His was the quietude of vice.[3] He was the focus of all those men who seek in events nothing but fortune and impunity.

But others had only the baseness of crime--Danton's vices partook of the heroic--his intellect was all but genius.

He had upon him the bright flash of circumstances, but it was as sinister as his face.

Immorality, which was the infirmity of his mind, was in his eyes the essence of his ambition; he cultivated it in himself as the element of future greatness.

He pitied any body who respected any thing.