ng
been displaced, and, stating that he is too young to command with any
authority at Strasbourg, requests to be reinstated with the army in the
field. "Impossible," replies Servan; "your place is given to another."
Thereupon one of the personages present, with a peculiar visage and a
rough voice, takes him aside and says to him: "Servan is a fool! Come
and see me to-morrow and I will arrange the matter." "Who are you?" "I
am Danton, the Minister of Justice."--The next day he calls on Danton,
who tells him: "It is all right; you shall have your post back--not
under Kellerman, however, but under Dumouriez; are you content?" The
young man, delighted, thanks him. Danton resumes: "Let me give you one
piece of advice before you go: You have talent and will succeed. But get
rid of one fault. You talk too much. You have been in Paris twenty-four
hours, and already you have repeatedly criticized the affair of
September. I know this; I have been informed of it" "But that was a
massacre; how can one help calling it horrible?" "I did it," replies
Danton, "The Parisians are all so many j--f--. A river of blood had
to flow between them and the emigres. You are too young to understand
these matters. Return to the army; it is the only place nowadays for a
young man like you and of your rank. You have a future before you; but
mind this--keep your mouth shut!"]

[Footnote 3151: Hua, 167.. Narrative by his guest, the physician Lambry,
an intimate friend of Danton ultra-fanatical and member of a committee
in which the question came up whether the members of the "Right" should
likewise be put out of the way. "Danton had energetically repelled this
sanguinary proposal. 'Everybody knows,' he said, 'that I do not shrink
from a criminal act when necessary; but I disdain to commit a useless
one."']

[Footnote 3152: Mortimer-Ternaux, Iv. 437. Danton exclaims, in relation
to the hot-headed commissioners sent by him into the department: "Eh!
damn it, do you suppose that we would send you young ladies?"]

[Footnote 3153: Philippe de Segur, "Memoires,"I.12. Danton, in a
conversation with his father, a few weeks after the 2nd of September.]

[Footnote 3154: See above, narrative of the king, louis Philippe.]

[Footnote 3155: Buchez et Roux, xvii. 347. The words of Danton in the
National Assembly, Sept. 2nd a little before two o'clock, just as the
tocsin and cannon gave the signal of alarm agreed upon. Already on
the 31st of August, Tailien, his f