APPEAL FOR CONCORD

155

another Minister-Garat-to point out that no monarchy had ever been overthrown without some good citizens suffering, and that if in the hour of passion there had been vindictive revenge on the part of individuals there had been marvellous achievements on the part of the community. Roland had mistaken petty and miserable intrigues for vast conspiracies. If there were men aspiring to a dictatorship or triumvirate let them be named. There should be full and complete enquiry, and the Convention should proceed against any one held guilty. To speak of a 'Robespierre faction' seemed to him the language of prejudice or bad citizenship. He had brought no accusation against other people, and was ready to answer any brought against himself. What was wanted was a thoroughgoing enquiry, so that good citizens wishing only what was straightforward and above-board, both as to men and affairs, might know whether there was any one it was their duty to hate, or whether they could co-operate like brothers in what must assuredly be the Convention's sublime career.

Many who listened thought themselves wiser men and better patriots than Danton. But though in their hearts they despised his counsel and would have none of his reproof, and though the gulf between parties continued to grow wider and wider, his personal authority was great and ubiquitous at the end of the year, and on December 1 he was sent to Belgium as Commissioner. But before his foreign policy is considered some other examples of his good sense and moderation deserve mention.

In an earlier chapter the disgraceful administration of justice under the Monarchy has been recorded. The reform of the courts coming under consideration, Danton spoke strongly of their composition (il y a parmi les

juges actuels un grand nombre de procureurs et même d'huissiers'), of their monarchical professions and prejudices, of their merely superficial acquaintance with law, amounting only to a jargon of chicanery, and of the people's well-founded distrust of them; but too sweeping changes he thought premature, and only argued against choosing judges exclusively from lawyers. The Convention agreed with him, and ruled that they should be chosen from all citizens, whether lawyers or

not.

Cambon proposed to reduce the pay of priests, a most dangerous project at such a time. Danton pleaded for postponement of the general question and for punishing only refractory priests by diminution of salary. No State-paid Church he held to be ideal for the future, when enlightenment and knowledge had penetrated the cottage. But till then to abolish salaries, and so deprive the people of their priests, was, he held, cruel.

A man with whom fortune has dealt hardly looks forward to happiness hereafter. When he sees a rich man giving the rein to all his tastes, gratifying all his desires, while the merest necessaries perforce limit his own, then he believes, and it is a consoling thought, that in a future life his joy will be multiplied in proportion to his privations here. . . . It is barbarous, it is a crime against the nation, to rob the people of men in whom it can still find some consolation. I should think, therefore, that it would be useful if the Convention should issue a manifesto to persuade the people that it wishes to destroy nothing, but to perfect everything, and that if it coerces fanaticism it is only out of its wish for liberty of religious opinion.

All fanaticism displeased Danton. In this case he came into collision with the fanaticism of the economist.

DANTON'S COMMON-SENSE

157

And he did so again on the question of a State loan to the Municipality to provide for cashing small notes issued by a bankrupt company called 'Maison de Secours.' Cambon was theoretically right. But Danton held that it was owing to the remissness of the Legislative Assembly in checking jobbery that such gambling had been made possible, and that the urgent necessity of the moment ought to override the general axiom that the State was not called upon to take private debts on its own shoulders. Whether he was in this contention right or wrong, it is another instance of his invariable tendency to take into consideration existing circumstances, and to prefer expediency to hard-and-fast rule.

On October 15 Manuel proposed that the people's sanction of a republican form of government should be obtained. Danton's common-sense at once saw what a source of anxiety such a resolution must prove; and he replied by showing how they had already agreed that the Constitution should be submitted to the people's approval as a whole, and how meantime provisional law must necessarily be accepted as absolute.

When the liberty of the Press was under discussion Danton made no speech, but he hit off the feeling of its champions by an exclamation which was loudly applauded, La liberté de la presse ou la mort!' It was his last utterance in the Convention that year.

BELGIUM-HOLLAND-BELGIAN PARTIES-DUMOURIEZ IN PARIS -DANTON ON NATIONAL FRONTIERS- MISSION TO BELGIUM

THE successes of Valmy and Jemmapes were, as far as they were due to the French themselves, owing to the heroic spirit infused into Paris by Danton's speeches, and into France by the Commissioners of his choice, to the energy with which he acted as adjutant to the Minister of War,' to his refusal to quit Paris when the other Ministers were for flight, and to the choice of Dumouriez as general. We have now to examine his foreign policy during the remainder of 1792.

Never was the field of foreign politics more beset with snares and ambushes than when he entered into it. Seldom has history contained a more sordid chapter than that of the invasion. That invasion was, nominally, the crusade of knights errant to aid an émigré chivalry in behalf of a martyr king. In reality its motives were on a level with those of the agioteurs of the Maison de Secours. Every kind of diplomatic trickery was played in it. Not a player but had a card up his sleeve. In comparison with other interests not one of them cared one straw for Louis. Russia, loudest in stimulating others to an onset which she had no intention to share, coveted Poland. Prussia coveted

AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE

159

Poland too, but was, above all, determined that, whatever Austria got, she would get as much herself. Austria also, with an eye on Poland, coveted Bavaria. Both Austria and Prussia hoped, before Valmy, to carve a slice out of France. England, when much against the grain she was at last drawn into the struggle, fought not for the enhaloed Queen of Burke's rhetoric, but for maintaining the closure of the Scheldt.

6

Into an arena where so many conflicting interests were pushed so unscrupulously Danton, resolute to increase the splendour of the Republic' as he was to consolidate the democracy, came somewhat handicapped. He was no hoary schemer versed in the paperasseries of the old régime.' He was young and of bourgeois origin, and his name where known to kings was one of loathing. But he was not wholly unequipped. He could write and speak English. He had visited England. In associating with Talleyrand and Dumouriez he had acquired an insight into two of the acutest brains in France. The long contest with the Court had made him familiar with much intrigue. But above all he had natural sagacity and knew how to profit by his own mistakes. The authority he had acquired was also in his favour. He remained acting Minister till October 11, though he resigned on September 21; and such had been his ascendency that he continued to influence foreign politics when he ceased to be a Minister. For his colleagues had all been second-rate men-good clerks, like Servan and Lebrun; less good, like Roland, Monge, and Clavière. Though Roland might fume and Madame Roland backbite and thwart him, he was the Ministry's first man. Il n'y a ici. qu'un homme, c'est Danton,' said Dumouriez. If I were to say "No" to him he would have me hung,' said