against the Brissotins, those traitors who bad voted for ratification by the nation of the sentence on the King. Roland was only spoken of as King Roland. Camille, the too brilliant Camille, pierced them to the quick in his Histoire des Brissotins; but the barbed arrow of his wit rebounded, alas, to cleave his own heart when repentance came too late.
Meanwhile the sittings in the Convention grew daily more riotous. Delegates of the nation were seen rushing madly to the tribune, shaking fists in each other's faces, and even drawing their swords! The two chief revolutionary parties hated each other more fiercely even than Court, Nobles, Priests, Royalists, Moderates! But it is always thus in the history of ideas. The more men's ideas approximate, the more galling their divergencies. Yet these struggles of Jacobin and Girondin were mild compared with the war of extermination which many of the conflicting sects waged with each other some centuries after the Christian era.
While this unhappy conflict raged in the Convention, the fortunes of France were reaching their lowest ebb. The news of the reverses of Dumouriez, of the insurrection of La Vendée, of the disturbances in Calvados, broke like so many heavy seas over the decks of the Republic. The Girondins, who still manned all the chief posts, were held responsible for every disaster. Yet they did not admit the greatness of the peril, being either too culpably engrossed by the strife of factions at Paris, or fearful of another panic, or, what seems likeliest, too convinced of the popularity of the Revolution to make them doubt its stability. From the first Brissot had relied for success on the sympathy of neighbouring populations; and he must also have been aware that, as a large portion of the lands of the
