone should be admitted in history, and documentary evidence sifted by the rules of a rigid cross-examination.[37] At any rate, Danton refused it. And not only did he refuse it, but there is no trace of an attempt to use his friend’s influence or to make a political success at a time when nearly every man’s head was turned by the chances of a great social change. He felt no need of politics, and it was not till much later, after quite twelve months of action and speech, that his oratory found foothold, and he felt the imperious appetites of a new power. Success in his profession was without question the one ambition which occupied him in the close of 1788, it was an ambition closely bound up with that business sense which was a strong element in the sane and practical mind of the Champenois lawyer. It was upon him and his group of friends, in a Paris that every day grew keener in its discussion and attention, that the long-expected decree of the 27th of December fell. There were to be elections. Paris, all pamphleteered to death, but inclining as a whole to the moderate criticism of the more practical men, was at last called upon to act.