the King's fate, when he was brought before the tribunal of the nation—in their hostile measures against the partisans of democracy—in the alarms with which they sought to inspire the rich and corrupt classes—in the firebrands of discord which, by such means, they scattered throughout France—and last, not least, in their obstinate perseverance to consecrate by the force of laws their anti-popular principles.[1] The question was, to give a
- ↑ The liberty of a nation is the result—1. Of the equality which the laws produce in the condition and enjoyments of the citizens, and 2. From the greatest possible extension being given to the
exercise of political rights. The projet of the first Constitutional Committee of the National Convention, composed entirely of Girondists, by absolutely neglecting the first of these conditions, delivered over the people to the influence of the rich and intriguing, by the development which it seemed to give to the second.
NAME OF THE GIRONDIST FACTION.—CAUSES OF DIVISION IN THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY.
This faction was called Girondist, because it recognised for its chiefs almost all the deputies from the department of La Girond, to the Legislative Assembly, and to the Convention.
So soon as the first Declaration of Rights was proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly, the frank and unqualified application of the principles of natural justice with which some of them were consecrated in it, proved revolting to men led astray by a false science, or corrupted by the vices of civilization. From that moment they only meditated how they might best elude the principles, while they affected and appeared to applaud them.
This was the origin of the factions which, under the first three National Assemblies, exerted themselves to arrest the impulse (élan) of the French people towards complete emancipation, and to confine the Revolution to those systems which they judged most favourable to their passions, or most conformable to their doctrines. These proved much more hurtful to the establishment of liberty, than the open opposition of the privileged classes, because they have deceived the people by borrowing from them the language of patriotism.
Towards the close of the Constituent Assembly, the spirit of these factions predominated in it, and the party which remained faithful to the public cause would have been unnoticed, had it not forced itself into attention by the energy of its remonstrances. It is to this spirit we are to ascribe the retrograde movements and contradictions of this Assembly.
In contempt of the equality of right which had been decreed by the Constitution, millions of citizens were deprived of the right of suffrage, and of eligibility. A law of blood was opposed to the complaints excited by the misery of the people, and by the equivocal course of the legislature. The latter were obstinately bent, in defiance of good sense and the national will, to replace the safeguard of the constitution in the hands of a king who had just openly avowed himself its enemy, and whose power, instead of extinguishing, they had increased. They caused to flow in the
