A successful 27-year-old barrister in King Louis XVI's Paris council in 1787, Georges-Jacques Danton possessed a lov- . ing wife and a good income, plus a doting mother in Arcis-sur-Aube, his native home in north-eastern France. His contentment would be short-lived. France was bankrupt, and its monarchy an affront to the Enlightenment. By 1789 revolution was in the air and bourgeois gentlemen such as Maitre d'Anton (as he called himself at the time) needed to take sides. Imbued with liberal and classical ideals, he joined the revolutionaries. "I saw an irresistible tide sweep by," he explained.
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