all were
loyalists and traitors. Robespierre attacked many of them by name in
the convention, and Marat denounced them in the popular assemblies. The
committee of public safety, to which the plots of their enemies gave
rise, seemed to promise advantage to the Girondists; but it served only
to excite their adversaries more violently against them. The struggle
between these contending parties at length approached a crisis. At this
time Lyons, Orleans, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and La Vendee, indignant
against the anarchists, were all declaring themselves for the party
of moderation and the Girondists. These were startling events to the
Jacobins, and they prepared to strike a blow which should prostrate
their antagonists. A plot had been devised for their destruction, but it
was discovered, and the infamous Hebert, who was at the head of of it,
was thrown into prison. Tumults in the assembly and commotion in the
city now became the order of the day; and at length, on the 25th of May,
a furious multitude assembled at the hall of the convention, and loudly
demanded the suppression of the committee of public safety and the
liberation of Hebert. These proposals were resisted, but the Girondists
could not long sustain the conflict with the Jacobins. On the 27th, the
Sans-culotte bands of the anarchists appeared in a body at the door of
the convention, bearing a general petition of the sections, and despite
the expostulations of the assembly, they took their seats with the
members, and, under the influence of terror, the commission of twelve
was broken, and Hebert set at liberty. On the morrow, however, the
convention boldly reversed this compulsory vote; at the same time
seeking a compromise with the populace. But it was in vain that the
Girondists sought to conciliate an enraged populace. On the 2nd of
June, the mob, under the command of Henriot, surrounded the hall of the
convention, and thirty of the leaders of the Girondists were arrested.
The political career of the Girondists, indeed, was now over: henceforth
they were known only as individuals by their courage in the midst of
calamity and death. Many of them saved themselves by concealment, others
by flight, while many fell by their own hands, or were cut off by
the axe of the executioner. Twenty-one of them languished in long
imprisonment, until a decree of accusation was issued against them, and
the guillotine ended their sufferings.

With the Girondists, the last bulwark