In the early violence of the revolution she thought she saw a
transient phase--horrible, but inevitable in the dread convulsion
of that awakening. Soon this would pass, and the sane, ideal
government of her dreams would follow--must follow, since among
the people's elected representatives was a goodly number of
unselfish, single-minded men of her father's class of life; men
of breeding and education, impelled by a lofty altruistic
patriotism; men who gradually came to form a party presently to
be known as the Girondins.

But the formation of one party argues the formation of at least
another. And this other in the National Assembly was that of the
Jacobins, less pure of motive, less restrained in deed, a party
in which stood pre-eminent such ruthless, uncompromising men as
Robespierre, Danton,--and Marat.

Where the Girondins stood for Republicanism, the Jacobins stood
for Anarchy. War was declared between the two. The Girondins
arraigned Marat and Robespierre for complicity in the September
massacres, and thereby precipitated their own fall. The triumphant
acquittal of Marat was the prelude to the ruin of the Girondins,
and the proscription of twenty-nine deputies followed at once as
the first step. These fled into the country, hoping to raise an
army that should yet save France, and several of the fugitives
made their way to Caen. Thence by pamphlets and oratory they
laboured to arouse true Republican enthusiasm. They were gifted,
able men, eloquent speakers and skilled writers, and they might
have succeeded but that in Paris sat another man no less gifted,
and with surer knowledge of the temper of the proletariat,