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168 carried out its programme, and so have saved the Republic. The Gironde, with Danton for its adversary, was helplessly given over to the Hébertists and to Robespierre, and its fall ultimately entailed that of the Republic. But Madame Roland knew not how to make a compromise with evil.

After the massacres of September, Roland's wife succeeded in inspiring the whole party with her hatred of Danton. Her voice urged them to the attack, and whenever they slackened in their zeal, one man, over whom she possessed illimitable influence, the proud, intrepid Buzot, renewed the onset in the Convention.

The Girondins had been universally returned by the provinces. Paris manifested its bias by electing Danton, Robespierre, Collot-d'Herbois, Billaud-Varenne, and one of the main instigators of the September massacres, Marat. Parties at this time seemed pretty equally balanced in the Chamber; if anything, the Gironde had the majority. Their members sat on all the Committees, and Pétion the Mayor was their close ally. They had now arrived at that point, reached by every revolutionary party in turn, when they would fain have piloted the vessel of State into harbour. Their aim became to consolidate the Republic by evolving the reign of law from the chaos of anarchy. The Revolution had been a violent transition from an old order of things to a new one, and, its main objects being attained, they deemed the time ripe for a reorganization of the government in more peaceable fashion. With this object they drew up an Appeal to the Convention to recommend the prosecution of the instigators of the September massacres, setting forth that their principal objects were to dissolve the Commune, to decree in due form the election of a new