followed by subsequent victories may be explained quite apart from party policy.
In fact, most of the successful measures, such as the formation of some of those powerful committees—to be turned into engines of destruction against their founders—were originated by the Girondins and appropriated by the Jacobins afterwards. Thus the important measure of sending republican commissioners to the camps to control the generals and keep the Convention informed of their spirit had been a proposition of Vergniaud. No single cause contributed more, perhaps, than this measure to the success of the Revolutionary army; yet was the Gironde too short-lived to reap the benefit of this, and its credit redounded to their political persecutors.
But the capital charge, that which ruined the Girondins in public opinion, was the accusation of federalism. The one inexpiable sin in the eyes of the Revolutionists was the sin against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. But had they entertained such a design? And if so, was it really so culpable? In Madame Roland's letter to Servan her expression "If Paris goes to ruin, the South must save us" sufficed to send her to the guillotine. We see from her Memoirs that when the enemy was expected to march upon Paris, the expediency of removing the seat of Representatives to the south-east had been discussed. But these changes were only talked of as expedients in critical moments, not as permanent modifications of the State. The deputies from Bordeaux and Marseilles were credited with a dislike to Paris, and the wish of reducing its influence to the level of that of the provinces; but how about Madame Roland, who laughingly called herself a badaud (cockney), and who from
