His talents all contribute to "his inborn, practical popularity," and to make of him "a grand-seignior of sans-cullotterie."[3160]--With such talents for acting, there is a strong temptation to act it out the moment the theatre is ready, whatever the theatre, even unlawful and murky, whatever the actors rogues, scoundrels and loose women, whatever the part, ignoble, murderous, and finally fatal to him who undertakes it .-- To hold out against such temptation, would require a sentiment of repugnance which a refined or thorough culture develops in both sense and mind, but which was completely wanting in Danton.

Nothing disgusts him physically or morally: he embraces Marat,[3161] fraternizes with drunkards, congratulates the Septembriseurs, retorts in blackguard terms to the insults of prostitutes, treats reprobates, thieves and jail-birds as equals,--Carra, Westermann, Huguenin, Rossignol and the confirmed scoundrels whom he sends into the departments after the 2nd of September.
"Eh! What the hell! Do you think we ought to send young misses." [3162] Garbage men are needed for the collection of garbage; one cannot hold one's nose when they come for their wages; one must pay them well, talk to them encouragingly, and leave them plenty of elbow room.

Danton is willing to play the part of the fire, and he humors vices; he has no scruples, and lets people scratch and take .-- He has stolen as much to give as to keep, to maintain his role as much as to benefit by it, squaring accounts by spending the money of the Court against the Court, probably inwardly chuckling, the same as the peasant in a blouse on getting ahead of his well-duped landlord, or as the Frank, whom the ancient historian describes as leering on pocketing Roman gold the better to make war against Rome .-- The graft on this plebeian seedling has not taken; in our modern garden this remains as in the ancient forest; its vigorous sap preserves its primitive raciness and produces none of the fine fruits of our civilization, a moral sense, honor and conscience.

Danton has no respect for himself nor for others; the nice, delicate limitations that circumscribe human personality, seem to him as legal conventionality and mere drawing-room courtesy.

Like a Clovis, he tramples on this, and like a Clovis, equal in faculties, in similar expedients, and with a worse horde at his back, he throws himself athwart society, to stagger along, destroy and reconstruct it to his own advantage.
At the start, he comprehended the peculiar character and normal procedure of the Revolution, that is to say, the useful agency of popular brutality: in 1788 he had already figured in insurrections.