#robespierre

Danton and Robespierre at first operate in different places — Danton at the Cordelier district and Robespierre at the Jacobin club and the National Assembly. In September 1790, Danton does however come to join the jacobins, where he soon becomes a frequent speaker. He and Robespierre often speak during the same sessions and on the same topic, such as on June 21 1791 where both swore to die for the homeland following the royal family’s flight, and July 13 and 15 of the same year when both are involved in a discussion on the king’s inviobility.

It is however not as often they are recorded to have mentioned the other’s name. The first instance of this occurs on March 30 1791, after Danton has just scolded Collot d’Herbois for having inserted praise of a newly elected minister in one of the club’s minutes while serving as secretary. According to him, someone part of the executive power can no longer be a friend of liberty, and praising someone like that is therefore only something slaves would do. Right after this, Robespierre does however step in, underlining that while he knows Danton to be a good citizen and agrees that it was wrong of Collot to insert praise, he thinks a person appointed agent of the executive power can still be a patriot. Something similar also occurs on March 4 1792, when Danton proposed the club reject a sum of 1445 livres to be donated to the soldiers of Château-vieux, considering the fact 110 of these livres had been a gift from the royal family and accepting the money would mean honoring them. Robespierre opposed this, explaining that while ”there is something true and generous in M. Danton's observations, and these observations are not unworthy of his patriotism,” they should still accept the donation, as they need to focus on the bigger picture. He had his way.

In the big discussion of war and peace that started in late November 1791, Danton and Robespierre at first stood united. On December 14 1791, both of them cautioned against war and proposed the jacobins should follow the Legislative Assembly’s discussion of it closely. Two days later, December 16, right after Brissot had held his very first speech in favour of the idea at the club, Danton, while praising the speaker as an excellent patriot, objected to the thought of a war right at the moment — ”I want us to have war; it is essential. We must have war. But above all, we have to exhaust the means that could save us from it.” Then on December 30, after Brissot had just finished his second speech on the subject, Danton and Robespierre both demanded a change be made to a passage when it got printed. Following this moment, it would however appear like Danton abandons the question. From the notes Robespierre prepared two years later, we can suspect he felt a bit abandoned, as he there accuses Danton of having ”supported [the girondins’] opinion regarding the declaration of war. Then, pressed by the reproach of patriots, whose usurped confidence he didn’t want to lose, he seemed to say a word for my defense and announced that he carefully watched the two parties and withdrew to silence.” Robespierre also claims Danton at the same time in a private meeting had told Legendre: “Since he (Robespierre) wants to ruin himself, let him ruin himself, we do not have to share his fate,” words which Legendre in his turn then had reported to Robespierre.

On May 10 1792, three weeks after war had been declared, Danton did however defend Robespierre when the latter got drowned in murmurs at the jacobins when trying to spek in favour about a motion to only let members who had payed their subsidy enter the hall:

I requested the floor for a simple point of order. The more I approve of M. Robespierre's motion, the more I believe a discussion of it would be worthwhile. M. Robespierre has never exercised anything but the despotism of reason here; it is therefore not love of the homeland, but base jealousy, indeed all the most harmful passions, that incite his adversaries against him with such violence. Well then, gentlemen, it is important for all of us to completely confound those who propose resolutions so egregious to the majesty of the people. (Applause.)

In the night between August 9 and 10 1792, the Tuileries Palace was stormed, and the following day Danton was made Minister of Justice. On August 14, we find the following letter from him to Robespierre (the first of two conserved between them), offering him a job at the Revolutionary Tribunal. As can be seen, it is written in a rather warm tone, though Danton still addresses Robespierre in vouvoiement:

I ask you, my dear friend, to do me the pleasure and to render this service to the public good, to accept a few hours of work per week in the council of justice of which I have appointed you a member. It will only be three times a week and for part of the morning that we will assemble. I have given you three colleagues worthy of you. This is not a position as a public official, but only one more way for your heart and your talents to fight the enemies of liberty and above all to follow the cause of the unfortunate.

Robespierre would however come to decline this offer, probably since he already was occupied at the Paris Commune.

Between September 2 to 6 1792, the September massacres took place in Paris. We have accounts alleging Danton and Robespierre saw each other at least twice during these fatal days. In Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution française (1797) Louis Marie Prudhomme shares the testimony of Théophile Mandar, who claimed that Robespierre in the evening of September 3 visited Danton’s house together with several other politicians to discuss what was to be done in order to save Paris from being invaded by the Prussians. In Discours de Jérôme Pétion sur l’accusation intentée contre Maximilien Robespierre (November 1792), Pétion reveals that, the next day, September 4, Danton and Robespierre showed up at town hall together, after an arrest warrant had been issued against Roland. While Danton put an end to this ”arbitrary and demented act,” Pétion and Robespierre got into an argument over Brissot that Danton at last had to break up — ”Danton became entangled in the colloquy, saying that this was not the time for arguments; that it was necessary to have all these explanations after the expulsion of the enemies; that this decisive object alone should occupy all good citizens.” Robespierre seemingly comments on this intervention in the notes he wrote less than two years later: ”Danton extremely rejected all the proposals which I had made him to crush the conspiracy and to prevent Brissot from renewing his intrigues, under the pretext that he only needed to occupy himself with war.”

