" The son of a farmer,
he had studied law, had purchased a position as advocate of the Royal
Council, and, before the outbreak of the Revolution, had acquired a
reputation not only as a brilliant young lawyer, but also as a man of
liberal tastes, fond of books, and happy in his domestic life. Like
Mirabeau, he was a person of powerful physique and of stentorian voice,
a skilled debater and a convincing orator; unlike Mirabeau, he himself
remained calm and self-possessed while arousing his audiences to the
highest pitch of enthusiasm. Like Mirabeau, too, he was not so
primarily interested in the welfare of his own social class as in that
of the class below him: what the nobleman Mirabeau was to the
bourgeoisie, the bourgeois Danton was to the Parisian proletariat.
Brought to the fore, through the favor of Mirabeau, in the early days
of the Revolution, Danton at once showed himself a strong advocate of
real democracy. In 1790, in conjunction with Marat and Camille
Desmoulins, he founded the Cordelier Club, the activities of which he
directed throughout 1791 and 1792 against the royal family and the
whole cause of monarchy.
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