Clootz, became one of the chief instruments by which the destruction of the Gironde was eventually brought about.
In fact, there exists no evidence whatever of the Girondins having contemplated the foundation of a federate Republic: on the contrary, they were as deeply convinced of the necessity of its unity as the Jacobins. But supposing that they had contemplated the future possibility of such a form of government, was it for Robespierre to stigmatise such a conception as a crime? Robespierre, according to Louis Blanc, the most thorough-going disciple of Rousseau. Had he then forgotten these sentences in the Contrat Social, which he who runs may read?
"Moreover, if a State cannot be restrained within moderate limits, there still remains an expedient: that, namely, of not having a permanent capital, but of shifting the seat of the government from town to town where the representatives of the nation shall meet in turn.
"Let the land be peopled in equal proportions, let the same rights obtain everywhere, and life and plenty be everywhere diffused. By this means your State will become the strongest and most wisely-governed in existence. Remember that the walls of towns are only raised on the dilapidation of villages. For every palace that is building in the capital I seem to see a whole country-side falling into decay."
If ever there were a strong protest against centralization of government Rousseau made it, yet Robespierre shrank not on mere suspicion and loose reports of such doctrine from sending the Gironde to the guillotine.
