Page:Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov - The Bourgeois Revolution- Its Attainments and Its Limitations - tr. Henry Kuhn (1926).pdf/21

 ous from the struggle with the Mountain, then, according to the author, "they, too, would have been placed in the same position as was the case with the Montagnards; they too would have been forced to quell the royalist insurrections, beat down the opposition party, repel the invasions, and it may be doubted whether, without the dictatorship, they would have been able to cope with all these evils. But their dictatorship would have been less blood-thirsty and would have given more scope to law and liberty."

But upon which layers of the population would the gentle Girondists have been able to lean? When, after their defeat in Paris, they sought help in the provinces, they found there only the passive help of—to use Janet's expression—"the dilatory and lukewarm" middle class and the malignant support of the royalists, which they themselves had to reject. And could they reckon with a more effective support on the part of their adherents in the struggle with the foreign foes? The Gironde never did and never would find favor with the lowest, the most rev-