Why Danton Doesn't

Why Danton Doesn’t Die

Martin Wagner

Abstract

Georg Büchner avoids showing on stage any acts of aggression against the title hero of his play Danton’s Tod. Neither Danton’s arrest, nor the proclamation of his death sen- tence, nor his execution explicitly occurs on stage. Büchner’s decision not to empha- size any of the acts of violence against Danton significantly contributes to the play’s departure from conventional dramatic structure. In contrast to conventional plays, which include a clearly recognizable climax and catastrophe, in Büchner’s play, no single moment – and certainly no moment of violence – dominates the sequence of events. My thesis is that the avoidance of a traditional dramatic arc serves as an impli- cit commentary on the questions of historical progress and revolutionary violence that are raised in the play. The play’s almost flat structure complicates attempts to justify the revolution as a brief violent period that brings about long-term change. Instead, Büchner’s Revolutionsdrama invites us to conceive of a permanent revolution – a concept that first came up around the time when Büchner wrote his play. In its different values in Marxist and conservative literature – which Büchner’s play to some extent all already anticipates – the term ‘permanent revolution’ can either serve to extend the justification of instrumental revolutionary violence to a longer timespan, or to critically highlight the futility of the endlessly perpetuated violence.

We may never know for sure what were the last words of the revolutionary Georges Danton when, on 5 April 1794, he mounted the scaffold to be executed by guillotine. According to François-Auguste Mignet’s Histoire de la Révolution Française (1824), Danton expressed in his last words his heroic determination not to betray any weakness:

Danton portait la tête haute, et promenait un regard tranquille et fier au- tour de lui. Au pied de l’échafaud, il s’attendrit un moment. ‘O ma bien aimée! s’écria-t-il; ô ma femme! je ne te verrai donc plus! … .’ Puis, s’inter- rompant tout-à-coup: ‘Danton, point de faiblesse.’1

1 François-Auguste Mignet, Histoire de la Révolution Française, depuis 1798 jusqu’en 1814, 6th edition (Brussels: J.P. Meline, Libraire-Éditeur, 1833), p. 48. ‘Danton stood erect and looked proudly and calmly around. At the foot of the scaffold he betrayed a momentary emotion. “O my best beloved – my wife!” he cried, “I shall not see thee again.” Then suddenly interrupting

174 Wagner

Mignet’s history of the French Revolution was presumably one of the sources of Georg Büchner’s play Danton’s Tod.2 In Büchner’s play, however, Danton does not utter the words that Mignet conveys. The ending that Büchner chose instead is the one that, among others, Adolphe Thiers included in his Histoire de la Révolution Française (1823–1827, German translation from 1825 onwards).3 According to Thiers, Danton tried to embrace his friend Hérault-Sechelles on the scaffold. As the executioner intervenes, Danton exclaims: ‘Tu veux donc être plus cruel que la mort! Va, tu n’empêcheras pas que dans un moment nos têtes s’embrassent dans le fond du panier.’4 Büchner incorporated these lines into the very end of the execution scene in Danton’s Tod:

HÉRAULT will Danton umarmen: Ach Danton, ich bringe nicht einmal einen Spaß mehr heraus. Da ist’s Zeit. Ein Henker stößt ihn zurück. DANTON zum Henker: Willst du grausamer sein als der Tod? Kannst du verhindern, daß unsere Köpfe sich auf dem Boden des Korbes küssen? (P i, p. 88)5

However, neither Mignet’s nor Thiers’s History of the French Revolution present the most common version of Danton’s death. While some other sources also

himself: “No weakness, Danton!”’ F.A. Mignet, History of the French Revolution, from 1789 to 1814 (London: David Bogue, 1846), p. 245. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own. 2 Henri Poschmann lists Mignet’s work as one of Büchner’s three ‘Hauptquellen’ (P i, pp. 463–64). In the Marburg edition, however, Mignet’s Histoire figures only among the ‘Nicht gesicherte Quellen’ (mba 3.3, p. v and pp. 382–89). The editors of the Marburg edition note: ‘Neuere Untersuchungen haben […] gezeigt, daß Mignets Histoire de la Révolution, obgleich sie Büchner vermutlich bekannt war, bei der Formulierung des Dramentextes nur eine ge- ringe Rolle spielte. Die Mehrzahl der lange Zeit auf die Lektüre Mignets zurückgeführten Textpassagen in Danton’s Tod […] sind genauer in Büchners bezeugten Quellen überliefert […]’ (mba 3.3, p. 382). 3 Poschmann describes Thiers’s Histoire as one of Büchner’s ‘Hauptquellen’ (P i, p. 364); the Marburg edition lists Thiers’s work among the ‘Gesicherte Quellen’ (mba 3.3, p. v). 4 Louis Adolphe Thiers, Histoire de la Révolution Française, vol. 6 (Paris: Lecointe et Durey, Li- braires, 1825), p. 230. ‘Do you want to be crueler than death? Go, you can’t prevent our heads from kissing at the bottom of the basket’ (tmw, p. 80). The passage is included in the materi- als of the Marburg edition (mba 3.3, p. 74). 5 tmw, p. 80: ‘HÉRAULT (Tries to embrace Danton.) Oh, Danton, I can’t even make a joke any- more. Then it’s time. (An EXECUTIONER pushes him back.). DANTON (To the EXECUTIONER.) Do you want to be crueler than death? Can you prevent our heads from kissing at the bottom of the basket?’