brought to Paris. Such and similar business would occupy some of his time, and on September 3 he presided at a Council. The elections, too, were in progress. But how was he mainly occupied? We are prone to think solely of the massacres on those days. But the Assembly and the majority of the citizens were thinking of something else too. Suppose a German army had captured Bristol and were marching on London, having sworn to hand it over, when taken, to fire and sword. Suppose the Commander-in-Chief to have declared that London could not be defended, and that all the city were a scene of wild confusion, that the civic authorities and the House of Commons were at loggerheads, that both bodies were sitting permanently day and night, that constant councils were being held in the Guildhall and the rooms of Ministers, that arms were so scarce that every gift of a gun seemed a godsend, yet that from 500 to 2,000 volunteers were being armed and hurried off every day to the army. Suppose that friends of the Germans, ready to join them and praying for their success, were in the London gaols, and the mob broke into the gaols and murdered their inmates. Would all our Ministers think first or most of saving the prisoners' lives, or would they be likely to leave their fate to those ordinarily responsible and think first and most of saving London? In after-days, when the invasion-panic was forgotten and the murders had grown redder and redder in men's memories, people would wonder at the passive callousness of those Ministers. And yet they would have had much else to do which at the time seemed even more urgently imperative. What Danton was doing was, with all the energy that was in him, inducing the citizens to enlist, equipping them, sending them off in batches to the

front, and reporting to the Assembly. And, what is more, he was acting by the Assembly's express orders. On the 3rd Gensonné proposed and the Assembly ordered that the Executive should report at once on the measures taken for hurrying off troops to the camps and fortifying the heights round Paris. The safety of the inhabitants of Paris, on the other hand, was expressly left by Gensonné's resolution in the hands of the Mayor and the other Municipal Authorities. Danton therefore was doing his duty, and he did it in such a fashion that even his bitterest assailants have been unable to refuse him some grudging gratitude.

If instead of such action, and trusting to his personal influence, he had, as one historian suggests he should have done, gone into the streets with a flag in his hand, he would in behalf of his bitter enemies have lost a popularity essential to the main work he had in hand, and without saving any one else's life might have lost his own. Lafayette's experiences were too well known to him. On an occasion when the popular frenzy was far less, and at a time when respect for authority was far greater, and Lafayette's authority especially was at its height, Bertrand de Molevile relates how he harangued, but his rhetoric was in vain. The feeble voice of this popular general was everywhere drowned by that of the sovereign people, who in this insurrection truly thought that they were performing the most sacred of duties.' So it would have been now. When the procureur of the Commune-Manuel-interfered with the mob we are told that his life was in danger. So was the Abbé Fauchet's. Prudhomme says that the murderers seemed disposed to massacre any one who should show any inclination to try and stop their

INTERFERENCE DIFFICULT

127

executions, and he puts into Camille Desmoulins' mouth precisely the same opinion. Lamartine too says that Maillard, who of all men might have been supposed to interfere with least risk, endangered his own life in doing so.

Now suspicion had already breathed on Danton's name. A rumour spread through Paris that the Com mune had declared the Executive to have forfeited the confidence of the nation, and a violent altercation took place between him and Marat when the latter was going to arrest Roland-Roland not, be it noted, a Royalist nor a prisoner, but a Minister by virtue of the 10th of August. All, therefore, that Danton could do he had done in his own way. If he had failed it was not his fault. All now possible was to rescue individual prisoners through the agency of their Sections. It is known that some lives were spared by his intervention, and no personal enemy of his is said to have lost his life. When his enemy Duport's life was threatened he, because this particular case fell under his special jurisdiction as Minister of Justice, interfered resolutely, and in defiance of the Commune, in his behalf. Historians who cannot ignore such facts may prate about the inconsistency of human nature, but a Royalist and a sharp-tongued enemy, Royer-Collard, read his man better. This Danton,' said a friend to him, 'seems, however, to have had a generous heart.' A magnanimous one, sir, that is the right word,' answered RoyerCollard.

Englishmen who may be inclined to pronounce offhand that if there had been a will there would have been a way to coerce the Paris riots might with advantage read an account from a French source of the Birmingham riots of 1791, when from Thursday till

Sunday night the rioters were in possession of the town, burning houses and committing all sorts of excesses, which continued in the surrounding country some time longer.

En vain les magistrats et les principaux habitants se concertèrent le lendemain (Friday) pour le retour de l'ordre, ils manquaient de force armée pour en imposer à ces scélérats, que leurs mesures de prudence et les exhortations ne firent qu'irriter, de sorte qu'ils continuèrent les mêmes excès pendant tout le vendredi et la nuit suivante. . . . On a remarqué dans les chefs de cette insurrection le plus grand sang-froid, tandis que les exécuteurs de leurs ordres étaient presque tous ivres.

PELTIER-ALQUIER-GENERAL CHARACTER OF ACCUSATIONS

How comes it, then, that on Danton's name has been heaped so much obloquy? It is because Royalists, Girondins, and Robespierrists united to libel the man with whose robust common-sense their narrow fanaticisms clashed. But as long as he lived the last two at least were practically dumb. Yet the question of the massacres was raised in the Assembly more than On September 25, in the Convention, some of its members and the Commune were accused specifically. Danton spoke and launched out against Marat, ending with the challenge, 'If any one has any accusation to bring against me let him get up and make it.' The Assembly cheered him and no man took up his challenge; but when Marat rose some of the Girondins must have hoped their enemy's hour was come, for Marat feared no one and never minced his words, and he was smarting under Danton's attack. But Marat simply avowed his own responsibility and said not a word incriminating Danton. Again in the following March Danton spoke.

Since they have dared to speak of those days of blood which every good citizen has mourned, I, for

K