Danton, whom the Revolution had found an obscure barrister at the Chatelet, had increased with it in influence. He had already that celebrity which the multitude easily assigns to him whom it sees every where, and always listens to. He was one of those men who seem born of the stir of revolutions, and which float on its surface until it swallows them up. All in him was like the mass--athletic, rude, coarse. He pleased them because he resembled them. His eloquence was like the loud clamour of the mob. His brief and decisive phrases had the martial curtness of command. His irresistible gestures gave impulse to his plebeian auditories. Ambition was his sole line of politics. Devoid of honour, principles, or morality, he only loved democracy because it was exciting. It was his element, and he plunged into it. He sought there not so much command as that voluptuous sensuality which man finds in the rapid movement which bears him away with it. He was intoxicated with the revolutionary vertigo as a man becomes drunken with wine; yet he bore his intoxication well. He had that superiority of calmness in the confusion he created, which enabled him to control it: preserving _sangfroid_ in his excitement and his temper, even in a moment of passion, he jested with the clubs in their stormiest moods. A burst of laughter interrupted bitterest imprecations; and he amused the people even whilst he impelled them to the uttermost pitch of fury. Satisfied with his two-fold ascendency, he did not care to respect it himself, and neither spoke to it of principles nor of virtue, but solely of force. Himself, he adored force, and force only. His sole genius was contempt for honesty; and he esteemed himself above all the world, because he had trampled under foot all scruples. Every thing was to him a means. He was a statesman of materialism, playing the popular game, with no end but the terrible game itself, with no stake but his life, and with no responsibility beyond nonentity. Such a man must be profoundly indifferent either to despotism or to liberty. His contempt of the people must incline him rather to the side of tyranny. When we can detect nothing divine in men, the better part to play is to make use of them. We can only serve well that which we respect. He was only with the people because he was of the people, and thus the people ought to triumph. He would have betrayed it, as he served it, unscrupulously. The court well knew the tariff of his conscience. He threatened it in order to make it desirous of buying him; he only opened his mouth in order to have it stuffed with gold. His most revolutionary movements were but the marked prices at which he was purchaseable. His hand was in every intrigue, and his honesty was not checked by any offer of corruption. He was bought daily, and next morning was again for sale. Mirabeau, La Fayette, Montmorin, M. de Laporte, the intendant of the civil list, the Duc d'Orleans, the king himself, all knew his price.