Danton seems to have kept this role as mediator between Robespierre and the girondins for the rest of September as well. In J. P. Brissot, député à la Convention nationale, à tous les républicains de France; sur la société des Jacobins de Paris (October 1792) Brissot writes that before the opening of the National Convention, Danton had sought him out and explained he was trying to bring together what he called ”the parties,” adding that both he and Robespierre feared the girondins wanted to establish a federal republic. Brissot had responded this charge was false and Danton brought that information back to Robespierre, without it easing the latter’s suspicion. In Deuxième lettre de Maximilien Robespierre en réponse au second discours de Jérôme Petion (December 1792), Robespierre also reminded Pétion that he had been unable to ”fulfill the commitment you had made with a very well-known man in the republic, to meet that day, at his home, to dine, with me, for an object which essentially concerned public harmony.” Finally, in his notes against Danton, Robespierre reports about a meeting at Pétion’s house around the same time where he was given ”an explanation of the projects of Brissot,” and where ”Fabre and Danton reunited with Pétion in order to certify the innocence of their views.” 

During the same early September days, the elections for the new National Convention began. Robespierre and Danton rounded up as first respectively second deputy of Paris elected to it. In his notes against the dantonists, Robespierre recalls how he had opposed the nomination of Philippe Égalité, but when he had spoken to Danton about it, the latter had instead argued that the nomination of a of blood prince would render the National Convention more impressive to the rest of Europe. To that, Robespierre had replied that there would be even more impressive if he wasn’t nominated at all, but he was unable to convince his colleague.

Danton’s reconciliation attempts had been in vain, as the hostilty between girondins and montagnards showed up almost immediately after the opening of the Convention on September 21. There, Danton, Robespierre and Marat were soon met with attacks of forming a so called ”triumvirate” and having masterminded the September massacres together. They all denied this to have been the case. Danton and Robespierre did however come to adapt the same view of the massacres as a tragic neccessity, on February 4 1793 Robespierre is recorded to have ”[recalled] what Danton said about the days of September 2nd and 3rd, and he proves that they were the necessary continuation of the memorable August 10th.”

They also continued to back each other up at the Convention and jacobin club. On September 25, Robespierre supported a motion put forward by Danton that proposed the death penalty for anyone wanting to destroy the unity of France. On October 28, he held a speech at the jacobins in which he called Danton ”[a deputy] known for the great services he has rendered the Revolution.” After the speech was over, Danton, who presided over the session, ordered for it to be sent not only to the sister clubs but to ”all interested parties.” One day later, October 29, when girondin Louvet came forward with a prepared denounciation speech against Robespierre, shouting ”It is I who accuse you!” Danton stepped in and told the president to ”please allow the speaker to continue, and I too will request the floor after him, it is time to sort all of this out.” Finally, in number 1 (September-October 1792) of his new journal Lettres de Maximilien Robespierre à ses commettans, Robespierre wrote that ”[Danton’s] talent is perfectly complemented by the strength of his voice and his athletic vigor.”

In her memoirs (1834), Charlotte Robespierre tells us her brother and Danton, while never super close, had ”good friendly relations” with each other, even if the big differences in their personalities meant they were held together only by ”love for the homeland.” Charlotte claims to have witnessed their discussions on several occasions — ”they conversed with a great outpouring of their hearts; their conversations almost always focused on the republic” — and that the trial of the dethroned Louis XVI which started on December 3 1793 occupied them a great deal, with the two concerting ”that the monarch who had betrayed France with such perfidy could not enjoy impunity, and would receive the punishment for his crimes.” In his notes against Danton, Robespierre does however contradict his sister somewhat, claiming instead that Danton ”didn’t want the death of the tyrant; he wanted that one settled for banishing him,” and that it was only the force of public opinion that determined him to on January 16 1793 vote for death regardless.

If Robespierre was annoyed by Danton’s political conduct, he did however let that drop when on February 10 1793, Danton’s wife Gabrielle died in childbirth. Five days later, he addressed the following letter to his friend, easily the most sentimental of those contained in Correspondance inédite de Maximilien et Augustin Robespierre (1910), and also the first in which Robespierre addresses someone with tutoiement instead of vouvoiement:

My dear Danton, In this sorrow that alone can break a heart such as yours, if the assurance that you have a tender and devoted friend offers any consolation, then I give it. I love you more than ever, until death. In this moment, I am you. Do not close your heart to an expression of friendship that feels all your pain. Let us weep for our friends and let our deep grief defeat the tyrants who are the cause of all our misfortunes, public and private. I would have come to see you except for the respect in which I hold your first moments of grief.  Embrace your friend,  Robespierre

If this letter implies Robespierre had frequented Danton’s house and met his family, the opposite would not appear to have been the case. In her memoirs, Élisabeth Duplay Le Bas, the youngest daughter in Robespierre’s host family, writes the first time she ever saw Danton was in the spring of 1793. If we’re to believe Barras’ memoirs, Danton had however nicknamed Élisabeth’s sister Éléonore ”Cornélie Copeau, the Cornelia who is not the mother of the Gracchi" which on the other hand implies he knew Robespierre’s host family somewhat.

