Page:Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov - The Bourgeois Revolution- Its Attainments and Its Limitations - tr. Henry Kuhn (1926).pdf/16

 party he reserves all his strong language and epithets.

Between these miscreants and the "manly, generous Gironde," Janet draws this interesting parallel: "The ones, like the others, wanted the republic. " But while "the Girondists aimed at a free, lawful, mild republic, the Montagnards strove for a despotic, cruel republic. Without attention to liberty, the latter prized only equality. True, both parties favored the sovereignty of the people, but with the difference that the Girondists righteously wanted to include among 'the people' all the citizens, while for the Montagnards, in keeping with the perversity still current today, the people consisted only of members of the working class, of persons living by their own labor. Consequently, according to the Montagnards, to rule should be the prerogative of this class alone."

The political program of the Girondists differed therefore essentially from that of the Montagnards. Whence this difference? Paul Janet himself gives us sufficient information about that, The difference proceeded from the fact that the Moun-