with improbabilities and self-contradictions. They are wholly inconsistent with the tone of Danton's speeches and the tenor of his acts. They were not made to the Assembly by those who would have been only too eager to make them if they had had evidence. Their whole force is cumulative, and each examined by itself is found to be flimsy or absurd. They are based mostly on town talk such as might make up queer chapters in the biographies of some of our Own contemporary political personages did such things in England now find their way into print. They are, in short, to quote Danton's own protest, un tas de petites histoires, fort bien imaginées, et qui ne laissent pas que d'obtenir créance dans l'esprit des faibles ou de ceux qui se laissent trop aisément prévenir.' Finally. it is to be noted that at the trial of Septembrisers in 1796 Danton's name was not mentioned by accusers, accused, or witnesses.'

L

CHAPTER XIII

1792-continued

THE CONVENTION-SPEECH RESIGNING OFFICE-GIRONDIN AGITATION FOR GUARD-APPARITION OF MARAT-DANTON'S APPEAL FOR UNITY-THE ROLANDS-DANTON'S ACCOUNTS-ELECTED SECRETARY-DANTON'S OPINION OF MARAT-APPEALS AGAIN FOR UNITY-AGAINST LAWYER-JUDGES AND REDUCING PAY OF PRIESTS FOR RELIEVING VICTIMS OF MAISON DE SECOURSLIBERTY OF THE PRESS

THE Convention met on September 21. Danton had to decide whether he would be Minister or Deputy. The Rolands charged him with wishing to be both. He soon made up his mind. Charged with seeking dictatorship, he replied by resigning the Ministry of Justice. His reasons, offered when the session was only an hour or two old, are best stated in his own words.

Before expressing my opinion of what ought to be the Assembly's first act, I ask to be allowed to resign. the office entrusted to me by its predecessor. I received it to the accompaniment of the guns with which our fellow-citizens overthrew despotism. Now, when our armies (Dumouriez, Kellermann's) have effected a junction, when the junction of the people's representatives is also effected, I am no longer bound by my previous functions. I am only the mandatory of the people, and as such I am going to address you. You have been invited to take certain oaths (as to their motives as legislators), and in truth you ought, ere entering on the vast career opening before you, to make

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to the people a solemn declaration of the sentiments and principles by which you will be guided in your work. There can be only one Constitution-that accepted, chapter and verse, by the majority of the primary assemblies. That is what you must proclaim to the people. Fabulous dictatorships, imaginary triumvirates, and all such bugbears invented to alarm the people would then vanish, since the Constitution will contain nothing to which the people has not given its assent. This you should announce first, and then another thing of equal importance for liberty and order. Hitherto the people have been stirred up because it was necessary to rouse them against tyrants. It is necessary now that the law should be as terrible to any one who would do it despite as the people have been in overthrowing tyranny; should, in order that the people may have nothing to desiderate, punish all criminals. Some excellent citizens have apparently entertained the idea that some fervid friends of liberty might, by carrying principles to excess, injure social order. Well, let us abjure all excess in this hall; let us proclaim that all property, territorial, personal, industrial, shall remain secure. Finally, let us never forget that we have to re-examine, to reconstruct everything, that the Declaration of Rights itself is not immaculate, and must needs be revised by a people really free.

The Convention passed a decree in accordance with what the voice of detraction, affingens vitia virtutibus vicina,' calls this crafty speech.' To juster minds it will surely seem in the highest degree unselfish, statesmanlike, and wise. And it will seem even wiser and more statesmanlike to those who read the frothy inanities of previous speakers-of Manuel, for instance, his late superior, with his il faut voir ici une assemblée de philosophes occupés à préparer le bonheur du An assembly of philosophers, engendered by

monde.'

revolution and baptised in blood! Men of Manuel's stamp-and they formed, perhaps, the majority of his audience-must have shivered as under a douche of cold water at Danton's assertion of the rights of law and property, and as he laid his hand upon their sacred ark, the Declaration of Rights. But there were abler men who should have hailed his moderation and hastened to co-operate with him, but did not. Envy, hatred, and malice were in full swing in Madame Roland's salon, and now that Valmy had been fought and won, and those who had been for flying from Paris a month before felt safer, they thought they could afford to be rid of the man who had been useful as 'le levain qui fait lever la pâte.' On September 24 his right to vote in the Assembly was disputed, because his successor in the Ministry was not yet appointed. But he replied that he was only acting Minister, and that as the elect of the people he could not be deprived of his right to vote, and when Philippeaux proposed that he should be appointed Minister provisionally he refused. As acting Minister he used his opportunities to some purpose, as we shall see hereafter, but it was as member for Paris that he strove to hold the balance between unallayed passions.

Roland-ce vieillard rogue et morose habitué aux paperasseries de l'ancien régime,' as MortimerTernaux calls him-and the mouthpiece of his meddlesome wife's mischievous rhetoric, on the 23rd made a report to the Assembly on the state of France, in which, with side-thrusts at the Commune, he first introduced what was soon the burning question of a Conventional Guard. On the 24th Buzot took the same line with less circumlocution. Can any one,' he said, 'fancy our becoming slaves to certain Deputies of Paris?'

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winding up with resolutions which that same night the Jacobins styled the signal for civil war.' 'Je crains le despotisme de Paris,' said Lasource on the 25th; il faut que Paris soit réduit à un vingt-troisième d'influence, comme chacun des autres départements.' A madman's speech at such a moment, and one to bear bitter fruit. Scorning generalities, Rebecqui denounced Robespierre by name, and after Robespierre had demonstrated his own virtue Barbaroux furiously accused the Commune, threatening it with the fresh band on their way to Paris from Marseilles.

Then at the challenge of Cambon rose a figure at sight of which a shudder of horror went through the Assembly, many of whom, perhaps, had till that day never seen Marat in the flesh. Marat denied pointblank the accusation brought against Robespierre, saying that both he and Danton had invariably disapproved of any tribunate, triumvirate, or dictatorship. If any one is guilty,' he said, 'I am the man,' and went on to explain his policy at length. Vergniaud mouthed the majority's abhorrence of the speaker, and Boileau produced another quotation from Marat's journal of that day. It is a celebrated passage, characteristically garbled by Mortimer-Ternaux, who omits essential words. A dictatorship those words certainly do not recommend, but are rather a prophecy that unless the people compel the Assembly to act things must end in dictatorship after fifty years of anarchy. The Assembly, however, was as indignant then as the historian afterwards, and shouted, 'A l'Abbaye!' But the impenitent Marat continued his speech, ending with, Eh bien, je resterai parmi vous pour braver vos fureurs.'

Such was the tone and temper of the men between