Georges Jacques Danton (, ; ; 26 October 1759 – 5 April 1794) was a French politician and one of the leading figures of the French Revolution. A relatively obscure lawyer before the Revolution, he became a prominent orator of the Cordeliers Club and, following the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August 1792, was appointed Minister of Justice. His role in the September Massacres has long been disputed. In early 1793, the National Convention sent him to Belgium in connection with the military and political crisis surrounding General Dumouriez. That spring, Danton supported the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal and helped establish the Committee of Public Safety, of which he became one of the first members.
During the Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, Danton supported the dissolution of the Commission of Twelve, while taking a more ambivalent position toward the use of force against the Girondins. After leaving the Committee of Public Safety in July 1793, Danton increasingly distanced himself from its policies and in September refused to rejoin it. In early October 1793, Danton withdrew from political life for a time, but returned to Paris mid-November and emerged as one of the leading moderates calling for greater clemency and end to the Terror. His criticism of the Committee of Public Safety brought him into growing conflict with its members. On 25 December 1793 (5 Nivôse, year II), Robespierre responded publicly to demands associated with Danton and his allies for greater clemency. In late March 1794, Danton again spoke in favour of ending the Terror. Within days he was arrested, tried on charges of conspiracy and venality, and executed by guillotine on 5 April 1794.
Danton's political role and historical reputation have long been subjects of debate. During the Third Republic (1870–1940), he was often portrayed as a central figure in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the First Republic.
Early life
Danton was born in Arcis-sur-Aube (Champagne in northeastern France) to Jacques Danton, a respectable, but not wealthy lawyer, and Madeleine Camus. He was cousin to Georges Nicolas Jeannet-Oudin and Louis-François Jeannet.
As a baby, he was attacked by a bull and a few years later, came down with a bout of smallpox which resulted in the disfigurement and scarring of his face. He initially attended the school in Sézanne, but at the age of thirteen he left his parents' home to enter the seminary in Troyes before making a transition to a boarding school in the same area. While attending school, his classmate and friend Jules-François Paré was to have his hands rapped as punishment, but Danton defended his friend and spoke out against corporal punishment in class. Danton spoke so persuasively that the head of the school decided to ban the practice. In 1780, he settled in Paris, where he became a clerk under the Barrister Maître Vinot. In 1783, he passed the Barrister examination in Reims, and in 1787 he became a Conseil du Roi,Hampson, Norman (1988). Danton. New York: Basil Blackwell. pp. 19–25. or prosecutor. He began to frequent a cafe known as the Parnasse, which is where he met Antoinette Gabrielle Charpentier, whom he would marry on 14 June 1787 at the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. The couple lived in a six-room apartment in the heart of the Left Bank (near the Café Procope), and had three sons: François, born in May 1788, died in infancy on 24 April 1789. Antoine, born on 18 June 1790, died on 14 June 1858. François Georges, born on 2 February 1792, died on 18 June 1848.
Revolution
In the spring of 1789, Danton found his revolutionary beginnings as one of the many people giving speeches to the crowds gathered in the Palais Royal. His demanding voice and rhetorical skill quickly gained him fame, as well as his nickname of "The Thunderer". As the Cordeliers district Danton resided in grew more persistent in its revolutionary ideals, it eventually formed its own street militia that was involved in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Danton himself was not present for the event, however, he soon after led the Cordeliers militia, as well as other revolutionaries, on a mission to retake the Bastille from its provisional governor, which gained him more popular support from the revolutionaries.S. Schama (1989) Citizens, p. 452 He and his district opposed the Marquis de LaFayette, the commander of the National Guard, as well as Jean Sylvain Bailly, the provisional mayor. In early October, he was elected president of his section (around the Cordeliers Convent) and deputy to the Commune and wrote the poster for the Cordeliers which called Parisians to arms.