In February 1793, Danton went on a mission to Belgium together which Delacroix. They were back in Paris again by early March. On March 10, Robespierre praised their efforts at the Convention:

Remember, citizens, that the Minister of War was misled by the generals' dispatches; remember that if Lacroix and Danton had not come here to reveal important secrets to you, you would still be in profound ignorance of what was happening in Belgium.

In the same intervention, Robespierre asked for an act of accusation to be issued against Stengel, a general deemed responsible for the Austrian taking of  Aldenhoven on March 1. Right after him, Danton did however intervene to propose Stengel and another general only be sent to be held accountable before the Convention.

On March 26 1793, Robespierre and Danton were both elected for the so called Commission of Public Safety, alongside 23 others. The commission, which consisted of both fervent montagnards and fervent girondins, was however off to a rocky start, and already on April 6 it was put to death and replaced by the Committee of Public Safety.

On April 1, Robespierre accused the girondins of ”want[ing] to deprive us of all means of loyal defense” by ”slander[ing] the patriots and blam[ing] them for all the attacks they are plotting.” He pointed to Danton as an example:

Danton was accused, a pretext was found to slander him because he was too credulous, because he did not take it upon himself to bring charges against Dumouriez, and attempts were made to extend suspicion to all citizens who shared Danton's civic spirit. I must also inform you that, at this very moment, rumors are circulating that the Committee of General Security has arrested Danton. You know with what superiority this patriot crushed his enemies. You know with what energy he uplifted all souls.

On April 10, about two weeks after Dumouriez’s defection, Robespierre excused Danton’s earlier praise of the general, saying that ”it is not surprising that an army commissioner could have been deceived for a moment about Dumouriez’s plans, whom he only saw in his official capacity, in the midst of his army.” Two days later, April 12, he praised him again at the jacobin club:

Danton spoke with a superiority of reason and eloquence that uplifted the spirits of all who heard him, and proposed infallible measures for the public good. Danton proposed placing a price on the heads of the Bourbons, the former Monsieur, and indeed all traitors; he requested that the question raised to destroy one of the most ardent defenders of liberty be referred back to the Committee of Legislation.

The day after that, April 13, Robespierre proposed decreeing the death penalty for anyone who wished to negotiate with the enemy, and was supported by Danton, who nevertheless also underlined this decree could not be given the ”scope which its author did not intend to attribute to it.” He therefore proposed the decree state that ”the death penalty is decreed against anyone who who proposes that the Republic compromise with enemies who, as a preliminary step, do not recognize the sovereignty of the people.” This proposal carried through. 

Charlotte Robespierre writes in her memoirs that her brother and Danton eventually ”turned all their energies against [the girondins]; I heard them say that if they did not finish promptly with the faction of the Gironde, the revolution would miscarry.” But in his notes, Robespierre disagrees, writing instead that from September 1792 and forward, ”one complained in vain to Danton and to Fabre about the Girondin faction: they argued that there was no faction and that all was the result of vanity and of personal animosities.” Indeed, on 12 April 1793, two days after Robespierre had held a long speechdenouncing the girondins and calling for Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné and Guadet to be brought to trial, Danton openly declared that ”while recognizing the views and justice of Robespierre, I would not have made the denunciation he threw in this Assembly. […] Robespierre’s denounciation was founded on nothing but political views.” Nevertheless, when things started to get heated on May 27 and Robespierre was refused the floor at the Convention, Danton stood up for him and exclaimed: ”I declare in my own name, and I will sign this declaration, that the refusal to allow Robespierre to speak is a cowardly tyranny!”

When the insurrection of May 31 actually rolled around, Robespierre’s notes claim Danton reacted with ”horror” to it, and that he even had ”sought to abort it or to turn it against liberty,” by asking for the head of the general Hanriot whose troops had been the ones to surround the Convention (I have not found any basis for this last charge). He did however still respect the other man enough to praise and defend him before the Jacobin club on August 5 1793, after Danton had recently faced attacks from the ”énragés”:

Robespierre says that new men, patriots of a day, want to lose the people's oldest friends. He cites Danton as an example, whom they slander; Danton, against whom no one has the right to raise the slightest reproach; Danton, whom they will only discredit after proving they have more energy, talent, or love of country. I do not intend to identify with him here to elevate either of us; I cite him only as an example.

