Girondin

“ The responsibility of the decrees against the emigrants and non-juring priests rests mainly with the Girondins. Their next decisive step was to preach war; not a prudent, self-defensive war, but war on a grander scale than the world had yet known, a crusade for Liberty throughout Europe. And Vergniaud, that storm-bird of the Revolution, who continually rose above the rage of temporal contests to some serene ether of thought, lifted up all hearts in the Assembly as he cried in that richly cadenced voice of his: "A thought rises within me. ”

“ At the end of the year 1795, after the complete defeat of the Girondins, the persecutions against the priests and the ci-devant nobles were redoubled, and some of the effects of the general were exposed to sale. This courageous wife repaired to Brionde, where the auction took place. "Citizens," said she, to the district, "I feel myself obliged to protest before the sale about to take place, against the enormous injustice of applying the laws of emigration to him who now is the prisoner of the enemies of France. ”

“ These massacres had opened an abyss between the leaders of the Gironde and the three great revolutionary chiefs, Danton, Marat, Robespierre. The last, as often before, had kept personally aloof from a movement which he may have deplored, but of which he was now appropriating the advantages. The Girondins, so far from imitating this crafty, or statesman-like, policy, raised the hue and cry against the Septemberers. Madame Roland, who in her girlhood had endured an agony of pity at the racking of two criminals, now suffered tortures at this desecration which liberty had undergone. ”

“ Gironde (794) , a maritime department in SW. France, facing the Bay of Biscay on the W. and lying N. and S. between Charente-Inférieure and Landes; the Garonne and the Dordogne flowing through it form the Gironde estuary, and with their tributaries sufficiently water the undulating land; agriculture and some manufactories flourish, but wine is the chief product.
Girondins or Girondists, a party of moderate republican opinions in the French Revolution ”

“ Roland, as an instrument of the Girondins, feared that among the papers in the chest might be discovered some which would show in what close relations the Girondins stood to the Court. She decided that her husband should go to the Tuileries, accompanied by Gamain, an architect, and a servant. The chest was opened by the locksmith, Roland removed all the papers, tied them up in a napkin, and took them home. They were taken the same day to the Convention; and the commission charged the minister with having abstracted such papers as would have been inconvenient to him to deliver up. ”

“ The fall of the Girondins on the 31st of May was a triumph for Marat. But it was his last. The skin disease he had contracted in the subterranean haunts was rapidly closing his life; he could only ease his pain by sitting in a warm bath, where he wrote his journal, and accused the Girondins, who were trying to raise France against Paris. Sitting thus on the 13th of July he heard in the evening a young woman begging to be admitted to see him, saying that she brought news from Caen, where the escaped Girondins were trying to rouse Normandy. ”

“ There is no other road to safety for a man like you!" "What?" he replied; "I am to kill Robespierre and Billaud?" "If you do not, they will kill you." He said to one of his advisers, "The tribunal would absolve me." To another, "Better to be guillotined than to guillotine." And to a third, "They will never dare!" In a last interview, Robespierre accused him of having encouraged the opposition of Desmoulins, and of having regretted the Girondins. "Yes," said Danton, "it is time to stop the shedding of blood." ”

“ The Girondists were, indeed, rather a group of individuals holding certain opinions and principles in common than an organized political party, and the name was at first somewhat loosely applied to them owing to the fact that the most brilliant exponents of their point of view were deputies from the Gironde. These deputies were twelve in number, six of whom—the lawyers Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Grangeneuve and Jay, and the tradesman Jean François Ducos—sat both in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. ”

“ The Gironde, from the tribune itself, made that appeal to the people against the king which it was subsequently doomed to make in vain in favour of the king against the Jacobins. In order to control the city, Brissot, Roland, Pétion, excited the suburbs, those capitals of miseries and seditions. Every time that a people which has long crouched in slavery and ignorance is moved to its lowest depths, then appear monsters and heroes, prodigies of crime and prodigies of virtue; such were about to appear under the conspiring hand of the Girondists and demagogues. ”

