on the
board or ever be permitted to enter the building (1750-1831).

GIRARDIN, EMILE DE, journalist and politician, born in Switzerland,
the natural son of General Alexandre de Girardin; took to stockbroking,
but quitting it for journalism he soon established a reputation as a
ready, vivacious writer, and in 1836 started _La Presse_, the first
French penny paper; his rapid change of front in politics earned for him
the nickname of "The Weathercock"; latterly he adhered to the Republican
cause, and founded _La France_ in its interest; he published many
political brochures and a few plays, and was for some years editor of _La
Liberte_ (1806-1881).--His wife, DELPHINE GAY, enjoyed a wide
celebrity both as a beauty and authoress; her poems, plays, and novels
fill six vols. (1806-1881).

GIRARDIN, FRANCOIS SAINT-MARC, a French professor and litterateur,
born at Paris; in 1827 was professor in the College Louis-le-Grand, and
in 1834 was nominated to the chair of Literature in the Sorbonne; as
leader-writer in the _Journal des Debats_ he vigorously opposed the
Democrats, and sat in the Senate from 1834 to 1848; in 1869, as
Saint-Beuve's successor, he took up the editorship of the _Journal des
Savants_, and in 1871 became a member of the National Assembly; he
published his collected essays and also his popular literary lectures
(1801-1873).

GIRONDE (794), a maritime department in SW. France, facing the Bay
of Biscay on the W. and lying N. and S. between Charente-Inferieure 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; "men," says Carlyle, "of fervid
constitutional principles, of quick talent, irrefragable logic, clear
respectability, who would have the reign of liberty establish itself, but
only by respectable methods." The leaders of it were from the Gironde
district, whence their name, were in succession members of the
Legislative Body and of the Convention, on the right in the former, on
the left in the latter, and numbered among them such names as Condorcet,
Brissot, Roland, Carnot, and others; they opposed the court and the
clerical party, and voted for the death of the king, but sought to rescue
him by a proposal of appeal to the people;