In the middle of September 1793, Danton left Paris for his country house in Arcis-sur-Aube. Illness was the official reason, but according to Dominique-Joseph Garat, anguish over what was soon to happen with the girondins also played a role. In Memoirs of the revolution; or, an apology for my conduct, in the public employments which I have held (1795), Garat recalls going home to Danton and finding him sick. ”It only took me two minutes to see that his illness was above all a deep pain and a great dismay at everything that was coming. ”I won't be able to save them”, were the first words out of his mouth, and, as he uttered them, big tears strolled down his face.” Garat claims he later also went to discuss the upcoming girondin trial with Robespierre, who on the other hand showed no signs of mercy or empathy. In his own notes, Robespierre would indeed go on to accuse Danton of having ”made every effort in order to save Brissot and his accomplices. He opposed their punishment.”

In late November, Danton was back in Paris, where he soon started making some small suggestions to be more moderate with ”the terror” — on on November 22, he told the Convention ”I ask that the blood of men be spared; I ask that you do not lose the means of going home to your enemies, and conciliating them,” on November 26, he proclaimed that ”the people want terror to be the order of the day; but it wants it to be carried out against the real enemies of the Republic, and against them alone,” and on December 1 he warned that ”any man who makes himself ultra-revolutionary will render results as dangerous as determined counter-revolution.” But on December 3, after he at the jacobin club objected to an idea to send a group with a guillotine to Seine-Inférieure in order to deal with rebels fleeing the Vendée and arguing this was going beyond ”the limits of the revolution,” he was met by objections from Coupé d’Oise, who argued that the club must not listen to ”proposals tending to diminish the vigor of the revolutionary movement.” In response, Danton made a long speech defending his patriotism, ending by asking a commission be set up to look over his conduct. After that, Robespierre mounted the tribune as well and spoke for long about his feelings for the other man. Due to way he begins it, some historians have erroneously come to believe it is a denounciation, but it is in fact a rigid defence:

I ask you to make your charges against him more specific. No one speaks? Well then, in that case I will do it. Danton! You (tu) are accused of having emigrated; they say that you went to Switzerland; that your illness was feigned in order to conceal your flight from the people; they say that your ambition was to be regent under Louis XVII; that at a certain date everything had been prepared for proclaiming it; that you were the chief of the conspiracy; that neither Pitt, nor Coburg, nor England, nor Austria, nor Prussia was our real enemy, but that you alone were, that the Mountain was composed of your accomplices, that we should not concern ourselves with the agents sent by foreign powers; that the conspiracies were fables that should be despised; in short, that he must be slayed.

The Convention knows that I have disagreed with Danton; that, at the time of Dumouriez's betrayals, my suspicions preceded his. I reproached him then for not being more incensed by that monster. I reproached him for not having pursued Brissot and his accomplices with sufficient speed, and I swear that these are the only reproaches I made to him... 

Danton! Don't you know that the more courage and patriotism a man possesses, the more the enemies of the public good strive for his downfall? Don't you know, and don't all of you know, citizens, that this method is infallible? And who are these slanderers? Men who appear free from vice [sic], and who have never shown any virtue. Ah! If the defender of liberty were not slandered, it would be proof that we would no longer have priests or nobles to fight. The enemies of the homeland seem to heap praise upon me exclusively; but I reject it. Do you think that alongside these praises recounted in certain newspapers, I don't see the knife with which they tried to slaughter the homeland?

From the very beginning of the Revolution, I learned to distrust all masks. The cause of the patriots is one, like that of tyranny; they are all united. I may be mistaken about Danton; but, as a family man, he deserves nothing but praise. In political matters, I observed him: a difference of opinion between him and me made him scrutinize him carefully, sometimes angrily; and, if he did not always agree with me, would I conclude that he betrayed his homeland? No; I saw him always serve it zealously.

Danton wants to be judged. He's right, let me be judged too. Let them come forward, these men who are more patriotic than we are! I wager they're nobles, privileged men! You'll find a marquis there, and you'll have a true measure of the patriotism of these emphatic accusers. When I saw the slanderous attacks directed against the patriots, when I saw Danton being accused of having emigrated, I realized that the aristocratic, or falsely patriotic, newspapers had long since spread this news. They had announced that his illness was fake, that it was merely the pretext for his emigration, and the means to achieve it. I had to place all the other calumnies directed against Danton on the same level. This is how you yourselves judged them, and I ask these good patriots to unite, to no longer allow Danton to be denigrated in groups, in cafés. It is evident that Danton has been slandered; but I declare that I see in this one of the most important threads of the plot woven against all patriots. I declare to the aristocrats that soon we will know them all, and perhaps this last piece of information was missing from our discoveries. We have it. Furthermore, I ask that everyone, like me, frankly say what they think about Danton. It is here that the truth must be told above all; it can only be honorable to him; but, in any case, the whole club must know it.

After Robespierre was finished, Merlin de Thionville picked up his suggestion everyone should say what they truly thought about Danton, hailing him as a patriot and saviour of the revolution. Other than him, no one else spoke up, and Momoro concluded this meant no one had anything to accuse him of. The session therefore ended with Danton getting drowned in applause and embraced by Fourcroy, the current president of the club.

