VII. 1791. CHAP. already a sort of monarch in the markets; and he was chosen, on its institution, president of the Club of the Cordeliers, which gave him a durable influence. This celebrated club, which at first rivalled that of the Jacobins in fame and influence, held its sittings in a chapel opposite to the Ecole de Medicine, now used as a museum of surgical preparations and dissecting-rooms. The interior of the chapel was low in the roof, dark, and supported on massy columns. This situation was selected on account of its central situation in the midst of a vast concourse of the working classes, by whom the club was chiefly frequented. It had been built by the monastic order of the Cordeliers, from whence its name was derived ; and in the vaults below the chapel, Marat's printing-press had for some time been established. The Cordeliers was a club of Paris, however, and of Paris alone: it had no correspondence in the provinces; it was not, like the Jacobins, a revolutionary committee for the direction of all France. Thence its influence, though superior at first, was not so widespread or durable as that of its great and betterorganised rival. Danton's commanding voice and ready elocution early gave him the entire command in its debates; but it had many powerful writers and journalists among its members, who exercised a great, and, in the end, fatal influence on the fortunes of the Revolution. Marat, Camille Desmoulins, Fréron, Fabre d'Eglantine, Robert, and Hébert, were the most remarkable; and from their incessant flattery of the people, and excitement of their passions, their influence was at first greater with the multitude than that of the Jacobin Club. No precautions were adopted at the Cordeliers against the admission of unaffiliated members; the doors were open to all and the language ever used by the orators was the re-echo, in ton.) Lam. exaggerated terms, of the popular passions at the moment. Gir. ii. 337. But it wanted the solid support in affiliated societies which rendered the Jacobins so powerful,1* and in the end gave 1 Biog. Hist. des * MICHELET, Histoire de la Révolution, ii. 339, 342. them the entire command of France. Danton then CHAP. VII. attached himself to Marat, and, in conjunction with him and Brissot, drew up the famous petition of the Champ 1791. de Mars, which prayed for the dethronement of the King. acter. 24. He was the first leader of the Jacobins who rose to great eminence in the Revolution. Born poor, he had re- His charceived, as he himself said, no other inheritance from nature than "an athletic form, and the rude physiognomy of freedom." He owed his ascendancy not so much to his talents, though they were great, nor to his eloquence, though it was commanding, as to his indomitable energy and dauntless courage, which made him rise superior to every difficulty, and boldly assume the lead when others, with perhaps equal abilities, were beginning to sink under apprehension. As was said of Lord Thurlow, self-confidence, or, in plainer language, impudence, was the great secret of his success.* At first ambition was the mainspring of his actions, individual gratification the god of his idolatry: situated as he was, he saw that these objects were to be gained only by a zealous and uncompromising support of the popular party, and hence he was a revolutionist. But he was ambitious, not philanthropic; a voluptuary, not a fanatic: he looked to the Revolution as the means of making his fortune, and increasing his pleasures, not of elevating or improving the human race. Accordingly, he was quite willing to sell himself to the Court, if it promised Moll. Mém. him greater advantages than the popular side; and at one time he received no less than a hundred thousand crowns Garat, 175, (£25,000) from the royal treasury, to advocate measures Hist. de la favourable to the interest of the royal authority—an 314. engagement which, as long as it lasted,' he faithfully * "A moderate merit with a large share of impudence is more probable to be advanced than the greatest qualifications without it. The first necessary qualification of an orator is impudence, and, as Demosthenes said of action, the second is impudence, and the third is impudence. No modest man ever did or ever will, make his fortune in public assemblies."-LADY M. WORTLEY MONTAGUE, in Southey's edition of Cowper, v. 254. 1 Bert. de i. 354. Bar baroux, 57. 180. Mich. Rev. ii. 313 VII. 1791. CHAP. kept. But when the cause of royalty was evidently declining, and a scaffold, not a fortune, promised to be the reward of fidelity to the throne, he threw himself without reserve into the arms of the democracy, and advocated the most vehement and sanguinary measures. 25. ing qualities. Yet Danton was not a mere bloodthirsty tyrant. Bold, His redeem- unprincipled, and daring, he held that the end in every case justified the means; that nothing was blamable provided it led to desirable results; that nothing was impossible to those who had the courage to attempt it. A starving advocate in 1789, he rose in audacity and eminence with the public disturbances; prodigal in expense and drowned in debt, he had no chance, at any period, even of personal freedom, but in constantly advancing with the fortunes of the Revolution. Like Mirabeau, he was the slave of sensual passions; like him, he was the terrific leader, during his ascendancy, of the ruling class-though he shared the character, not of the patricians who commenced the Revolution, but of the plebeians who consummated its wickedness. "I have never," said Madame Roland, "seen anything which characterised so completely the ascendant of brutal passions and unbridled audacity, scarce veiled by an affectation of jovialty and bonhommie. My imagination. constantly represented Danton with a poniard in his hand, exciting a troop of assassins; or calling them, like Sardanapalus, to the infamous orgies which were to be the reward of their crimes." But he had no fanaticism in his character; he was not impelled to evil in the search of good. Self-elevation was his object throughout; when that was secured, he was not inaccessible to better feelings. * "Par les mains du Sieur Durand, Danton avait reçu plus de 100,000 écus, pour proposer ou appuyer différentes motions au Club des Jacobins ; il remplissait assez fidèlement les engagements qu'il prenait à cet égard, en se réservant toujours la liberté d'employer les moyens qu'il jugeait les plus propres à faire passer ses motions; et son moyen ordinaire était de les assaisonner de déclamations les plus violentes contre la Cour et contre les Ministres, pour qu'on ne le soupçonnât pas de leur être vendu."-BERTRAND DE MOLLEVILLE, Mémoires, i. 354; LAMARTINE, Histoire des Girondins, i. 139. |