Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/44

 230 WORKMEN AND HEROES { which all the more heavily weighed down the great body of the people. The latter had a long list of genuine grievances which the king and his advisers re- fused to remedy. The revolution became an accomplished fact in the capture and destruction of the Bastille, on July 14, 1789, which day is still celebrated as a national holiday in France. It had been for hundreds of years a prison for political of- fenders, and was regarded by the people as the principal emblem and instrument of tyranny. The population became as intemperate as their rulers had been, thousands perished by the guillotine, and the reign of terror was established. The National Convention proclaimed a republic ; but this body was divided by conflicting opinions, and had not the power to inaugurate their ideal govern- ment. Blood flowed in rivers, and the reaction was infinitely more terrible than the tyranny which had produced it. The Convention was divided into at least four parties, though the lines which separated them were not very clearly defined. The Jacobins were the most prominent, and the most radical. It had its origin in the Jacobin Club, formed in Versailles, taking its name from a convent in which it met. This organiza- tion soon spread through its branches all over France, and its party was the most violent and blood-thirsty in the convention. Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Des- moulins, and other desperate leaders were of this faction. The Girondists were next in numbers and influence. They were the moder- ate republicans of the time, though at first they were inclined to accept the con- stitution, and favor a limited monarchy. Its name came from the earliest lead- ers of the party who were representatives from the department of the Gironde. Its members labored to check the violence and bloodshed of the times, and might be called the respectable party of the period. Unfortunately they were in the minority, and all the members of the party in the Convention who did not escape, were arrested, convicted, and guillotined. The Montagnards (mountaineers) or Montagne (Mountain) was the term ap- plied to the Democrats holding the most extreme views, though its members were also Jacobins and Cordeliers. Among them were the most blood-thirsty, unrea- sonable, and intolerant men of the time, for Danton, Robespierre, Marat, St Just, and others of that stamp, affiliated with them. They took their name from the fact that they were grouped together in the uppermost seats of the chamber of the Convention. The Cordeliers was hardly more than another name for a club of the same men, so called from the chapel of a Franciscan monastery where they held their meetings. Jean Paul Marat was one of the most prominent personages of the Revolu tion, whose infamy will continue to be perpetuated down to generations yet to come, with other of his red-handed associates. He was a Frenchman, though he spent considerable time in Holland and Great Britain, where he practised medi- cine, having studied the profession at Bordeaux. He made some reputation as a political writer, and in Edinburgh obtained a degree. It is believed that he was convicted for stealing, and sentenced to five years imprisonment at Oxford under