What gets Robespierre to completely change his opinion of Danton sometime following this session is harder to figure out than what one at first might think. If we look at interventions made by the two at the jacobins and the Convention in the weeks that follow, no big ideological differences between them can be spotted. They get into no public arguments, and instead appear rather united in urging their fellow deputies and jacobins to stand together, trust in the government committees, and not be led astray either by ”moderation” or ”extremism.” On December 21, none other than Hébert exclaimed to the jacobins: ”There are two men who have all my esteem and all my confidence: Danton and Robespierre, the two columns of the Revolution. […] Let them be alone, they will be great, and may they crush with us these reptiles which have vowed to lose liberty!” Hébert asked that the two not allow themselves to be mislead by Fabre d’Églantine, Philippeaux and Desmoulins, whom he called ”pygmies who want to rise in the shadow of their patriotism.” Indeed, Robespierre and Danton can at first been seen taking a rather similar stance on these men (who three months later will of course get labeled as Danton’s accomplices and executed alongside him) as well. Already two days later, on December 23, both of them intervened in the Jacobins’ tumultuous discussion about Philippeaux’s recent publication Philippeaux, représentant du peuple, au Comité de salut public, a critique of the French army’s brutality in the war in the Vendée. Neither did however try to defend or denounce the writer, instead just limiting themselves to asking that the debate be kept calm. Two weeks later, January 71794, Desmoulins and Robespierre got into an argument at the Jacobins after the latter had denounced the fifth number of Desmoulins’ new journal Vieux Cordelier as counter-revolutionary, but insisting that its author had been ”led astray by bad company,” and therefore proposing that the Society forgive him and ”just” burn the latest numbers. When Desmoulins refused that ultimatum, the fight worsened until Danton stepped in, again not to defend the accused or his writings, but rather to call for calm and act as meditator:

Danton: Camille mustn’t be frightened by the rather severe lessons Robespierre’s friendship has just given him. Citizens, let justice and cold-headedness always preside over our decisions. In judging Camille, be careful to not strike a deadly blow against liberty of the press

Robespierre did however reflect negatively on this intervention in his notes, writing that Danton had ”dared, at the Jacobins, to demand in [the numbers’] favour the liberty of the press, when I proposed for them the honours of burning.”

The notes also reveal another moment that soured Robespierre’s opinion of Danton. It took place after Fabre d’Églantine on January 13 got arrested for his involvement in the East India Company scandal. The very same day, Danton spoke about this recent development at the Convention. While agreeing to issuing an act of accusation against Fabre and the three other deputies entangled in the same affair, he at the same time proposed it wouldn’t hurt for the defendants to be brought down and heard in front of the Convention. Then on February 2 1794, when Voulland, in the name of the Committee of General Security, suggested releasing the ”hébertists” Ronsin and Vincent, who had been kept imprisoned since December 17, Danton applauded  this move, calling Ronsin and Vincent ”revolutionary veterans who, by public admission, have rendered constant services to liberty,” but followed this up with claiming to have been motivated by the same principles when asking that Fabre and the others be let out to defend themselves a month earlier — ”I defend Ronsin and Vincent against prejudice, just as I will defend Fabre and my other colleagues, as long as no one has carried into my soul a conviction contrary to the opinion I have of them.” 

Shortly thereafter, Robespierre fell ill, and did not show up in public again until March 13. The following night, the ”hébertists” were arrested, and on March 24 they would be executed. Around the same time, there were attempts to bring Robespierre and Danton together to sort out their differences. It would appear word of these meetings got out on the street relatively quickly. Already on April 23 1794, the Swedish newspaper Götheborgs Allehanda does for example report that ”A strange thing has been said, that Robespierre and Danton a few hours before the arrest of the latter had spoken and embraced each other, even though Robespierre had already decided on his fate, and the latter the next day had planned to deliver a big motion against the latter at the Convention.” More detailed accounts of these meetings, of which there were at least two, did however not surface until after thermidor.

In Principaux évènemens, pour et contre la Révolution, dont les détails ont été ignorés jusqu’à présent: et prédiction de Danton au Tribunal révolutionnaire, accomplie (1794) Louis-Marie Villain d’Aubigny reports about a meeting that took place a fortnight before Danton’s death, at the house of Humbert, head of the office of foreign relations. Convention deputies Legendre and Panis, minister of foreign affairs Deforgnes, administrator of military subsistence Jeannet Boursier, secretary general of the same administration Saintin, Villain d’Aubigny himself, and ”several other people” were also present. Arriving at the house, d’Aubigny writes he told Danton and Robespierre, who had both come before him, that their misunderstanding, which couldn’t be grounded in anything but self-love, jealousy or wounded pride, caused harm to the homeland. Danton then took to the floor and regretted that Robespierre had shown himself so indifferent towards him for a time, suspecting this was due to ”the intrigues and the hatred that several members of the Committee of Public Safety have dedicated to me, notably Messieurs Saint-Just and Billaud-Varennes,” and also to the gossip Robespierre’s constantly surrounded with, which ”fills his imagination with a thousand chimeras, by maintaining him only with conspiracies, the guillotine, poison and daggers ready to tear his chest.” He therefore encouraged Robespierre to ”reveal the intrigue, unite with the patriots [and] all walk in good faith, on the same path, […] punish the culprits, the leaders, but pardon error,” while also ensuring him he had not increased his fortune due to the revolution. Robespierre, who up until this point had stayed silent, now opened his mouth and asked Danton: ”But with your principles and your morale, would one ever find culprits to punish?” To this, Danton replied: ”Would you be angry, Robespierre, if there were no culprits to punish?” After this, the reconciliation was seemingly complete and the two embraced. Villain d’Aubigny notes that Danton ”put frankness into it” while Robespierre ”remained cold like marble.”

