Chapter 5 is dedicated to a reading of the drama by Georg Büchner entitled Danton’s Death. The work concerns the trial and execution of the French revolutionary Georges Danton and his comrades. By choosing the French Revolution as his background, Büchner sets the stage for a questioning of the meaning of human existence. The reader knows from the start that most of the main characters in the piece will end up on the guillotine. It is a cruel and inhuman world, where love and friendship play little role. The threat of death is everywhere, and suicide is a frequent theme. Danton represents a voice of nihilism. He despairs of the lack of meaning of human existence and even meets his death with a kind of indifference or even relief. He claims that since we will all die sooner or later, it does not really matter when it happens. The immediate situation of the prisoners awaiting their execution can be regarded as a metaphor for human life in general. Once we are born, we are all destined for death. There is no sign of redemption, reconciliation, or a peace in an afterlife. Death and life are equally meaningless. The world is a cruel and inhuman place, where we suffer merely to survive.

The French Jacobins rose to power amid the tumultuous circumstances of the early First Republic, having to combat both legions of exterior enemies and dissidents who had long attended their own clubs. The Jacobins pushed their club network further than their contemporaries – establishing more than three thousand locals across France – but also proved unwilling to tolerate dissent amid wartime dangers. The moderates who led the Thermidorian coup soon turned against Jacobin Clubs, suppressing them in stages across 1795.