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They knew indeed, as well as Marat, that Barère was a man utterly without faith or steadiness; that, if he could be said to have any political leaning, his leaning was not towards them; that he felt for the Girondist party that faint and wavering sort of preference of which alone his nature was susceptible; and that, if he had been at liberty to make his choice, he would rather have murdered Robespierre and Danton than Vergniaud and Gensonné.
He declared everywhere that he had never been in favor of severe measures; that he was a Girondist; that he had always condemned and lamented the manner in which the Brissotine deputies had been treated. He now preached mercy from that tribune from which he had recently preached extermination. "The time," he said, "has come at which our clemency may be indulged without danger.
After the 10th of August, the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Kellermann, and Dillon, replaced the constitutionalist generals. There was unity of views, confidence, and co-operation, between the army and the government.
There are relations of blood which the law regards with an evil eye. Republicans of France!" yelled the renegade Girondist, the old enemy of the Mountain, "Republicans of France! the Brissotines led you by gentle means to slavery. The Mountain leads you by strong measures to freedom. Oh! who can count the evils which a false compassion may produce?"
Then occurred the more complete organization of the Jacobin club, to control the National Convention; and this was followed by the rapid depreciation of the assignats, bread-riots, and all sorts of disturbances. Added to these evils, foreign governments were arming to suppress the Revolution, and war had been declared by the Girondist ministry, of which Dumouriez was war-minister.
But notwithstanding its right views and its numbers, the Girondist party displayed no sagacity; before the year I was three months old, the unscrupulous Jacobins, with the aid of the Paris commune, had reasserted their supremacy. The declaration of the republic only hastened the execution of Salicetti's plan regarding Sardinia, and the Convention was more energetic than the Legislative had been.
St Etienne, the little bustling partizan, yet the man of talent, mingled with the chief advocates of the Parisian courts; or Servan fenced with his subtle knowledge of the world against Vergniaud, the romantic Girondist, but the most Ciceronian of orators.
We have got already to the Girondist ministry a party I hate particularly, in spite of their pretensions to virtue and philosophy, or perhaps in consequence of it. There are some men of birth and distinction who belong to the party; but the Levesons and the Cavendishes may soon find themselves stranded like the Narbonnes and Montmorencies amongst the Rolands and the Condorcets....
I denounce the liberticide Brissot, the Girondist faction, the villainous committee of twenty-one in the National Assembly. I denounce them for having sold France to Brunswick and for having received pay in advance for their baseness." Ibid., 506. "Robespierre," I said, "you are making a good deal of mischief. Hamel, I., 264.
Mine don't spell anything. I'm named for my grandfather up in Woodford, William Ransome. He's dead. Father's don't either Georges Gautier Hippolyte Leroy. His father ran away from France because he was a Girondist, and came to Louisville because it was French, and father's been to Paris, too; haven't you, father?" The gentleman thus adjured removed his cigar and addressed his wife.
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