Legendre, one of the people Villain d’Aubigny designates as having been present for this meeting, seemingly confirmed it when he on March 23 1795 told the Convention about ”a dinner where I had found myself together with Robespierre and Danton. The first told him that the republic could only be established on the corpses of the 73. Danton replied that he would oppose their torture. Robespierre replied that he saw clearly that he was the leader of the indulgent faction.” This could also be the same meeting Billaud-Varennes is referring to when he on August 28 1794 told the same Convention that ”the day before Robespierre consented to abandon [Danton], they had been together in the countryside, four leagues from Paris, and had returned in the same carriage.” The journalist Louis Sébastien Mercier also talks about it in his l’Histoire générale et impartiale des erreurs, des fautes et des crimes commis pendant la Révolution française (1797), claiming that Robespierre, who never got drunk, nevertheless had a lot of champagne during the dinner, and that once he left, Danton exclaimed: ”Fuck! We must show ourselves, there is not a moment to lose.” But these might just be embellishments.

Robespierre mentions a different meeting in his notes against the indulgents, that would have taken place at his house and included him, Danton and the Convention deputy Laignelot, who kept ”stubbornly silent” throughout the whole interview. It is however less clear if this too was a planned meeting mutually agreed upon, or if Danton just unexpectedly showed up at Robespierre’s house. Regardless, Robespierre writes that Danton during this visit talked about Desmoulins ”with contempt,” attributing ”his deviances” to ”a vice that is private and shameful, but absolutely foreign to the Revolution.” Danton also made an effort to cry, that apparently turned out to be ”powerless and ridiculous.” This could be the same meeting Convention deputy Duhem is referring to, when he on October 22 1794 told the jacobins that, ”four days before his arrest, Danton had another meeting with Maximilien about their conspiracy.” That would give us a date for this encounter as well.

Exactly when Robespierre set to work on the notes on Danton and the other ”indulgents” and thereby fully committed himself to the idea of bringing them on trial is of course hard to pinpoint exactly, but given the scope of the notes, as well as the fact Saint-Just would have needed time to convert them into an act of accusation, I think the middle of March 1794, shortly after the dinner Villain d’Aubigny describes, is a probable starting point. The notes deal both with Fabre, Desmoulins, Delacroix, Hérault and Westermann, portraying them as belonging to a faction whose collective goal had been to ”seize power and to oppress liberty by aristocracy in order to give France a tyrant.” The bulk of the notes are however about Danton, who, along with Fabre, gets designated as the leader of the faction. Robespierre also writes Danton had had considerable influence over the works of both Desmoulins and Philippeaux, though without citing any proof.

The picture Robespierre’s notes otherwise paints of Danton is that of an immoral man who has in fact been a false patriot since day one of the revolution, and whose supposed reputation for civism has been built on nothing but ”the work of intrigue.” Danton has ”never defended a single patriot, never attacked a single conspirator,” ”chosen retreat in all crises,” and come across ”no liberticide measure which he hadn’t adopted.” Among the more concrete things Robespierre accused him of included having been too soft on the girondins and always willing to hold out an olive branch to them, having wanted an amnesty for ”all guilty people,” and having enriched Fabre with 10 000 francs from the treasury while serving as Minister of Justice. He also assigned him part of the blame for the massacre on Champ-de-Mars due to having been the editor behind the petition presented there alongside Brissot, as well as for not having had his back enough during the time of the Convention: ”Robespierre was accused; he didn’t say a single word if it wasn’t for isolating himself from him.” A lot of the other charges Robespierre directs at Danton are things that, it should be said, could just as easily be used against himself. For example, he accuses Danton of having been ”seduced” by Mirabeau when it was he himself who had suggested putting the latter’s body in the Panthéon on April 3 1791, of being a false friend to Desmoulins by first praising the Vieux Cordelier and then speaking ill of the author in private, when he too had encouraged Desmoulins to keep write the journal on December 14 1793 only to then turn his back on him a month later (and, it should perhaps be underlined, is writing this charge while at the same time working out Desmoulins’ actual indictment), of having wanted to sleep through the Insurrection of August 10, when he is not recorded to have played any active role in it either, and of along with Lacroix getting a decree passed abolishing slavery on February 4 1794, when he too had lobbied for abolishing it back in 1791.

