"Well," replied Danton, "do you know what that proves? that I love gold, and that Robespierre loves blood. Robespierre is afraid of money lest it should stain his hands."
Robespierre earnestly wished to associate Danton with him in all the rigor of the Revolutionary government, for he respected the power of this bold, indomitable man. They met at a dinner-party, through the agency of a mutual friend, when matters were brought to a crisis. They engaged in a dispute, Danton denouncing and reviling the acts of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and Robespierre defending them, until they separated in anger. The friends of Danton urged him either to escape by flight or to take advantage of his popularity and throw himself upon the army.
"My life is not worth the trouble," said Danton. "Besides, I am weary of blood. I had rather be guillotined than be a guillotiner. They dare not attack me. I am stronger than they."
A secret meeting of the Committee of Public Safety was convened by night, and Danton was accused of the "treason of clemency." A subaltern door-keeper heard the accusation, and ran to Danton's house to warn him of his peril and to offer him an asylum. The young and beautiful wife of Danton, with tears in her eyes, threw herself at his feet, and implored him, for her sake and for that of their children, to accept the proffered shelter. Danton proudly refused, saying,
"They will deliberate long before they will dare to strike a man like me. While they deliberate I will surprise them."
He dismissed the door-keeper and retired to bed. At six o'clock gens d'armes entered his room with the order for his arrest.
"They dare, then," said Danton, crushing the paper in his hand. "They are bolder than I had thought them to be."
He dressed, embraced his wife convulsively, and was conducted to prison. At the same hour Camille Desmoulins and fourteen others, the supposed partisans of Danton, were also arrested. It was the 31st of March. Danton was taken to the Luxembourg. Here he found Desmoulins and his other friends already incarcerated. As Danton entered the gloomy portals of the prison he said,
"At length I perceive that, in revolutions, the supreme power ultimately rests with the most abandoned."[416]