The Terror: Death at the Guillotine (Part 4)

Tom Holland (0:12)

The execution was already underway when, having crossed the Tuileries, I reached the gate opening onto the Place Louis-Cowns. From there, I saw the condemned men appear one after another on the fatal stage, only to vanish at once as the plank on which their eternal rest was to begin tip them from view.

Danton appeared last on that stage, drenched in the blood of all his friends. Day was fading. At the foot of the dreadful structure, standing out like a colossal silhouette against the sky, I saw this tribune rise up like a shade out of Dante, half lit by the dying sun, seeming as much to be emerging from the tomb as about to enter it. Nothing could match the boldness of this revolutionary athlete's bearing. Nothing could match the formidable set of that profile defying the ax, or the expression of that head which, about to fall, still seemed to be dictating the laws. A dreadful spectacle. Time could never erase it from my memory. Now, I felt the whole force of the emotion behind Danton's last words. Terrible words, which people repeated afterwards, shuddering with horror and admiration.

Above all, don't forget, he told the executioner, don't forget to show my head to the people. It's worth seeing.

So that's one of the most famous scenes, not just in the history of the French Revolution, but in the entire history of France. It is the eyewitness account by Antoine Vasson Arnaud of the execution of Georges Danton on the 5th of April, 1794 And it's a scene that's been immortalized in novels, in plays, in operas and films. And unsurprisingly so, because it is the spectacle of the French Revolution devouring one of its most memorable, and I think probably attractive, figures. And a brilliant larger than life character, Dominic, who only a year earlier seemed at the peak of his popularity. A large Falstaffian man.

Dominic Sandbrook (2:37)

A lesson to us all, Danton's fate, I think.

Tom Holland (2:39)

A lesson to us all, yeah. And you're a particular admirer, aren't you, of the Franco-Polish film Danton, which came out during the Solidarity confrontation, the trade union in Poland with the Communist government, and starred Gérard Depardieu as Danton.

Dominic Sandbrook (2:59)

I think Gérard Depardieu is an absolutely horrendous human being, and he is brilliant as Danton in this film. And in the film, because it's a portrait, it's actually a brilliant film both about the French Revolution and about the crushing of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the imposition of martial law.

In the film, he is the champion of moderation against extremism. He is the champion of democracy against dictatorship, which is, of course, a little bit simplistic when you look at the story of the revolution.

Tom Holland (3:28)

But there is that great sense of the binary, isn't there? Because on the one hand, you have Maximilien Robespierre, tall, thin, cold, fanatical, obsessed by ideas of god and virtue.

People say, if he could, send the whole of France to the Guillotine. On the other side, his old friend, Georges Danton, charismatic, a man of bulk, warm, the man who wants to stop the reign of terror, the people's friend. And that dynamic of the kind of the chill, cold, thin person and the warm, jolly, firm, larger person. I mean, it's a kind of archetypal.

Dominic Sandbrook (4:11)

The sturdy man of the people and the desiccated lover of abstract nouns. Yeah, completely. So it's a jewel for the ages, but obviously there's a lot more going on because we're at the sort of crisis moment for the revolution. Generally, war on the frontiers, war within France, loads of nuances, so we might as well get straight into it.

We'll get into it with our protagonist, who is Danton. So I think you're at dead right of all the French Revolution's great characters. Danton is probably the most magnetic. He's the one you'd go on a night out with, I think. And Depardieu, shocking bloke, brilliant actor, does a really good job of capturing his appeal in that film, which I recommend to people that's on YouTube. So Danton is a big man, stocky, famously ugly, but incredibly charismatic, energetic, he's a brilliant speaker, he's theatrical, he's generous.

There's something slightly Churchillian, I think, about him. A man of tremendous flaws, but also great magnetic qualities.

Tom Holland (5:09)

Listeners may remember that I ventriloquized one of his most famous speeches and did it as Churchill.

Dominic Sandbrook (5:14)

You did? Exactly. Danton can be flippant, he can be greedy, he can be very, very corrupt, as we will see, but he's hard to dislike.

And he was born in a place called Arcy in Champagne in 1759 So that means that he's about to turn 30 when the French Revolution breaks out. Like so many of these people, he's a relatively young man. He has a very distinctive look because as a boy, he'd been both gored by a bull and trampled by pigs.