rgniaud, "that
hereafter ministers are to answer with their heads for any disorders
of which religion is the pretext."--"The blood just spilt at Bordeaux,"
says Ducos, "may be laid at the door of the executive power. "[2615] La
Source proposes to "punish with death," not alone the minister who is
not prompt in ordering the execution of a decree, but, again, the clerks
who do not fulfill the minister's instructions. Always death on every
occasion, and for every one who is not of the sect. Under this constant
terror, the ministers resign in a body, and the King is required at once
to appoint others; meanwhile, to increase the danger of their position,
the Assembly decrees that hereafter they shall "be answerable for
each other." It is evident that they are aiming at the King over his
minister's shoulders, while the Girondists leave nothing unturned to
render government to him impossible. The King, again, signs this new
decree; he declines to protest; to the persecution he is forced to
undergo he opposes nothing but silence, sometimes a simple, frank,
good-hearted expression,[2616] some kindly, touching complaining, which
seems like a suppressed moan.[2617] But dogmatic obstinacy and impatient
ambition are willfully deaf to the most sorrowful strains! His sincerity
passes for a new false-hood. Vergniaud, Brissot, Torne, Condorcet, in
the tribune, charge him with treachery, demand from the Assembly the
right of suspending him,[2618] and give the signal to their Jacobin
auxiliaries.--At the invitation of the parent club, the provincial
branches bestir themselves, while all other instruments of
agitation belonging to the revolutionary machine are likewise put in
motion,--gatherings on the public squares, homicidal announcements
on the walls, incendiary resolutions in the clubs, shouting in the
tribunes, insulting addresses and seditious deputations at the bar of
the National Assembly.[2619] After the working of this system for a
month, the Girondists regard the King as subdued, and, on the 26th of
July, Guadet, and then Brissot, in the tribune, make their last advances
to him, and issue the final summons.[2620] A profound delusion! He
refuses, the same as on the 20th of June: "Girondist ministers, Never!"

Since he bars one of the two doors, they will pass out at the other,
and, if the Girondists cannot rule through him, they will rule without
him. Petion, in the name of the Commune, appears personally and proposes
a new plan