FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60  
61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   >>   >|  
h will always redeem a multitude of infirmities. Though the author of some of the most tremendous and far-sounding phrases of an epoch that was only too rich in them, yet phrases had no empire over him; he was their master, not their dupe. Of all the men who succeeded Mirabeau as directors of the unchained forces, we feel that Danton alone was in his true element. Action, which poisoned the blood of such men as Robespierre, and drove such men as Vergniaud out of their senses with exaltation, was to Danton his native sphere. When France was for a moment discouraged, it was he who nerved her to new effort by the electrifying cry, '_We must dare, and again dare, and without end dare!_' If his rivals or his friends seemed too intent on trifles, too apt to confound side issues with the central aim of the battle, Danton was ever ready to urge them to take a juster measure:--'_When the edifice is all ablaze, I take little heed of the knaves who are pilfering the household goods; I rush to put out the flames._' When base egoism was compromising a cause more priceless than the personality of any man, it was Danton who made them ashamed by the soul-inspiring exclamation, '_Let my name be blotted out and my memory perish, if only France may be free._' The Girondins denounced the popular clubs of Paris as hives of lawlessness and outrage. Danton warned them that it were wiser to go to these seething societies and to guide them, than to waste breath in futile denunciation. 'A nation in revolution,' he cried to them, in a superb figure, 'is like the bronze boiling and foaming and purifying itself in the cauldron. Not yet is the statue of Liberty cast. Fiercely boils the metal; have an eye on the furnace, or the flame will surely scorch you.' If there was murderous work below the hatches, that was all the more reason why the steersman should keep his hand strong and ready on the wheel, with an eye quick for each new drift in the hurricane, and each new set in the raging currents. This is ever the figure under which one conceives Danton--a Titanic shape doing battle with the fury of the seas, yielding while flood upon flood sweeps wildly over him, and then with unshaken foothold and undaunted front once more surveying the waste of waters, and striving with dexterous energy to force the straining vessel over the waters of the bar. La Fayette had called the huge giant of popular force from its squalid lurking-places, and now he tremble
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60  
61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Danton

 
battle
 

France

 
waters
 

figure

 

popular

 

phrases

 

Fiercely

 

statue

 

Liberty


furnace

 

surely

 
reason
 

hatches

 

steersman

 

scorch

 
cauldron
 

murderous

 
purifying
 

societies


seething
 

breath

 

outrage

 

warned

 

futile

 

denunciation

 

bronze

 

boiling

 

foaming

 

superb


nation

 

revolution

 

strong

 
dexterous
 
striving
 

energy

 

straining

 
vessel
 

surveying

 

unshaken


foothold

 

undaunted

 

lurking

 

squalid

 

places

 
tremble
 

Fayette

 
called
 

wildly

 

raging