Danton, No Weakness.
Danton, meanwhile, has been pressingly sent for from Arcis: he
must return instantly, cried Camille, cried Phélippeaux and
Friends, who scented danger in the wind. Danger enough! A Danton,
a Robespierre, chief-products of a victorious Revolution, are now
arrived in immediate front of one another; must ascertain how
they will live together, rule together. One conceives easily the
deep mutual incompatibility that divided these two: with what
terror of feminine hatred the poor seagreen Formula looked at the
monstrous colossal Reality, and grew greener to behold him;—the
Reality, again, struggling to think no ill of a chief-product of
the Revolution; yet feeling at bottom that such chief-product was
little other than a chief wind-bag, blown large by Popular air;
not a man with the heart of a man, but a poor spasmodic
incorruptible pedant, with a logic-formula instead of heart; of
Jesuit or Methodist-Parson nature; full of sincere-cant,
incorruptibility, of virulence, poltroonery; barren as the
east-wind! Two such chief-products are too much for one
Revolution.
Friends, trembling at the results of a quarrel on their part,
brought them to meet. ‘It is right,’ said Danton, swallowing much
indignation, ‘to repress the Royalists: but we should not strike
except where it is useful to the Republic; we should not confound
the innocent and the guilty.’—‘And who told you,’ replied
Robespierre with a poisonous look, ‘that one innocent person had
perished?’—‘_Quoi_,’ said Danton, turning round to Friend Paris
self-named Fabricius, Juryman in the Revolutionary Tribunal:
‘_Quoi_, not one innocent? What sayest thou of it,
Fabricius!’[736]—Friends, Westermann, this Pâris and others urged
him to shew himself, to ascend the Tribune and act. The man
Danton was not prone to shew himself; to act, or uproar for his
own safety. A man of careless, large, hoping nature; a large
nature that could rest: he would sit whole hours, they say,
hearing Camille talk, and liked nothing so well. Friends urged
him to fly; his Wife urged him: ‘Whither fly?’ answered he: ‘If
freed France cast me out, there are only dungeons for me
elsewhere. One carries not his country with him at the sole of
his shoe!’ The man Danton sat still. Not even the arrestment of
Friend Herault, a member of _Salut_, yet arrested by _Salut_, can
rouse Danton.—On the night of the 30th of March, Juryman Paris
came rushing in; haste looking through his eyes: A clerk of the
_Salut_ Committee had told him Danton’s warrant was made out, he
is to be arrested this very night! Entreaties there are and
trepidation, of poor Wife, of Paris and Friends: Danton sat
silent for a while; then answered, ‘_Ils n’oseraient_, They dare
not;’ and would take no measures. Murmuring ‘They dare not,’ he
goes to sleep as usual.
And yet, on the morrow morning, strange rumour spreads over Paris
City: Danton, Camille, Phélippeaux, Lacroix have been arrested
overnight! It is verily so: the corridors of the Luxembourg were
all crowded, Prisoners crowding forth to see this giant of the
Revolution among them. ‘Messieurs,’ said Danton politely, ‘I
hoped soon to have got you all out of this: but here I am myself;
and one sees not where it will end.’—Rumour may spread over
Paris: the Convention clusters itself into groups; wide-eyed,
whispering, ‘Danton arrested!’ Who then is safe? Legendre,
mounting the Tribune, utters, at his own peril, a feeble word for
him; moving that he be heard at that Bar before indictment; but
Robespierre frowns him down: ‘Did you hear Chabot, or Bazire?
Would you have two weights and measures?’ Legendre cowers low;
Danton, like the others, must take his doom.
Danton’s Prison-thoughts were curious to have; but are not given
in any quantity: indeed few such remarkable men have been left so
obscure to us as this Titan of the Revolution. He was heard to
ejaculate: ‘This time twelvemonth, I was moving the creation of
that same Revolutionary Tribunal. I crave pardon for it of God
and man. They are all Brothers Cain: Brissot would have had me
guillotined as Robespierre now will. I leave the whole business
in a frightful welter (_gâchis épouvantable_): not one of them
understands anything of government. Robespierre will follow me; I
drag down Robespierre. O, it were better to be a poor fisherman
than to meddle with governing of men.’—Camille’s young beautiful
Wife, who had made him rich not in money alone, hovers round the
Luxembourg, like a disembodied spirit, day and night. Camille’s
stolen letters to her still exist; stained with the mark of his
tears.[737] ‘I carry my head like a Saint-Sacrament?’ so
Saint-Just was heard to mutter: ‘Perhaps he will carry his like a
Saint-Dennis.’
Unhappy Danton, thou still unhappier light Camille, once light
_Procureur de la Lanterne_, ye also have arrived, then, at the
Bourne of Creation, where, like Ulysses Polytlas at the limit and
utmost Gades of his voyage, gazing into that dim Waste beyond
Creation, a man does see _the Shade of his Mother_, pale,
ineffectual;—and days when his Mother nursed and wrapped him are
all-too sternly contrasted with this day! Danton, Camille,
Herault, Westermann, and the others, very strangely massed up
with Bazires, Swindler Chabots, Fabre d’Eglantines, Banker Freys,
a most motley Batch, “_Fournée_” as such things will be called,
stand ranked at the Bar of Tinville. It is the 2d of April 1794.
Danton has had but three days to lie in Prison; for the time
presses.
