Danton: A study

Danton A STUDY
BY HILAIRE BELLOC, B.A. LATE BRACKENBURY SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
New York CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1899


TO ANTHONY HENLEY


If facts so conflicting be stated as true by men of such various calibre, it would seem a very difficult task to write history at all. Yet there is a method which neither excludes personal conviction, nor necessitates the art of deceit, nor presupposes a primitive ignorance.
It is to ascertain what is positively known and can be proved, and with the facts so gathered—only with these—to paint a picture as vivid as may be; on a series of truths—with research it grows to respectable proportions—to base a conviction, general, wide, and capable of constant application, as to the character of a period or of a man.
Such was the method of Fustel de Coulanges, and on his model there has arisen from the minute, the sometimes pedantic accuracy of French scholars, a school which is the strongest in Europe.