Finally, Robespierre also threw shade on Danton’s moral qualities, claiming he surrounded himself with ”rascals” and tolerated ”vicious living,” had quipped that public opinion is a whore and posterity a folly, that his most solid virtue was the one which he practiced with his wife every night, and that what rendered their cause weak was the fact that the severity of their principles frightened a lot of people. 

Robespierre then handed these notes over to Saint-Just, who began constructing an act of accusation with the title Rapport sur la confirmation ourdie pour obtenir un changement de dynastie. After finishing the first draft, Saint-Just handed it back to Robespierre, who  annotated it and suggested some additions. 

On March 20, six days after the arrest of the ”hébertists” and four days before their execution, Robespierre warned the Convention this would not be the end of the political killings: ”It is true that a faction which wanted to tear the fatherland apart is about to expire; but the other has not been defeated.” The next day, March 21, he declared that ”the Convention is determined to save the people by crushing at the same time all the factions that threaten liberty.” After that, he kept silent for ten whole days, speaking neither at the jacobins nor the Convention, but remaining active at the Committee of Public Safety.

On March 30 1794, Robespierre, alongside seventeen others, signed the arrest warrant for deputies Danton, Desmoulins, Philippeaux and Delacroix. If we’re to believe the pamphlet À Maximilien Robespierre aux enfers (1794) by Taschereau de Fargues and Paul-Auguste-Jacques (who in their turn claimed to have gotten the anecdote from Committee of General Security member Vadier), Robespierre and Saint-Just had wanted the implicated men to be present in the Convention when the report against them got read, after which they would be arrested, fearing that arresting them beforehand was an approach that ”sooner or later would be seen as reprehensible.” Their colleagues did however manage to convince that would be too risky of a move to make.

If stories about Danton and Robespierre meeting in the weeks preceeding Danton’s arrest is something we’re far from lacking, there’s even more anecdotes about Danton being warned of his upcoming arrest and doing nothing about it. Antoine-Clair Thibaudeau claimed in his memoirs (1827) to on March 24 or 25 have exclaimed to Danton: ”Your carelessness surprises me, I understand nothing of your apathy. Don’t you see Robespierre is conspiring to lose you? Won’t you do nothing to prevent it?” To that, Danton would have angrily replied: ”If I thought that he has so much as thought about it, I would eat his entrails!” In Histoire de la Révolution française: 1789-1796 (1851) Nicolas Villiaumé also claims that Albertine Marat, having been informed of the signing of the arrest through ”the indiscretion of an employee of the Committee of Public Safety,” went to warn Danton in the middle of the Convention, encouraging him to mount the rostrum. Danton says: ”I would have to proscribe them, because I know Billaud and Robespierre: they are relentless,” to which Albertine responds: ”But since they want your head, take, if necessary, theirs, remember that, without you, Robespierre will very quickly be swallowed up himself. […] If he abandons you, his friend, you, the man of August 10, he is only a villain; he must perish. Collect your thoughts for an hour, and mount the rostrum: change the committees; proscribe them if necessary.” Nevertheless, Danton didn’t do anything, choosing instead to calmly hand himself over to the guards who in the night between March 30 and March 31 came to take him to the Luxembourg prison.

In the morning of March 31, as news of the nightly arrests started to spread, the deputy Delmas mounted the rostrum of the Convention and asked that the members of the two government committees be invited to immediately present themselves there, a proposal which was adopted. Legendre then followed, asking that before any report was read the four arrested deputies should be taken there as well so that they could explain themselves and be either accused or absolved by the Convention — ”Citizens, I declare that I think Danton to be as pure as myself, and I don't think anyone can accuse me of an act that offends the most scrupulous integrity…” When Legendre’s proposal was drowned in murmurs, president Tallien called for order, evoking liberty of opinion, and Legendre could keep talking, reminding the Convention of Danton’s past services and warning them that they were making a mistake. Immediately after this, Fayau opposed Legendre’s motion, citing the fact one should not look at people’s past action but at what they are doing here and now. After him, Robespierre took to the floor and firmly cemented that none of what Legendre had suggested would be happening, and that this was ”a question of knowing whether the interests of a few ambitious hypocrites should prevail over the interests of the French people.” Robespierre did not shy away from admitting he had once been close with the now imprisoned Danton, but that such bonds meant nothing once someone proved themselves to be an enemy (Moniteur, number 192, page 775-776):

…People wrote to me, Danton's friends sent me letters, obsessed me with their speeches. They believed that the memory of an old liaison, that an ancient faith in false virtues, would determine me to slow down my zeal and my passion for freedom. Well, I declare that none of these motives have touched my soul with the slightest impression. I declare that if it were true that the dangers of Danton were to become mine, that if they had made the aristocracy take one more step to reach me, I would not regard this circumstance as a public calamity. […]  I used to be a friend of Pétion, as soon as he was unmasked I abandoned him. I also had liasons with Roland, he betrayed us and I abandoned him. Danton wants to take their place, in my eyes he’s nothing but an enemy of the homeland.

