Jaurès, taught by revolutionary history, now reasons in exactly the same manner as the jovial vicomte;[1] he praises, for example, "the policy of vigour and of wisdom" which consisted in forcing the Convention to expel the Girondins" with a certain appearance of legality."[2]
The massacres of September 1792 embarrass him somewhat; legality is not very apparent here, but he has big words and bad reasons for every ugly cause; Danton's conduct was not very worthy of admiration at the time of these melancholy happenings, but Jaurès must excuse him, since Danton was triumphant during this period. "He did not think it was his duty as a revolutionary and patriotic minister to enter upon a struggle with these misguided popular forces. How can we refine the metal of the bells when they are sounding the alarm of imperilled liberty?"[3] It seems to me that Cavaignac might have explained his conduct in the Dreyfus case in the same way. To the people who accused him of being hand in hand with the Anti-Semites, he might have answered that his duty as a patriotic minister did not compel him to enter upon a struggle with the misguided populace, and that on the days when the safety of national defence is at stake we cannot refine the metal of the bells which are sounding the alarm of the country in danger.
When he comes to the period when Camille Desmoulins sought to stir up a movement of opinion strong enough to stop the Terror, Jaurès speaks energetically against this attempt. He acknowledges, however, a few pages farther on, that the guillotine system could not last for ever; but Desmoulins, having succumbed, is wrong in the eyes of our humble worshipper of success. Jaurès
