“The Revolution is like Saturn, devouring all of its children” (Danton).

These words uttered by Georges Danton before his own decapitation in Danton would encapsulate the message of the film: as the French Revolution lost control self-control, it turned on its most important revolutionaries and on itself. Andrez Wajda correctly defined the downfall of the popular Revolution, stemming from the rescinding of prevalent values leading to a government almost as detested as the old Regime and ending with the deaths of the politically outspoken. The heroes of the revolution died for expressing the freedoms they had fought for, with the death of Danton and his moderate supporters the last in a series of political executions that would capitulate a year of gruesome violence by the Committee of Public Safety. Instead of embracing the liberties that many had died for in the early years of the Revolution, the Terror fell back on ideology reminiscent of the ancien regime, oppressing dissenting opinions, destroying personal liberties, and most importantly, betraying the will of the people.

An important dilemma presented in the film Danton is Danton’s seemingly inability to act while faced with the possibility that the only way to bring about the end of the tyrannical Committees reign is with his own head. He foresaw his death by the hands of the Tribunal, describing a future for France controlled by a hollow revolutionary government run by “mediocre bureaucrats”. In his eyes, the Terror was bringing about the end of the Revolution, and he realized that his own death would signify the end of a revolutionary era. Uncertain of the intentions of his political allies and equally distrustful of Robespierre, Danton cornered himself into a position of inaction, desiring only a change that would end, not continue, the bloodshed that had torn apart the country. Danton is the embodiment of what was good and bad of the Revolution: he was an instrumental part of August 10th and was a voice and a source of hope for the people whom for so long had been repressed, yet exploited the Revolution for his own financial gains and forgot what it was like to be a common person. Instead of remembering his constitutients, he became more concerned with the prestige and power that had been afforded him after his brave efforts. Yet his rational and popular opinions would still be supported by the sans-culottes, specifically through his newspaper. The Committee and an equally-image consumed Robespierre detested Danton for the effect he would have on the Committee’s future. Personal grudges became lethal tools in the corrupted Revolutionary government, and the political rational that had made him a hero, would soon lead to his death. In many ways, his foreseen death was guided by a fate to end the Revolution with the people who had started it, and thus with the last great hero, the hope and the belief that the public had once had for the Revolution.
Maximilien Robespierre realizes the futility of even bringing Danton to trial, quipping that regardless of the outcome of the Dantonists’ trial, the Revolution was doomed. If Danton is found guilty and killed, the National Convention loses its last remaining national symbol; if he defeats the tribunal that he helped create, there would be no order and no way to institute the Constitution of 1792. This lose-lose situation is a common folly for Robespierre. He comes across as the man stuck in between heaven and hell, fighting for ideals that are “in the clouds” while making decisions equal to an authoritarian dictator. He desires a world of equality and justice while creating a situation of cruelty, demagogy, and suspicion. In his Report on the Principles of Political Morality, he cries out that the time for the true Republic to emerge is nearing but seems desperate to hold onto the power that previous but then eliminated crises facing the revolutionary government. He inadvertently speaks of his own blunders and his near tyrannical rule saying that “Let tyranny reign for a single day, and on the morrow not one patriot will be left” (375). Robespierre became the tyrannical leader, for no longer was he a man of the people and the Convention, but a politician consumed with his place in history and the power that had been entrusted in him.

But why is the Revolution doomed? The film touches on this on numerous levels, the first being the unnecessary bloodshed created by the Terror. The goal of the Terror was to end opposition to the Revolutionary government, but it also ended its support by killing its leaders. The popular movement was set back when an admired leader in the Convention, Hébert sentenced and executed along with some of his Cordelier allies were in September 1793 (McPhee 145). Next in line were four hundred tax-farmers, of which were many supporters of the Revolution, including the scientist Antoine Lavoisier who had served on scientific boards for the revolution (McPhee 147). The last and most momentous target would be Danton, who returned to Paris as a moderate in the fall of 1793, calling for an end to the Terror and an implementation of the constitution (McPhee 144). On April 5th 1794, Danton, Desmoulin, and their supporters went to the guillotine. In the months prior to the prosecution of the Dantonists’, several other heroes of the Revolution who were once regarded as national heroes were executed in the name of saving what they had helped bring about. These included the poet André Chénier, the Marquis de Sade, and Santerre, an advocate involved in the August 10th attack on Tuileries (McPhee 150 & Catholic Encyclopedia). Overall, over fourteen thousand were sentenced to execution during the year of the Terror (McPhee 144). Though this figure might seem insignifant now, it was the largest scale systematic violence Europe had ever seen. This year of Terror unnecessarily sent countless loyal followers of the revolution to their graves and disenchanted even the most steadfast patrons of the Committees. The Committees had become the king of the hill who would not tolerate dissent, criticism, or radicalism.