Robespierre had his way, and two days later, April 2, Danton and the other indulgents got transferred from the Luxembourg prison to the Conciergerie in time for their trial to begin. If we’re to believe Honoré Riouffe, him too kept imprisoned in the Conciergerie, Danton was heard making many bild statements to his fellow prisoners, among them:  ”What proves Robespierre is a Nero, is that he never spoke as kindly to Desmoulins as on the day before his arrest.” (Mémoires d’un detenu pour servir à l’histoire de la tyrannie de Robespierre (1795), page 88)

On April 3, the second day of the trial, Danton was allowed to defend himself. According to number 22of the tribunal’s official journal Bulletin du tribunal révolutionnaire, one of the very first things he stated after being given the floor was: ”I must talk about three flat rascals that have lost Robespierre.” The famous claim that Danton after having been sentenced to death on April 5 muttered to his fellow convicts: ”If only I could leave my legs to Couthon and my balls to Robespierre, the committee might go on for some time” would however appear to not be that well backed up. The same thing can be said of the idea that Danton shouted something threatening to Robespierre when the tumbril passed by his window on the way to the guillotine, a scene that shows up in several 19th century works but which no contemporary source can attest to.

The very same day Danton got executed, Robespierre was at the jacobins, concluding that ”an event of interest to liberty” had just taken place, and that ”the sublime operations of the Convention have once again saved the homeland.” The same session, he also got Dufourny expelled from the club, accusing him among other things of having feigned an illness and reminding him that ”Fabre d’Eglantine and Danton did the same thing, both of them thought they could close our eyes by speaking about their bad temperament.” One month later, May 7, he mentions Danton’s name yet again, this time in his big report on religious and moral ideas and national holidays. A bit into the speech, Robespierre starts talking about former faction chiefs — Lafayette, Brissot, Hébert and Danton — that the government has stopped. But while the first three get away with rather simplistic descriptions of their misdeeds, Danton gets a longer and more passionate one:

Danton, the most dangerous of the enemies of the homeland, if he had not been the most cowardly; Danton, sparing all crimes, linked to all plots, promising protection to the scoundrels, loyalty to the patriots; skilled at explaining his betrayals by pretexts of public good, at justifying his vices by his supposed defects, had his friends indict, in an insignificant or favorable manner, the conspirators close to consummating the ruin of the Republic, to have the opportunity to defend them himself; compromised with Brissot, corresponded with Ronsin, encouraged Hébert, and arranged at all times to profit equally from their fall or their successes, and to rally all the enemies of liberty against the republican government. […] Danton, who smiled with pity at the words virtue, glory, posterity; Danton, whose system was to debase that which can elevate the soul; Danton, who was cold and mute in the greatest dangers to liberty, spoke after them with great vehemence in favor of the same opinion.

Three weeks later, May 25, Robespierre expelled Alexandre Rousselin from the Jacobin club after accusing him, among other things, of during Danton’s trial having sought to ”divert attention from this scoundrel, by holding a dangerous speech, and having been sent to make it by Minister Paré, friend of Danton.” The suspicion towards men who had previously been allied with Danton can also be seen in the private notes on five different Convention deputies Robespierre jotted down somewhere after the passing of the Law of 22 Prairial on June 10 1794. Two of these, Thuriot and Delmas, get accused of in different ways having tried to save Danton after the latter’s arrest.

In the tumult that followed when Robespierre a month later was himself overthrown, Billaud-Varennes  is recorded to have exclaimed: ”the first time I denounced Danton to the committee, Robespierre rose like a madman and declared that he saw my intentions, that I wanted to lose the best patriots.” (Moniteur, number 311, page 1272) Billaud did however not specify exactly when this denounciation had taken place, nor if he had suggested to actually arrest and execute Danton or just that the committee ought to keep an eye on him.

Number 573 (July 29 1794) of the journal Annales patriotiques et littéraires de la France, et affaires politiques de l'Europe also records an unknown deputy to have shot back ”You didn’t want us to hear Danton” after Robespierre had exclaimed: ”So I will never have the floor.”

The famous claim that someone would have shouted ”The blood of Danton chokes you!” to Robespierre, whereupon the latter would have replied ”So it is Danton you want to avenge. Cowards, why didn’t you defend him?!” does however, interestingly enough, not show up in any minutes documenting the session in question. According to 9-thermidor.com, its first attested apperence is in fact from a whole year later, when the pamphlet Histoire de la conjuration de Maximilien Robespierre(1795) attributes it to the deputy Garnier de l'Aube and has it go as follows: ”You’re not going to speak, the blood of Danton is falling back on your head, it flows into your mouth, it chokes you!” No alleged reply from Robespierre is included. The idea that some of Robespierre’s last recorded words were about Danton does in other words appear to be just as much of a myth as the idea some of Danton’s last words were about Robespierre…

Contemporary descriptions of the relationship that I could not fit in anywhere else 

Danton and Robespierre were linked by the knots of an apparent friendship: they esteemed each others’ talents. Causes secrètes de la révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor (1794) by Joachim Vilate