The Gironde consented to the imprisonment
of the royal family in the Temple. This was not concession enough. The
Jacobins, with the mob at their back, accused them not only of lack of
works, but of lack of faith, and when such an accusation against a party
becomes the expression of a popular conviction, that party has nothing
to do except to die. To prove this charge untrue, the Gironde united
with their enemies in abolishing the monarchy and establishing a
republic. Madame Roland drew up a plan for a republic, but it was too
late for such a one as she desired. Her scheme was federative, like our
own, in which the provinces of France should have the status of states.
This plan was a blow at the mob of Paris, which, through the Jacobin
clubs, with which France was thickly sown, controlled the nation. The
republic which followed was such only in name. The mob of Paris now
stepped from behind the transparent screen, whence it had moved all
parties like wire-hung puppets, and stood disclosed before the world in
all its colossal horror, stained with blood, breathing flames, and
grasped directly the springs of power. The national assembly was like a
keeper of lunatics captured by his patients. Its members were crowded in
their seats by blood-thirsty men, depraved women, and by merciless
visionaries, who clamored for extirpation and destruction, absolute and
universal.
The power of Roland as a minister became as feeble as a shadow's hand.
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