His house in the Rue des Cordeliers was open to many people from the neighborhood. Danton, Desmoulins, and Marat, who lived around the corner, all used the nearby Cafe Procope as a meeting place. Danton protected Marat from legal proceedings, and in March 1790, LaFayette ordered Danton detained. Paris Commune was divided up into 48 sections and allowed to gather separately. Danton was removed from office by a redistricting of Paris, for which he was compensated.Hibbert, C. (1980) The French Revolution, p. 167N. Hampson (1978) Danton, p. 58
On 27 April 1790, he became president of the Club de Cordeliers. On 2 August, Bailly became Paris' first elected mayor; Danton had 49 votes, Marat and Louis XVI only one each. In spring 1791, Danton suddenly began investing in property, in or near his birthplace, on a large scale.N. Hampson (1978) Danton, p. 57
Robespierre, Pétion, Danton, and Brissot dominated the Jacobin Club. On 17 July 1791, Danton initiated a petition. Robespierre went to the Jacobin club to cancel the draft of the petition, according to Albert Mathiez. Robespierre persuaded the Jacobin clubs not to support the petition by Danton and Brissot. After the Champ de Mars massacre, a series of repressive measures against the heads of popular societies forced him to take refuge in London for a few weeks.Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005), p. 51. Since Jean-Paul Marat, Danton, and Robespierre were no longer delegates of the Assembly, politics often took place outside the meeting hall.
After the amnesty voted in the Assembly on 13 September 1791, Danton returned to Paris. He sought election to the new Legislative Assembly, but the opposition of the moderates in the electoral assembly of Paris led to his defeat. In December 1791, during the partial renewal of the municipality, there was significant abstention. This led to the defeat of LaFayette and the resignation of Bailly, which revealed the decline of the "constitutional" party which had until then dominated the Hôtel de Ville. Danton was elected second deputy procureur public of the Commune. The debate at the beginning of December 1791 on whether to go to war with neighboring powers opposing the Revolution, triggered conflict between Jacobins and led to the birth of the opposition between Montagnards and Girondins. Danton hesitated on the need for war. He leaned more towards Robespierre than the pro-war Brissot, but, overall, limited his participation in the dispute.
1792 On 9 August 1792, Danton returned from Arcis. In the evening before the storming of the Tuileries, he was visited by Desmoulins, his wife, and Fréron. After dinner, he went to the Cordeliers and preferred to go to bed early. It seems he went to the Maison-Commune after midnight.N. Hampson (1978) Danton, pp. 72–73 Faced with the insurrectionary Commune which relied on the insurgent sections and which held Paris, the Legislative Assembly had no choice but to suspend Louis XVI and replace him with a provisional Executive Council of six members composed of former Girondin ministers (Roland in the Interior, Servan in the War, Clavière in Finance, Monge in the Navy and Lebrun in Foreign Affairs). The Girondins, hostile to revolutionary Paris, needed a popular man committed to the insurgents to liaise with the insurrectional Commune and had Danton appointed to Minister of Justice the next day; he appointed Fabre and Desmoulins as his secretaries. More than a hundred decisions left the department within eight days. On 14 August, Danton invited Robespierre to join the Council of Justice, which Robespierre declined to do.
Danton seems to have dined almost every day at the Rolands'.N. Hampson (1978) Danton, p. 76 On 28 August, the Assembly ordered a curfew for the next two days.Jean Massin (1959) Robespierre, pp. 133–134 At the behest of Danton, thirty commissioners from the sections were ordered to search in every suspect house for weapons, munition, swords, carriages and horses.S. Schama, p. 626 By 2 September, between 520 and 1,000 people were taken into custody on the flimsiest of warrants. The exact number of those arrested will never be known.S. Loomis, p. 77
On Sunday 2 September, at about 13:00, Danton, as a member of the provisional government, delivered a speech in the assembly: "We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall be punished with death". "The tocsin we are about to ring is not an alarm signal; it sounds the charge on the enemies of our country." He continued after the applause: "To conquer them we must dare, dare again, always dare, and France is saved!". His speech acted as a call for direct action among the citizens, as well as a strike against the external enemy. Many believe this speech was responsible for inciting the September Massacres. It is estimated that around 1,100–1,600 people were murdered. Madame Roland held Danton responsible for their deaths. Danton was also accused by the French historians Adolphe Thiers, Alphonse de Lamartine, Jules Michelet, Louis Blanc and Edgar Quinet. However, according to Albert Soboul, there is no proof that the massacres were organized by Danton or by anyone else, though it is certain that he did nothing to stop them.
He did intervene, however, in protecting Roland and Brissot from an arrest warrant from the Supervisory Committee of the Commune on 4 September, opposing Marat by having the mandates removed, and was complicit in the escape of Adrien Duport, Talleyrand, and Charles de Lameth. On 6 September, he was elected by his section, "Théâtre Français", to be a deputy for the convention, gathering on 22 September. Danton remained a member of the ministry, although holding both positions simultaneously was illegal. Danton, Robespierre, and Marat were accused of forming a triumvirate. On 26 September, Danton was forced to give up his position in the government; he stepped down on 9 October.