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A moment or two afterwards, they loaded him with applause, as, almost suffocated with hunger and thirst, he drank off, without hesitation, a glass of wine presented to him by a half-drunken workman. In the meantime, Vergniaud, Isnard, and a few deputies of the Gironde, had hastened thither to protect the king, to address the people, and put an end to these indecent scenes.
After him, Vergniaud, the leader of the Girondists, was perhaps the most effective speaker; and till his fall, he possessed a commanding influence in the Convention. Danton was likewise a speaker of vast power, and from his towering figure, he seemed like a giant among pigmies. Marat might be termed the representative of the kennel.
Nothing is so deceptive as human reasoning, nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have decided to call 'logic. The truest compass of life is spiritual instinct." "And what of those who have no spiritual instinct?" demanded Vergniaud. "I do not think there are any such.
"Ah, there is a history there!" interrupted Gherardi, "It should be remembered that this boy was a witness of the miracle in Rouen, and he was also present at the Vergniaud scandal in Paris he should have been sent for ere now. He, more than anyone, must surely know how the miracle was accomplished, for the worthy Felix tells me he is 'wise beyond his years'!" "So!
He is only a peasant, they say, but he writes with the pen of a prophet. And this Englishman is of the same calibre, only his work is directed against religious hypocrisies more than social ones. I daresay that is why I always feel so uneasy in his presence!" And Vergniaud laughed lightly. "For the rest, he is a brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly.
Vergniaud, born at Limoges, and an advocate at the bar of Bordeaux, was now in his thirty-third year, for the revolutionary movement had seized on and borne him along with its currents when very young. His dignified, calm, and unaffected features announced the conviction of his power.
A most august and terrible silence reigned in the Assembly as President Vergniaud rose and pronounced the sentence "Death" in the name of the French nation. The details of the voting as given in the Journal de Perlet, 18th January 1793, are as follows: "Of the 745 members one had died, six were sick, two absent without cause, eleven absent on commission, four abstained from voting.
Paine was, of course, selected. His colleagues were Sieyes, Condorcet, Gensonne, Vergniaud, Petion, Brissot, Barere, and Danton. Of these nine, Paine and Sieyes alone survived the Reign of Terror. When, in due time, this constitution was ready to be submitted to the Convention, no one could be found to listen to the reading of the report. The revolution had outstripped the committee.
I fully and freely admit, as I have always fully and freely admitted, that I condoned and forgave the sin of the Abbe Vergniaud, and this, not only because the man was dying, but because we are strictly commanded to forgive those who truly repent. And on this point, I cannot even to you, Most Holy Father, admit that I have been wrong.
Barere instantly sprang up to support Robespierre Barere, the federalist; Barere, the author of that Commission of Twelve which was among the chief causes of the hatred borne by Paris to the Girondists; Barere, who in these Memoirs denies that he ever took any part against the Girondists; Barere, who has the effrontery to declare that he greatly loved and esteemed Vergniaud.
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