vered
the semblance of it. The Montagnards still hold their slave by his lash,
but they have restored his prestige so as to make the most of him to
their own profit.

VII. Extent and Manifesto of the departmental insurrection

Effect of this maneuver.--Extent and Manifesto of the
departmental insurrection.--Its fundamental weakness.--The
mass of the population inert and distrustful.--The small
number of Girondists.--Their lukewarm adherents.--Scruples
of fugitive deputies and insurgent administrators.--They
form no central government.--They leave military authority
in the hands of the Convention.--Fatal progress of their
concessions.--Withdrawal of the departments one by one.
--Retraction of the compromised authorities.--Effect of
administrative habits.--Failings and illusions of the
Moderates.--Opposite character of the Jacobins.

With the same blow, and amongst the same playacting, they have nearly
disarmed their adversaries.--On learning the events of May 31 and June
2, a loud cry of indignation arose among republicans of the cultivated
class in this generation, who, educated by the philosophers,
sincerely believed in the rights of man.[1148] Sixty-nine department
administrations had protested,[1149] and, in almost all the towns of the
west, the south, the east and the center of France, at Caen, Alencon,
Evreux, Rennes, Brest, Lorient, Nantes and Limoges, at Bordeaux,
Toulouse, Montpellier, Nimes and Marseilles, at Grenoble, Lyons,
Clermont, Lons-le-Saunier, Besancon, Macon and Dijon,[1150] the
citizens, assembled in their sections, had provoked, or maintained by
cheering them on, the acts of their administrators. Rulers and citizens,
all declared that, the Convention not being free, its decrees after
the 31st of May, no longer had the force of law; that the troops of
the departments should march on Paris to deliver that city from its
oppressors, and that their substitutes should be called out and assemble
at Bourges. In many places words were converted into acts. Already
before the end of May, Marseilles and Lyons had taken up arms and
checkmated their local Jacobins. After the 2nd of June, Normandy,
Brittany, Gard, Jura, Toulouse and Bordeaux, had also raised troops. At
Marseilles, Bordeaux and Caen representatives on mission, arrested or
under guard, were retained as hostages.[1151] At Nantes, the national
Guard and popular magistrates who, a week be