The Giant of the French Revolution: Danton, a Life

by David Lawday

Overview

George-Jacques Danton was the driving force behind the French Revolution, which brought an end to an absolute monarchy that had ruled for nearly one thousand years. In The Giant of The French Revolution, David Lawday reveals the larger-than-life figure who joined the fray at the storming of the Bastille in 1789 at twenty-nine—and was dead five years later. Danton’s impassioned speeches drove reformers to action and kept the Revolution alive at the moment when it risked collapse. But he lost his grip against Robespierre’s Reign of Terror, becoming another of its victims under the guillotine. In vivid, novelistic prose worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, Lawday leads us from Danton’s humble roots to the streets of Paris, where this political legend acted on the operatic stage of the Revolution that altered Western civilization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802145413
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	07/12/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	523,838
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Educated at Oxford, David Lawday is a writer and journalist who spent twenty years as a correspondent for The Economist. The author of Napoleon’s Master: A Life of Prince Talleyrand, he now lives in Paris with his French wife.

Table of Contents

Images viii

Map ix

Prologue: Paris: 15 July 1789 1

1 Bullfights 9

2 Doing the Palais 18

3 Questions for a Bourgeois Gentleman 24

4 Jumping upon a Tide 37

5 The Cordelier Republic 53

6 Travails of a People's Champion 69

7 A Wilful Woman in the Way 85

8 The Revolution at War 101

9 The End of a Thousand-Year Throne 116

10 Courage, Patriots! 130

11 Long Live the Republic 145

12 The Execution of a King 160

13 Flames in Flanders 174

14 In the Green Room 188

15 Exit Moderates 202

16 The Rule of Terror 216

17 Fight to the Death 228

18 The Cornered Bull 243

19 Trial and Execution 252

Epilogue 261

Notes 265

Index 285

Editorial Reviews

“What drove the ugly and dyslexic Danton, suckled by cows in rural Champagne, to rise and fall so dramatically? This is not an easy question. Despite his impact, Danton is enigmatic. . . . David Lawday . . . provides a gripping story, beautifully told. . . . Danton was a headstrong firebrand, a swashbuckling political showman with a prodigious memory, whose spectacular oratory held audiences in thrall.”—The Economist

“In the great operatic drama of terror and transformation that was the French Revolution George-Jacques Danton dominated the stage. Enormous, fearsome, sentimental, eloquent, insatiable, bombastic - vast in all senses of the word - Danton cuts an irresistible figure: a tragic hero who explores fearlessly, often ruthlessly, the limits of liberty and terror and perishes only when ‘his pity for the guillotine's guiltless victims lays bare his own bull neck.’ The Giant of the French Revolution sweeps one along in a gathering floodtide of rich description, brilliant characterization, subtle political analysis and breathless suspense. David Lawday has written a masterful, spine-tingling thriller - except that every word in this compulsively readable book is true.”—Mark Danner, author, Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War

“Lawday creates some great set pieces and striking turning points…He is able to capture the atmosphere of the early Revolution: its inflammable mix of devilment and righteousness, reckless selflessness and flagrant self-promotion. He sees that Danton was more than the sum of his crimes, the sum of his secrets; he celebrates him, ‘large heart and violent impulses in irresolvable conflict’.” —Hilary Mantel, The London Review of Books

“Lawday…has brought Danton into full view in an audacious piece of historical writing…there is not a better portrait of Danton. There are some tremendous setpieces in the book…Tee last scene of Danton’s life is rendered exquisitely. Lawday writes: ‘…As his Gorgon head touched the block, he reared around to squint up to the exhausted executioner, telling him: “Make sure you show it to the people. It is worth a look.”’ Lawday’s triumph is that he makes Danton’s last words not just a defiant last gesture to the world but an irrefutable statement of fact.” —Hugh Macdonald, The Herald (U.K.)

“Immensely readable…Lawday’s book is ultimately meticulously researched and thoroughly footnoted throughout. Indeed, alongside its thought-provoking reading of Danton, this biography offers an excellent entrée for the uninitiated into the history and politics of the French Revolution.” —Síofra Pierse, Irish Times

“Lawday presents an absorbing portrait of a celebrated victim…he viscerally recreates the look and smell of the fevered Paris Danton moved about, setting the mood for the climax to Danton’s call for moderation: his execution in 1794. A page-turner for history readers, guaranteed.”—Gilbert Taylor, Booklist

“Revolutionary turmoil comes dramatically alive in [Lawday’s] account…[a] spirited tale.”—Edward B. Segel, History Book Club (online)

“Lawday gives us not only a fine biography but a moving description of revolutionary tragedy as well…An exciting history, gracefully written and well researched.”—Publishers Weekly

“The author ably assembles a convincing portrait of a man of giant stature, appetite, ability and ego…a clear account of one man’s failure to recognize the fanged creatures that swim in waves of passion and popularity.”—Kirkus

“World-historical in his ambitions, monumental in his passions, tragic in his final demise, Danton was a figure larger than life—a figure made for the theater. With both empathy and critical understanding, Lawday sets his dramatis persona on the stage of the French Revolution, providing an informed and readable account that deserves a broad audience.” —Darrin M. McMahon, Ben Weider Professor of History, Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, Florida State University

“David Lawday strides confidently into the fray and brings back a compelling, highly readable, and very timely account of a paradoxical champion of humanity pitted against ideological fanaticism.”—David Coward, The Independent (U.K.)

“World-historical in his ambitions, monumental in his passions, tragic in his final demise, Danton was a figure larger than life—a figure made for the theater. With both empathy and critical understanding, Lawday sets his dramatis persona on the stage of the French Revolution, providing an informed and readable account that deserves a broad audience.” —Darrin M. McMahon, Ben Weider Professor of History, Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, Florida State University

“Danton—his life is the stuff of opera.”—Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times (U.K.)

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