rming the new despotism, including both the commune of the
sections and a Jacobin ministry in which Danton held the portfolio of
justice. It then dispersed. On September second began that general
clearance of the jails under mock forms of justice to which reference
has been made. It was really a massacre, and lasted, as has been said,
for five days. Versailles, Lyons, Meaux, Rheims, and Orleans were
similarly "purified." Amid these scenes the immaculate Robespierre,
whose hands were not soiled with the blood spilled on August tenth,
appeared as the calm statesman controlling the wild vagaries of the
rough and impulsive but unselfish and uncalculating Danton. These two,
with Philip Egalite and Collot d'Herbois, were among those elected to
represent Paris in the Convention. That body met on September
twenty-first. As they sat in the amphitheater of the Assembly, the
Girondists, or moderate republicans, who were in a strong majority,
were on the right of the president's chair. High up on the extreme
left were the Jacobins, or "Mountain"; between were placed those timid
trimmers who were called the "Plain" and the "Marsh" according to the
degree of their democratic sentiments. The members were, of course,
without exception republicans. The first act of the Convention was to
abolish the monarchy, and to declare France a republic. The next was
to establish an executive council. It was decreed that September
twenty-second, 1792, was the "first day of the year I of the
republic." Under the leadership of Brissot and Roland, the Girondists
asserted their power as the majority, endeavoring to restore order in
Paris, and to bridle the extreme Jacobins. But notwithstanding its
right views and its numbers, the Girondist party displayed no
sagacity; before the year I was three months old, the unscrupulous
Jacobins, with the aid of the Paris commune, had reasserted their
supremacy.

The declaration of the republic only hastened the execution of
Salicetti's plan regarding Sardinia, and the Convention was more
energetic than the Legislative had been. The fleet was made ready,
troops from France were to be embarked at Villefranche, and a force
composed in part of regulars, in part of militia, was to be equipped
in Corsica and to sail thence to join the main expedition.
Buonaparte's old battalion was among those that were selected from the
Corsican volunteers. From the outset Paoli had been unfriendly to the
scheme; its supporters, whose