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The friends of Madame Roland, on their side, threatened Dumouriez that they would make the Assembly demand of him an account of the six millions of secret expenses, whose destination they suspected. Already Guadet and Vergniaud had prepared discourses and a project of a decree to demand a public reckoning for these sums.
In replying to M. Guadet, I shall reply to all. I am invited to have recourse to ostracism; there would, no doubt, be some excess of vanity in my condemning myself that is the punishment of great men, and it is only for M. Brissot to class them. I am reproached for being so constantly in the tribune.
Let us put an end to these disputes, and let us go to the order of the day, leaving our contempt for odious and injurious denunciations." At this, Robespierre and Guadet, equally provoked, wished to enter the tribune. "It is forty-eight hours," said Guadet, "that the desire of justifying myself has weighed upon my heart; it is only a few minutes that this want has affected Robespierre.
Delegates appointed by thirty-five of the forty-eight wards of the city appeared at the bar of the Convention, and demanded that Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, Gensonne, Barbaroux, Buzot, Petion, Louvet, and many other deputies, should be expelled. This demand was disapproved by at least three-fourths of the Assembly, and, when known in the departments, called forth a general cry of indignation.
Guadet, born at Saint Emelion, near Bordeaux, already celebrated as an advocate before the age at which men have generally made themselves a reputation, impatiently expected by the political tribunes, had at last arrived at the Legislative Assembly.
Vergniaud, Gensonne, Ducos, Fonfrede, etc., were among the first; Petion, Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Buzot, and Lanjuinais, among the latter. They repaired to Evreux, in the department de l'Eure, where Buzot had much influence, and thence to Caen, in Calvados. These made this town the centre of the insurrection. Brittany soon joined them.
Roland, Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Condorcet, Pétion, Lanthenas, who in the hour of danger betrayed them; Valazé, Pache, who persecuted and decimated his friends; Grangeneuve, Louvet, who beneath levity of manners and gaiety of mind veiled undaunted courage; Chamfort, the intimate of the great, a vivid intellect, heart full of venom, discouraged by the people before he had served it; Carra, the popular journalist, enthusiastic for a republic, mad with desire for liberty; Chénier , the poet of the revolution, destined to survive it, and preserving his worship of it until death, even under the tyranny of the empire; Dusaulx, who had beneath his gray hairs the enthusiasm of youth for philosophy the Nestor of all the young men, whom he moderated by his sage exhortations; Mercier, who took all as a jest, even in the dungeon and death.
Like the Girondists, they resorted to insurrection, in order to regain the power which they had lost; and like them, they fell. Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, etc., were tried by a revolutionary tribunal; Bourbotte, Duroy, Soubrany, Romme, Goujon, Duquesnoy, by a military commission.
It was an ominous preliminary to their deliberations that they admitted a deputation from the commissioners of the sections into the hall, where Guadet, to whom Vergniaud had surrendered the president's chair, thanked them for their zeal, and assured them that the Assembly regarded them as virtuous citizens only anxious for the restoration of peace and order.
Still a very profound line of policy was disclosed in the secret council of the Girondists, in the choice of the men whom they put forward, and whom they presented for ministers to the king. Brissot in this gave evidence of the patience of consummate ambition. He inspired Vergniaud, Pétion, Guadet, Gensonné, as well as all the leading men of his party, with similar patience.
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