III. NOTE ON THE SUPPOSED VENALITY OF DANTON 331 IV. NOTE ON DANTON’S RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MASSACRES OF SEPTEMBER 340 V. SHORT MEMOIR BY A. R. C. DE ST. ALBIN 347 VI. EXTRACTS SHOWING REIMBURSEMENT OF DANTON’S OFFICE 365 VII. EXTRACTS CONCERNING DANTON’S HOUSEHOLD 373 VIII. CATALOGUE OF DANTON’S LIBRARY 380 IX. EXTRACTS FROM THE MEMOIR WRITTEN IN 1846 BY THE SONS OF DANTON 384 X. NOTES OF TOPINO-LEBRUN, JUROR OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL 395 XI. REPORT OF THE FIRST COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY 403 INDEX 430 THE LIFE OF DANTON CHAPTER I THE REVOLUTION Before writing a life of Danton in English it is necessary to do three things. First, to take a definite point of view with regard to the whole revolutionary movement; secondly, to explain, so far as is possible, the form which it took in France; thirdly, to show where Danton stood in the scheme of events, the nature of his personality, the effects of his brief action. This triple task is necessary to a book which, but for it, would be only a string of events, always confused, often without meaning. What was the Revolution? It was essentially a reversion to the normal—a sudden and violent return to those conditions which are the necessary bases of health in any political community, which are clearly apparent in every primitive society, and from which Europe had been estranged by an increasing complexity and a spirit of routine. It has never been denied that the process of gradual remoulding is a part of living, and all admit that the State (which lives like any other thing) must suffer such a process as a condition of health. There is in every branch of social effort a necessity for constant reform and check: it is apparent to the administrator of every kind: it is the business of a politician continually to direct and apply such correction:—the whole body of the law of England is a collection of the past results of this guiding force. But what are the laws that govern it? What is the nature of the condition that makes reform imperative? What distinguishes the good from the bad in the matter of voluntary change, and separates the conservative from the destructive effort? It is in the examination of this problem that we may discover how great a debt the last century owed to nature—a debt which demanded an immediate liquidation, and was often only paid at the expense of violence.