Walter Alison Phillips

“ But the Montagnards made up by their fanatical, or desperate, energy and boldness for what they lacked in talent or in numbers. They had behind them the revolutionary Commune, the Sections and the National Guard of Paris, and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot, absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. And as the motive power of this formidable mechanism of force they could rely on the native suspiciousness of the Parisian populace, exaggerated now into madness by famine and the menace of foreign invasion. The Girondists played into their hands. ”

“ The ignorant populace, for whom the promised social millennium had by no means dawned, saw in an attitude seemingly so inconsistent obvious proof of corrupt motives, and there were plenty of prophets of misrule to encourage the delusion—orators of the clubs and the street corners, for whom the restoration of order would have meant well-deserved obscurity. Moreover, the Septembriseurs—Robespierre, Danton, Marat and their lesser satellites—realized that not only their influence but their safety depended on keeping the Revolution alive. ”

“ In the Legislative Assembly the Girondists represented the principle of democratic revolution within and of patriotic defiance to the European powers without. They were all-powerful in the Jacobin Club (see Jacobins) , where Brissot’s influence had not yet been ousted by Robespierre, and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay the progress of the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry composed of their partisans—among them Roland, Dumouriez, Clavière and Servan ”