Sundays with Stendhal 3, Another Danton?

‘Beware of that young man, who has so much energy,’ her brother cried; ‘if the Revolution begins again, he will have us all guillotined.’ …

‘Another Danton?’ thought Mathilde to herself.  Her brother’s remark filled her with horror; it greatly disturbed her; but after sleeping on it, she interpreted it as the highest possible praise…. ‘Very well! Let us suppose that the Revolution has begun.  What parts would Croisenois and my brother play?  It is all prescribed for them: sublime resignation.  They would be heroic sheep, allowing their throats to be cut without a word.  Their sole fear when dying would still be of committing a breach of taste.  My little Julien would blow out the brains of the Jacobin who came to arrest him, if he had the slightest hope of escaping.  He, at least, has no fear of bad taste.’

(The Red and the Black, Book Two, chapter 42, Another Danton?)