Recovery > Fall of the Dantonists > The Memoirs of Riouffe
Danton was put in a cell next to Westermann, another of the accused, and never stopped talking. Robespierre had really hoodwinked this frightful Danton, who was a little ashamed of it; looking through his bars he said a good many things he may not have meant, and all mixed with oaths and bad language. Here are some of the things that I remember:
'It was a day like this I had the Revolutionary Tribunal set up, but I ask pardon for it from God and man; it was never meant to be the scourge of mankind. It was to avoid a repetition of the September massacres.'
'I am leaving everything in an appalling mess; none of them knows anything about government. In all this frenzy, I am not sorry to have put my name to some decrees which will show that I was no party to it.'
'If I left my balls next to Robespierre and my legs to Couthon, that would help the Committee of Public Safety for a while.'
'Cains, brother-murderers every one of them. Brissot would have guillotined me just like Robespierre. There was a spy who never left me.'
'I knew I was to be arrested.'
'What proves that that Robespierre is a Nero is that he never spoke so kindly to Camille Desmoulins as he did the night before his arrest.'
'In revolutions it's the scoundrels who get the power. Better to be a poor fisherman than a ruler of men. The damned idiots, they will shout "Long live the Republic!" as I go by.'
He also talked constantly about trees, the country and nature.