“ Before sunrise on the morrow, Basil sent forth his invitations to all of the Anician blood in Rome. The first to respond was Gordianus, whose dwelling on the Clivus Scauri stood but a few minutes' walk away. Though but a little older than Basil, Gordian had been for several years a husband and a father; he was in much esteem for his worldly qualities, and more highly regarded for the fervour of his religious faith. A tall, handsome, dignified man, he looked straight before him with frank eyes, and his lips told of spirit tempered by kindliness. ”

“ Two persons whose talents were not brilliant, but who enjoyed a high reputation for probity and public spirit, Pétion and Roland, lent the whole weight of their names to the Girondist connection. The wife of Roland brought to the deliberations of her husband's friends masculine courage and force of thought, tempered by womanly grace and vivacity. Nor was the splendor of a great military reputation wanting to this celebrated party. Dumourier, then victorious over the foreign invaders, and at the height of popular favor, must be reckoned among the allies of the Gironde. ”

“ The household of Gordian seemed untouched by common cares; though thoroughly human its domestic life, it had something of the calm, the silence, of a monastery. None entered save those whom husband and wife held in affection or in respect; idle gaiety was unknown beneath their roof, and worldly ambition had no part in their counsels. Because of the reverence these things inspired in him, and because of his longing to speak with a pure-hearted woman who held him in kindness, Basil again presented himself at his kinsman's door. He was led directly to an inner room, where sat Silvia. ”

“ Girond as Capitaine Crépin in 'The Squire's Daughter.'" "Send round to some stationer's shop, will you, and get me that?"
When the messenger returned with the photograph, Lionel, rather timidly, put it before her; but, indeed, there was nothing in the costume of Mlle. Girond to startle any one—the uniform of the boy-officer was so obviously a compromise. Nina glanced at it thoughtfully.
"Well, Leo," she said, looking up, "you see no harm?"
"Harm?" said he, boldly taking up his cue, "of course not! It isn't like any uniform that ever was known; I suppose it's Mlle. Girond's own invention ”

“ One evening, I was sauntering along the beach at Paulliac—a little town on the river’s bank, about a dozen of miles from the mouth of the Gironde, and holding precisely the same relation to Bordeaux as Gravesend does to London—when a band of vintagers, men, women, and children, came up. They were bound to some village on the opposite side of the Gironde, and wanted to get ferried across. A long parley accordingly ensued between the chief and a group of boatmen. The commander of the vintage forces offered four sous per head as the passage-money. ”

“ And as it went, as its dust-cloud trembled and fell, as its explosions grew fainter and fainter, Giron stood watching, a startled figure leaning far over the porch-rail, unbelief and venom in his face. And as he watched, waiting until the white car was only a speck dissolving toward Westbury, his lips began to move. To the air he talked doubtfully, musingly, saying aloud:
“I thought there was only one man who could take a turn like that. One man,”—his eyes glittered,—“Jean Lescault was his name, and I fixed him seven years ago.” ”

“ And when Geraint came into the town, he looked at every house, to see if he knew any of those whom he saw. But he knew none, and none knew him to do him the kindness to let him have arms either as a loan or for a pledge. And every house he saw was full of men, and arms, and horses. And they were polishing shields, and burnishing swords, and washing armour, and shoeing horses. And the knight, and the lady, and the dwarf rode up to the Castle that was in the town, and every one was glad in the Castle. ”

“ Grinnell's broad face and small eyes laden with fat lids were persistently averted. Purdee often glanced toward him gloweringly, his head held, nevertheless, a little askance, as if he rejected the very sight. There was the fire of a desperate intention in his eyes. Looking at his face, shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, one could hardly have doubted now whether it expressed most ferocity or force. His breath came quick—the bated breath of a man who watches and waits for a supreme moment. ”

“ Louis XVI. had never received from the malcontents a more terrible blow than that now given by his minister. Passions trouble the conscience of the people, and there are days when treachery passes current for heroism. The Girondists made a hero of Roland. They had his letter printed, and circulated it in the eighty-three departments.
Roland left the chamber amidst loud applauses. Dumouriez entered it in the midst of uproar. He displayed in the tribune the same calmness as in the field of battle. He began by announcing to the Assembly the death of General Gouvion. ”

