ts in the Legislative
Assembly, which had now assumed the name of the National Convention,
and M. Roland at the head of the ministry, were struggling, with
herculean exertions, to restore the dominion of law, and, if possible,
to save the life of the king. The Jacobins, who, unable to resist the
boundless popularity of M. Roland, had, for a time, co-operated with
the Girondists, now began to separate themselves again more and more
widely from them. They flattered the mob. They encouraged every
possible demonstration of lawless violence. They pandered to the
passions of the multitude by affecting grossness and vulgarity in
person, and language, and manners; by clamoring for the division of
property, and for the death of the king. In tones daily increasing in
boldness and efficiency, they declared the Girondists to be the
friends of the monarch, and the enemies of popular liberty. Upon this
tumultuous wave of polluted democracy, now rising with resistless and
crested billow, Danton and Robespierre were riding into their terrific
power. Humanity shut its eyes in view of the hideous apparition of wan
and haggard beggary and crime. The deep mutterings of this rising
storm, which no earthly hand might stay, rolled heavily upon the ear
of Europe. Christendom looked astounded upon the spectacle of a
barbarian invasion bursting forth from the cellars and garrets of
Paris. Oppressed and degraded humanity was about to take vengeance for
its ages of accumulated wrongs. The throne was demolished. The
insulted royal family, in rags and almost in starvation, were in a
dungeon. The universal cry from the masses of the people was now for a
republic. Jacobins and Girondists united in this cry; but the Jacobins
accused the Girondists of being insincere, and of secretly plotting
for the restoration of the king.

Madame Roland, in the name of her husband, drew up for the Convention
the plan of a republic as a substitute for the throne. From childhood
she had yearned for a republic, with its liberty and purity,
fascinated by the ideal of Roman virtue, from which her lively
imagination had banished all human corruption. But now that the throne
and hereditary rank were virtually abolished, and all France clamoring
for a republic, and the pen in her hand to present to the National
Assembly a Constitution of popular liberty, her heart misgave her. Her
husband was nominally Minister of the Interior, but his power was
gone. The mob of Paris had u