He was tasked by the National Convention to intervene in the military conquest of Belgium led by General Dumouriez,[2] and in the spring of 1793 supported the foundation of a Revolutionary Tribunal, becoming the first president of the Committee of Public Safety.

[3] Within a week, Danton faced accusations of purported royalist inclinations, leading to his trial and subsequent guillotine execution on charges of conspiracy and venality.

[10] The couple lived in a six-room apartment in the heart of the Left Bank (near the Café Procope), and had three sons: In the Spring of 1789, Danton found his revolutionary beginnings as one of the many people giving speeches to the crowds gathered in the Palais Royal.

[13] As the Cordeliers district Danton resided in grew more persistent in its revolutionary ideals, it eventually formed its own street militia that was involved in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789.

[22] After the Champ de Mars massacre, a series of repressive measures against the heads of popular societies forced him to take refuge in London for a few weeks.

The debate at the beginning of December 1791 on whether to go to war with neighboring powers opposing the Revolution, triggered conflict between Jacobins and led to the birth of the opposition between Montagnards and Girondins.

[25] Faced with the insurrectionary Commune which relied on the insurgent sections and which held Paris, the Legislative Assembly had no choice but to suspend Louis XVI and replace him with a provisional Executive Council of six members composed of former Girondin ministers (Roland in the Interior, Servan in the War, Clavière in Finance, Monge in the Navy and Lebrun in Foreign Affairs).

[31] On Sunday 2 September, at about 13:00, Danton, as a member of the provisional government, delivered a speech in the assembly: "We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall be punished with death".

[36][37] Danton was also accused by the French historians Adolphe Thiers, Alphonse de Lamartine, Jules Michelet, Louis Blanc and Edgar Quinet.

[38] He did intervene, however, in protecting Roland and Brissot from an arrest warrant from the Supervisory Committee of the Commune on 4 September, opposing Marat by having the mandates removed, and was complicit in the escape of Adrien Duport, Talleyrand, and Charles de Lameth.

He and other members of the committee, despite its primary charge of defeating invasion and internal rebellions, were advocates of the moderation necessary to minimize popular resistance to military requisitions.

Due to military reversals in 1793, many – especially among the sans-culottes – criticized its conduct, and subsequent committee membership included more radical thinkers who pressed for more extreme measures to ensure victory over enemies of the Revolution internal and external.

[51] On 10 October, Danton, who had been dangerously ill for a few weeks,[52] quit politics, and set off to Arcis-sur-Aube with his 16-year-old wife, who had pitied Marie Antoinette since her trial began.

[56] By December, a Dantonist party had been formed in support of Danton's more moderate views and his insistence on clemency for those who had violated the Committee for Public Safety's increasingly arbitrary and draconian "counter-revolutionary" measures.

While the Committee of Public Safety was concerned with strengthening the centralist policies of the convention and its own grip over that body, Danton was in the process of devising a plan that would effectively move popular sentiment among delegates towards a more moderate stance.

Indeed, it would eventually continue past the Thermidorian Reaction (27 July 1794), when some members of the Convention rose against the committee, executed its leaders, and placed power in the hands of new men with a new policy – to dissolve Jacobinism (White Terror).

[61] Danton remarried, and, Morley continues, "the rumour went that he was allowing domestic happiness to tempt him from the keen incessant vigilance proper to the politician in such a crisis."

In attempting to shift the direction of the revolution by collaborating with Camille Desmoulins on the production of Le Vieux Cordelier – a newspaper that called for the end of the official Terror and Dechristianization, as well as for launching new peace overtures to France's enemies – Danton had placed himself in a precarious position.

Those most closely associated with the Committee of Public Safety, among them key figures such as Maximilien Robespierre and Georges Couthon, would eventually indict Danton for counter-revolutionary activities.

Between 1791 and 1793, Danton faced many allegations, including taking bribes during the insurrection of August 1792, helping his secretaries to line their pockets, and forging assignats during his mission to Belgium.

[citation needed] The most serious accusation, which haunted him during his arrest and formed a chief ground for his execution, was his alleged involvement with a scheme to appropriate the wealth of the French East India Company.

In the second, Desmoulins attacked the use of terror as a governing tactic, comparing Robespierre with Julius Caesar and, in the following issue, arguing that the Revolution should return to its original ideas which were in vogue around 10 August 1792.

[73] The tribunal constituted a jury of five judges, including Souberbielle, and François Topino-Lebrun (who both hesitated to condemn Danton); the law required twelve jurors but only seven were present.

Following Robespierre's advice, a decree was accepted to present Saint-Just's account on Danton's alleged royalist tendencies at the tribunal, effectively ending further debates and restraining any further insults to justice by the accused.

[72] These events were compounded by confusing and often incidental accusations, such as a report suggesting that while engaged as a commissioner in Belgium, Danton had allegedly appropriated a carriage filled with table linen worth two or three hundred thousand livres from the Archduchess of Austria.

[73][82] The Moniteur published an account of the discussion in the Jacobin Club: Danton was accused of wanting to arrest Francois Henriot on 31 May 1793 and to become regent for Louis XVII.

Robespierre insisted that it was a foreign plot, demanded that the report be re-written, and used the scandal as the basis for rhetorical attacks on William Pitt the Younger who he believed was involved.

[87] Some scholars have supported this view, pointing to links between the Pitt government and the Baron de Batz, who developed plans to use economic warfare to create discord among leaders of the Revolution.

[95] One view of Danton, presented by historians like Thiers and Mignet,[76][96] suggested he was "a gigantic revolutionary" with extravagant passions, a high level of intelligence, and an eagerness for violence in the pursuit of his goals.

He remained loyal to his friends and the country of France by avoiding "personal ambition" and gave himself wholly to the cause of keeping "the government consolidated" for the Republic.