#danton did have sex with a 17 year old then… that’s gross

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

[After the arrest of Danton and Desmoulins] Lucile ran to Madame Danton to suggest that she come with her to go find Robespierre, ask him for an explanation, and recall the feelings of friendship which had attached him to their husbands. Madame Danton refused, saying that she wanted nothing from a man who had showed himself to be the enemy of her husband. (I obtained this particularity from Madame Danton herself, who was then pregnant. She gave birth fifteen days after Danton's death, but her child did not live.)

Histoire de la Révolution française (1850) by Nicolas Villiaumé, volume 4, page 55. This ties in well with the following anecdote that was first reported by Marcellin Matton (who presumably obtained it from Lucile’s mother Annette Duplessis) in his republished edition of Le Vieux Cordelier (1834):

Camille, the day after his arrest, wrote a letter to his wife to console her. One of Camille’s friends took it to Lucile: she read it while sobbing, and as he tried to console her: “It's useless,” she said, “I cry like a woman, because Camille. suffers, because without doubt they let him lack everything; because he does not see us.... But I will have the courage of a man, I will save him.... What to do? which of his judges must I supplicate? Which one should I attack openly? Would you like to take me to Philippeaux?” ”He has also been arrested, no doubt.” ”So the homeland no longer has defenders.... I am going to see Danton....” ”The same decree unites him to your husband.” ”Why have they left me free? Do they think that since I’m only a woman I won’t dare to raise my voice? Have they counted on my silence? I’m going to the Jacobins… I’m going to Robespierre’s house…” Madame Duplessis and Camille's friend restrained her and urged her not to take any inconsiderate steps that could lose her and her husband as well; finally she agreed to remain quiet; but she wanted to write to Robespierre to ask him to save her husband, the letter remained unfinished and was never sent.