name began to rise above the crowd, when his fame was but
slight until now, sought at this period Madame Roland's acquaintance.
All inquired what was the secret of the growing ascendency of this man?
Where he came from? Who he was? Whither he was advancing? They sought
his origin; his first appearance on the stage of the people; his first
connection with the celebrated personages of his time. They sought in
mysteries the cause of his prodigious popularity. It was pre-eminently
in his nature.

X.

Danton was not merely one of those adventurers of demagogism who rise,
like _Masaniello_, or like Hebert,[23] from the boiling scum of the
masses. He was one of the middle classes, the heart of the nation. His
family, pure, honest, of property, and industrious, ancient in name,
honourable in manners, was established at Arcis-sur-Aube, and possessed
a rural domain in the environs of that small town. It was of the number
of those modest but well-esteemed families, who have the soil for their
basis, and agriculture as their main occupation, but who give their sons
the most complete moral and literary education, and who thus prepare
them for the liberal professions of society. Danton's father died young.
His mother had married again to a manufacturer of Arcis-sur-Aube, who
had (and himself managed), a small cotton mill. There is still to be
seen near the river, without the city, in a pleasant spot, the house,
half rustic half town built, and the garden on the banks of the Aube,
where Danton's infancy was passed.

His step-father, M. Ricordin, attended to his education as he would have
done that of his own child. He was of an open communicative disposition,
and was beloved in spite of his ugliness and turbulence; for his
ugliness was radiant with intellect, and his turbulence was calmed and
repented of at the least caress of his mother. He pursued his studies at
Troyes, the capital of Champagne. Rebellious against discipline, idle at
study, beloved by his masters and fellow pupils, his rapid comprehension
kept him on an equality with the most assiduous. His instinct sufficed
without reflection. He learned nothing; he acquired all. His companions
called him Catiline--he accepted the name, and sometimes played with
them at getting up rebellions and riots, which he excited or calmed by
his harangues--as if he were repeating at school the characters of his
after life.

XI.

M. and Madame Ricordin, already advanced in years, ga