“ So we planned: and so it came about that we were free to enjoy ourselves and look about us critically, as the smoky little tender bore us up the wide channel of the Gironde from Pauillac, where our ship bound for South America had contemptuously dropped us, to Bordeaux itself. A little below the city, the Gironde, which is really the estuary of the Garonne and Dordogne, shrinks to the Garonne pure and simple, but under either name it seems equally a waste of turbid clay-laden waters. ”

“ On a bright Saturday afternoon we steamed into the wide mouth of the Gironde, a name stirring vague memories of romance and terror. The French passengers gazed wistfully at the low-lying strip of sand and forest, but our uniformed pilgrims crowded the rail and hailed it as the promised land of self-realization. ”

“ In 1669 M. de Grignan, who had previously been lieutenant-governor of Languedoc, was transferred to Provence. The governor-in-chief was the young duke of Vendome. But at this time he was a boy, and he never really took up the government, so that Grignan for more than forty years was in effect viceroy of this important province. His wife rejoiced greatly in the part of vice-queen; but their peculiar situation threw on them the expenses without the emoluments of the office, so that the Grignan money affairs hold a larger place in Madame de Sévigné's letters than might perhaps be wished. ”

“ The consciousness of spiritual elevation constituted her only solace. The anticipation of a lofty reputation after death was her only heaven. No one can read the thoughts she penned but with the deepest emotion.
The Girondists who had been in prison were led from their dungeons in the Conciergerie to their execution on October 31, 1793. Upon that very day Madame Roland was conveyed from the prison of St. Pélagié to the same gloomy cells vacated by the death of her friends. She was cast into a bare and miserable dungeon, in that receptacle of woe, where there was not even a bed. ”

“ Gironiere could not afford horses often. He eagerly assured the thieves that he would not give his nags to the military; that he would, on the contrary, depart by the road over which he had come, in order to avoid meeting the soldiers, and this promise he made on the honor of a gentleman. The leader of the brigands saluted, and the Frenchman drove away, as he had agreed, the thieves watching him until he was out of sight. For months after this incident he had no trouble with the natives. ”

“ That's barely wide enough to admit a man; Grinson would stick, I guess; but 'tis surely used as a passage. There are notches cut in the cliff at regular intervals.'
'Then we can get away?'
'Sure! All but Grinson, that is. We 'd have to leave him behind.'
'Don't say so, sir,' said Meek. 'Mr. Grinson 's not so fat as he was--not by a long way. I 'm afeard if he stays, I must stay too.'
'Thank 'ee, Ephraim, me lad,' said Grinson warmly. 'But Mr. Hoole is pulling my leg. You take him too serious; he 's a gentleman as will have his joke. ”

“ Thereupon Basil turned to go away. In the vestibule, the slaves knelt weeping before him, some with entreaties to be permitted to leave this stricken house, some imploring advice against the plague; men and women alike, all were beside themselves with terror. In this moment there came a knocking at the entrance; the porter ran to open, and admitted Gordian. Basil and he, who had not met since the day of the family gathering, spoke together in the portico. He had come, said Gordian, in the fear that Petronilla had been forsaken by all her household, as sometimes happened to those infected. ”

“ I came here, as you well know, to investigate for Monsieur de Villardin what were the chances in favour of the immediate liberation of the Princes; and I promised him to write immediately after I had seen you, to give him such information as would determine the part that he was to take. Come, come, Monsieur Gourville, you are not acting candidly with me. If you speak frankly, you have nothing to fear. If you do not speak frankly, you may prevent Monsieur de Villardin from throwing his whole weight into the scale of the Princes. ”

“ Messer Girolani reseated himself and stared meditatively into the flames. For a long time he sat thus, pondering. The body of the unfortunate child lay at full length on the table, covered with a heavy cloth. At length the alchemist started up and replenished the fire, and turned the hour-glass. As he turned from the fireplace he faced the Duke di Sforza, who had entered silently. The firelight flickered horribly on his drawn features.
“Quick, Messer Girolani, the elixir!” ”