[127] More than 700 and less than 1000 died. The common exaggeration is Peltier’s 12,000.
[128] As a fact, his successor, Garat, was not elected till the 9th of October, and did not begin to act till the 12th. Danton seems to have remained at the Ministry till the evening of the 11th.
[129] October 23.
[130] Michelet, 1st edition, vol. iv. pp. 392-394.
[131] October 10 and 11.
[132] He made a speech on the 6th of November demanding (of course) the trial of the King, but not with violence. He left for Belgium with Delacroix on the 1st of December.
[133] This Dannon was a friend of Danton’s. He began, but did not complete, a collection of his speeches, &c., and an inquiry into his accounts. He was a member for Pas de Calais. It is not easy to get his name accurately spelt. I follow the spelling of a list of the Convention published in 1794. Dannon voted for banishment.
[134] I must not omit to mention one phrase which is far more characteristic of him—that spoken after Lepelletier’s assassination: “It would be well for us if we could die like that.”
[135] The proofs of the connection with Talleyrand are based only on inference. They will be found discussed in Robinet’s Danton Emigré, pp. 12-16 and pp. 270, &c. As for Priestley’s correspondence, it was sympathetic and deep, and continued in spite of the massacres of September. There is a draft of a Constitution in the French archives which some believe to be Priestley’s, but I am confident it is not in his handwriting.
[136] Moniteur, March 9, 1793.