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The Revolution, beginning with a patriotic assembly, in a measure sane, had made a rapid descent, first falling apart into Girondist and Jacobin, moderate and extremist, the Girondist with a shudder consenting to the execution of the king.
To strengthen the influence of Paris ought therefore to be the chief object of every patriot. The accusation brought against the leaders of the Girondist party was a mere calumny.
The efforts of the constitutionalists to save the throne were balked by the exiles and the foreign governments. From Russia, Sweden, Spain, and even Switzerland, there were not wanting manifestations of hostility. The attitude of Austria had the effect to bring into power a Girondist ministry. They wanted war as the best means of attaining the objects which they had in view at home.
The most moderate party, consisting of those who would sustain the throne, but limit its powers by a free constitution, retaining many of the institutions and customs which antiquity had rendered venerable, was called the Girondist party. It was so called because their most prominent leaders were from the department of the Gironde.
Associating himself with the Girondist party he assisted, busily enthusiastic, at the march of tremendous events, until the evil hour in which friend began to denounce friend, and heads, quite other than aristocratic those of men and women but yesterday the idols and chosen leaders of the people went daily to the filling of la veuve Guillotine's unspeakable market-basket.
The Girondists revenged themselves for this resistance by compelling him to make war on the princes, who were his brothers, and the emperor, whom they believed to be his accomplice. The war thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in April, 1792.
Barere was again summoned to his duty. Only four days after he had proposed the decrees against the Girondist deputies he again mounted the tribune, in order to move that the Queen should be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was improving fast in the society of his new allies.
In consequence the Convention withdrew its decree and sent a new commission of which Salicetti was not a member. This was in May, on the eve of the Girondin overthrow. The measures of reconciliation proved unavailing, because the Jacobins of Marseilles, learning that Paoli was Girondist in sentiment, stopped the commission, and forbade their proceeding to Corsica.
This literary foppery was one of the few things in which he was consistent. Royalist or Girondist, Jacobin or Imperialist, he was always a Trissotin. As the monarchical party became weaker and weaker, Barere gradually estranged himself more and more from it, and drew closer and closer to the republicans.
Being called to account, he went over to the Austrians. This desertion weakened the Girondist party, and put new force into the party of Jacobins. At the same time, news came of a royalist revolt in the West, and of conflicts between the Jacobins and their adversaries in the cities of the South. A "committee of general security" was put in charge of the police of the whole country.
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