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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
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