United States or Montenegro ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The Assembly dismissed the King's body-guard on May twenty-ninth; on June thirteenth, the Girondists were removed from the ministry; within a few days it was known at court that Prussia had taken the field as an ally of Austria, and on the seventeenth a conservative, Feuillant cabinet was formed.

Barbaroux as vainly presented himself as accuser and Lanjuinais opposed the motion for the order without obtaining the renewal of the discussion. The Girondists themselves supported it: they committed one fault in commencing the accusation, and another in not continuing it.

The king, animated by his far more strong-minded, energetic, and ambitious queen, was slowly and reluctantly surrendering point by point as the pressure of the multitude compelled, while he was continually hoping that some change in affairs would enable him to regain his lost power. The position of the Girondists began to be more and more perilous.

The outbreak of open hostilities in all the lands immediately to the westward momentarily paralyzed their operations; and when, shortly afterward, the Girondists overpowered the Jacobins in Marseilles, the defection of that city made it difficult for the so-called regulars, the soldiers of the Convention, even to obtain subsistence and hold the territory they already occupied.

"Death to the traitors!" the assassins shouted. The clamor of the mob silenced the Girondists, and they hardly made an attempt to speak in their defense. They sat upon their benches, pale with the emotions which the fearful scenes excited, yet firm and unwavering. As Couthon, a Jacobin orator, was uttering deep denunciations, he became breathless with the vehemence of his passionate speech.

Dumouriez, placed between the king and the Girondists, saw daily the increasing want of confidence between his colleagues and himself; they suspected his probity equally with his patriotism. The apparent destination of this money was to bribe foreign cabinets, and to detach venal powers from the coalition, and to foment revolutionary symptoms in Belgium.

Between the Montagnards and the Girondists there was no distinct difference of principle both were keen republicans and levellers; but in carrying out their views, the Montagnards were the most violent and unscrupulous.

The nomination of the ministers, which was entirely under the influence of Girondists, the councils held at Madame Roland's, the presence of Brissot, of Guadet, of Vergniaud at the deliberations of the ministers, the appointment of all their friends to the government offices, served as themes for the clamours of the exaltés of the Jacobins.

From his own life, from his own pen, from his own mouth, we can prove that the part which he took in the work of blood is to be attributed, not even to sincere fanaticism, not even to misdirected and ill-regulated patriotism, but either to cowardice, or to delight in human misery. Will it be pretended that it was from public spirit that he murdered the Girondists?

Besides the necessity of preventing the establishment of legal order by a terrible coup d'etat, such as the condemnation of Louis XVI., which would arouse all passions, rally round them the violent parties, by proving them to be the inflexible guardians of the republic, they hoped to expose the sentiments of the Girondists, who did not conceal their desire to save Louis XVI., and thus ruin them in the estimation of the multitude.