[Year 2
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 marks of his tears.[1] 'I carry my head like a Saint-Sacrament?' so Saint-Just was heard to mutter: 'perhaps he will carry his like a Saint-Denis.'
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,
- ↑ Aperçus sur Camille Desmoulins (in Vieux Cordelier, Paris, 1825), pp. 1–29.
