rew the attention of all Europe.
When a great measure was to be brought forward, when an account was to
be rendered of an important event, he was generally the mouthpiece of
the administration. He was therefore not unnaturally considered, by
persons who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and above
all by foreigners, who, while the war raged, knew France only from
journals, as the head of that administration of which, in truth, he
was only the secretary and the spokesman. The author of the History of
Europe, in our own Annual Registers, appears to have been completely
under this delusion.

The conflict between the hostile parties was meanwhile fast approaching
to a crisis. The temper of Paris grew daily fiercer and fiercer.
Delegates appointed by thirty-five of the forty-eight wards of the city
appeared at the bar of the Convention, and demanded that Vergniaud,
Brissot, Guadet, Gensonne, Barbaroux, Buzot, Petion, Louvet, and many
other deputies, should be expelled. This demand was disapproved by at
least three-fourths of the Assembly, and, when known in the departments,
called forth a general cry of indignation. Bordeaux declared that it
would stand by its representatives, and would, if necessary, defend them
by the sword against the tyranny of Paris. Lyons and Marseilles were
animated by a similar spirit. These manifestations of public opinion
gave courage to the majority of the Convention. Thanks were voted to
the people of Bordeaux for their patriotic declaration; and a
commission consisting of twelve members was appointed for the purpose of
investigating the conduct of the municipal authorities of Paris, and was
empowered to place under arrest such persons as should appear to have
been concerned in any plot against the authority of the Convention. This
measure was adopted on the motion of Barere.

A few days of stormy excitement and profound anxiety followed; and then
came the crash. On the thirty-first of May the mob of Paris rose; the
palace of the Tuileries was besieged by a vast array of pikes; the
majority of the deputies, after vain struggles and remonstrances,
yielded to violence, and suffered the Mountain to carry a decree for the
suspension and arrest of the deputies whom the wards of the capital had
accused.

During this contest, Barere had been tossed backwards and forwards
between the two raging factions. His feelings, languid and unsteady as
they always were, drew him to the Girondists;