What is your name? place of abode? and the like, Fouquier asks;
according to formality. ‘My name is Danton,’ answers he; ‘a name
tolerably known in the Revolution: my abode will soon be
Annihilation (_dans le Néant_); but I shall live in the Pantheon
of History.’ A man will endeavour to say something forcible, be
it by nature or not! Herault mentions epigrammatically that he
‘sat in this Hall, and was detested of Parlementeers.’ Camille
makes answer, ‘My age is that of the _bon Sansculotte Jésus;_ an
age fatal to Revolutionists.’ O Camille, Camille! And yet in that
Divine Transaction, let us say, there did lie, among other
things, the fatallest Reproof ever uttered here below to Worldly
Right-honourableness; “the highest Fact,” so devout Novalis calls
it, “in the Rights of Man.” Camille’s real age, it would seem, is
thirty-four. Danton is one year older.
Some five months ago, the Trial of the Twenty-two Girondins was
the greatest that Fouquier had then done. But here is a still
greater to do; a thing which tasks the whole faculty of Fouquier;
which makes the very heart of him waver. For it is the voice of
Danton that reverberates now from these domes; in passionate
words, piercing with their wild sincerity, winged with wrath.
Your best Witnesses he shivers into ruin at one stroke. He
demands that the Committee-men themselves come as Witnesses, as
Accusers; he ‘will cover them with ignominy.’ He raises his huge
stature, he shakes his huge black head, fire flashes from the
eyes of him,—piercing to all Republican hearts: so that the very
Galleries, though we filled them by ticket, murmur sympathy; and
are like to burst down, and raise the People, and deliver him! He
complains loudly that he is classed with Chabots, with swindling
Stockjobbers; that his Indictment is a list of platitudes and
horrors. ‘Danton hidden on the Tenth of August?’ reverberates he,
with the roar of a lion in the toils: ‘Where are the men that had
to press Danton to shew himself, that day? Where are these
high-gifted souls of whom he borrowed energy? Let them appear,
these Accusers of mine: I have all the clearness of my
self-possession when I demand them. I will unmask the three
shallow scoundrels,’ _les trois plats coquins_, Saint-Just,
Couthon, Lebas, ‘who fawn on Robespierre, and lead him towards
his destruction. Let them produce themselves here; I will plunge
them into Nothingness, out of which they ought never to have
risen.’ The agitated President agitates his bell; enjoins
calmness, in a vehement manner: ‘What is it to thee how I defend
myself?’ cries the other: ‘the right of _dooming_ me is thine
always. The voice of a man speaking for his honour and his life
may well drown the jingling of thy bell!’ Thus Danton, higher and
higher; till the lion voice of him “dies away in his throat:”
speech will not utter what is in that man. The Galleries murmur
ominously; the first day’s Session is over.
O Tinville, President Herman, what will ye do? They have two days
more of it, by strictest Revolutionary Law. The Galleries already
murmur. If this Danton were to burst your mesh-work!—Very curious
indeed to consider. It turns on a hair: and what a Hoitytoity
were _there_, Justice and Culprit changing places; and the whole
History of France running changed! For in France there is this
Danton only that could still try to govern France. He only, the
wild amorphous Titan;—and perhaps that other olive-complexioned
individual, the Artillery Officer at Toulon, whom we left pushing
his fortune in the South?
On the evening of the second day, matters looking not better but
worse and worse, Fouquier and Herman, distraction in their
aspect, rush over to _Salut Public_. What is to be done? _Salut
Public_ rapidly concocts a new Decree; whereby if men “insult
Justice,” they may be “thrown out of the Debates.” For indeed,
withal, is there not “a Plot in the Luxembourg Prison?”
_Ci-devant_ General Dillon, and others of the Suspect, plotting
with Camille’s Wife to distribute _assignats;_ to force the
Prisons, overset the Republic? Citizen Laflotte, himself Suspect
but desiring enfranchisement, has reported said Plot for us:—a
report that may bear fruit! Enough, on the morrow morning, an
obedient Convention passes this Decree. _Salut_ rushes off with
it to the aid of Tinville, reduced now almost to extremities. And
so, _Hors des Débats_, Out of the Debates, ye insolents!
Policemen do your duty! In such manner, with a deadlift effort,
_Salut_, Tinville Herman, Leroi _Dix-Août_, and all stanch
jurymen setting heart and shoulder to it, the Jury becomes
“sufficiently instructed;” Sentence is passed, is sent by an
Official, and torn and trampled on: _Death this day_. It is the
5th of April, 1794. Camille’s poor Wife may cease hovering about
this Prison. Nay let her kiss her poor children; and prepare to
enter it, and to follow!—
Danton carried a high look in the Death-cart. Not so Camille: it
is but one week, and all is so topsy-turvied; angel Wife left
weeping; love, riches, Revolutionary fame, left all at the
Prison-gate; carnivorous Rabble now howling round. Palpable, and
yet incredible; like a madman’s dream! Camille struggles and
writhes; his shoulders shuffle the loose coat off them, which
hangs knotted, the hands tied: ‘Calm my friend,’ said Danton;
‘heed not that vile canaille (_laissez là cette vile canaille_).’
At the foot of the Scaffold, Danton was heard to ejaculate: ‘O my
Wife, my well-beloved, I shall never see thee more then!’—but,
interrupting himself: ‘Danton, no weakness!’ He said to
Hérault-Séchelles stepping forward to embrace him: ‘Our heads
will meet _there_,’ in the Headsman’s sack. His last words were
to Samson the Headsman himself: ‘Thou wilt shew my head to the
people; it is worth shewing.’
So passes, like a gigantic mass, of valour, ostentation, fury,
affection and wild revolutionary manhood, this Danton, to his
unknown home. He was of Arcis-sur-Aube; born of “good
farmer-people” there. He had many sins; but one worst sin he had
not, that of Cant. No hollow Formalist, deceptive and
self-deceptive, _ghastly_ to the natural sense, was this; but a
very Man: with all his dross he was a Man; fiery-real, from the
great fire-bosom of Nature herself. He saved France from
Brunswick; he walked straight his own wild road, whither it led
him. He may live for some generations in the memory of men.