in
Paris.--Suspicions against the Girondists.--Baseness of the
Jacobins.--Peril of the Girondists.--Anxious deliberations.--Vile
intrigue of the Jacobins.--Madame Roland accused.--Madame Roland
before the Assembly.--Her dignified demeanor.--Madame Roland's defense
of herself.--She is acquitted by acclamation.--Madame Roland's
triumph.--Chagrin of her enemies.--Festival of the Girondists.--Toast
of Vergniaud.--Classical allusion.--Clamors for the king's death.--The
king brought before the Convention.--Dismal day.--Menaces of the
mob.--Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.--Trial of the king.--Proposition
of Robespierre.--Vote of Vergniaud.--Vote of the Girondists.--Indignation
at the king's death.--The Revolutionary Tribunal.--Unlimited powers of
the Revolutionary Tribunal.--Atrocious cruelties.--Embarrassments of
M. Roland.--He sends in his resignation.--Attempts to assassinate the
Rolands.--Entreaties of friends.--Firmness of Madame Roland.--Roland's
influence in the departments.--Plots against the Girondists.--Meetings
at Madame Roland's.--Insurrections in favor of the monarchy.--Jacobin
insurrection.--Portentous mutterings.--Precautions of the
Girondists.--Intrepidity of Vergniaud.--Power of prayer.--"Horrible
hope."--The power of the Girondists gone.

The Jacobins now resolved to bring the king to trial. By placards
posted in the streets, by inflammatory speeches in the Convention, in
public gatherings, and in the clubs, by false assertions and slanders
of every conceivable nature, they had roused the ignorant populace to
the full conviction that the king was the author of every calamity now
impending. The storm of the Revolution had swept desolation through
all the walks of peaceful industry. Starvation, gaunt and terrible,
began to stare the population of Paris directly in the face. The
infuriated mob hung the bakers upon the lamp-posts before their own
doors for refusing to supply them with bread. The peasant dared not
carry provisions into the city, for he was sure of being robbed by the
sovereign people, who had attained the freedom of committing all
crimes with impunity. The multitude fully believed that there was a
conspiracy formed by the king in his prison, and by the friends of
royalty, to starve the people into subjection. Portentous murmurs were
now also borne on every breeze, uttered by a thousand unseen voices,
that the Girondists were accomplices in this conspiracy; that they
hated the Revolution; that