More significant than the guillotine was the fear it struck in the hearts of the French and the stifling restrictions that the Terror supposedly required. Instead of ruling by consent, they ruled by a fear similar to that of its former enemies, the Church and the King. Freedom of speech was curbed on all levels, and fear of condemnation help smother expression. The number of new newspapers in Paris dissipated from 325 in 1792, to 78 in 1793, and 66 in 1794 (McPhee 134). Book publication declined, and plays were censored by the state. The response to the end of the Terror is also striking in providing insight to the feelings towards the committees. The period after the Terror became known as the White Terror because it developed into a response to the years of bloody Jacobin rule. Jacobins who had supported the Terror were now the targets of mob violence, and royalists found growing backing in the countryside. Radical women often were subject to the same treatment. On October 30, 1793, all women’s clubs closed by a decree of the National Convention (McPhee 143).
Danton answers a central problem of the French Revolution, with none of the scenes leaving Paris. In the ancient regime, power under the king was divided in an almost federal manner, with strong local governments and provinces that shared power with the central government in Paris. Significantly, the involvement of the sans-culottes and the idea of a popular movement were almost limited to the scope of Paris during the Revolution. After the establishment of the revolutionary government, all power became vested in the hands of Paris. More radical and spurn to action then the rest of France, Paris set the pace for a revolution that the rest of the country could no keep up with. It is easy to see how rural peasants, a majority of the French population, could become resentful of a process that they no longer had control of, as they had when they aired their grievances to representatives in 1789. With the constant fear of mobs storming the Convention and the always-present threat of popular violence, the government in Paris consistently bowed to the demands of the powerful in Paris. Since local government never recovered from the onset of the revolution, and government structure had almost been consolidated into national authorities in Paris, a power vacuum occurred where the will of Paris became the will of the government. Often these interests conflicted with the rest of the population who had become increasingly disenchanted with the revolution. When the Terror and ultimately the republic fell in the summer of 1794, there was little sympathy among the rural population.

The Revolution also failed on the simplest but often the most difficult measure, and that was feeding the people.
Part of the failure is subtlety indicated by the attitudes, styles, and conditions of the men of the government. While delegates like Fabre live in crowded conditions with other men of the Convention, Danton, the supposed “Man of the People”, lived in a mansion adorned with expensive paintings and other luxuries. He enjoyed sumptuous dinners and had a trophy wife while still courting other women. His best supporter and famous printer, Camille Deesmoulins, enjoyed similar living conditions. It was widely known that Danton took bribes, and politicians equally human often did the same during the Revolution. The power and economic vacuum created by the fall of the first and second Estate provided great opportunities for corruption that many could not turn down. The “Republican Virtues” that Robespierre desired was a myth among politicians who found financial gain through the Revolution. Though they sympathized with the plight of the common people, the politicians of the revolution could no longer meet the demands of the public as they became progressively more interested in self-aggrandizement than good government.

Jealously watching high from his apartment as Danton greeted the people of Paris, Robespierre was detached from the heart of the people. While describing himself as willing to do anything to please the people, he sported a wig, wore make up, and acted like a person of high class. And in this contradiction of financial and social standing with revolutionary goals lies the fallacies of Robespierre, Danton, and the Revolution. While claiming to be champions of the people, the National Convention and the Committees began to look like the aristocrats they had “defeated” in the first years of the Revolution. Delegates like Danton had become rich off of the Revolution in unknown and more or less shady business deals, and the wealth of the delegates directly affected their lifestyles. They ate quail, they wore wigs, and they had bread when they needed it. Overall, they became subject to the same detachment that the First and Second Estate had from the rest of society, eventually holding down their opponents down with the same fear that had frightened antagonists of the monarch for centuries.

Equally guilty of separating the government from the will of the people was Louis de Saint-Just. He was the embodiment of the “talentless bureaucrats” Danton spoke of who were soon to overrun the government. At best, he was a mediocre politician who exploited issues for his own benefit, negatively impacting Robespierre to execute increasing amounts of people. In Report to the Convention on Behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, Saint-Just states that “the entire government must be reformed to stop the drive towards tyranny our enemies” while a few lines forward declares that “all talents must combine to extend the views of the Committee of Public Safety” (361). While ‘upholding’ the ideals of the Revolution, he demanded the consolidation and total loyalty to the Committees. And yet the Committee of Public Safety Saint-Just was deeply involved in would spearhead the tyranny of the Terror, exercising absolute power unjustly and cruelly.

Works Cited
Danton. Dir. Andrzej Wajda. Perf. Gerard Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak. 1982,
Janus Films.
Saint-Just, Louis de. Report to the Convention on Behalf of the Committee of
Public Safety. The Old Regime and the French Revolution.” Edited by Keith Baker.
University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Make Terror the Order of the Day. “The Old Regime and the French
Revolution.” Edited by Keith Baker. University of Chicago Press, 1987.
McPhee, Peter. “The French Revolution: 1789-1799.” 2002, New York. Oxford
University Press.
Robespierre, Maximilien. Report on the Principles of Political Morality. The Old
Regime and the French Revolution.” Edited by Keith Baker. University of Chicago
Press, 1987.
“The French Revolution.” Catholic Encyclopedia.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13009a.htm
Tocqueville, Alexis De. “The Old Regime and the French Revolution.” 1983,
New York. Anchor Books.