The free state which they wished to achieve, that would they achieve "holily"; and while they clamoured for war with the foreign foe they deprecated violence at home.
When Madame Roland returned to Paris in the December of 1791, the affinity between her and the new party made her at once the centre of that group of men known as "The Gironde." It seemed as if from their childhood these kindred natures had been converging to this hour of meeting.
With armies ominously collecting on her frontiers, a spirit of defiant heroism entered the heart of France. The representatives she had elected to man the vessel of State were the expression of this spirit. The indefatigable Brissot was chosen as its captain by this gallant crew, chief among whom may be mentioned the headstrong Guadet, as impetuous as Gensonné was deliberate in counsel; Isnard, the Provençal, consumed by a fanaticism he communicated to his hearers; Vergniaud, winged of speech, stamping the topics of the time with the seal of eternity; the silent Grangeneuve, capable of performing a great action without suspecting its greatness; Louvet, ever first to the attack, as dauntless in spirit as delicate in frame; Barbaroux, the resolute young Marseillais, "with the head of Antinous and the heart of a lion"; Pétion, too, and the high-souled Buzot, both tried supporters of the popular cause; not to forget those two figures of an ideal purity and sweetness—Fonfrède and Ducos, the Nisus and Euryalus of the Revolution. Of this young hopeful crew the grave, reverend Roland, he of whom Lavater had said that he "reconciled him to Frenchmen," was presently to assume the pilotage. But high oh the poop above, beautiful, like the impersonation of liberty, stands the
