verdict, Vergniaud says to M. de Segur: "I vote Death? It
is an insult to suppose me capable of such a disgraceful act!" And, "he
sets forth the frightful iniquity of such a course, its uselessness, and
even its danger." "I would rather stand alone in my opinion than vote
Death!"[3449] The next day, having voted Death, he excuses himself by
saying "that he did not think he ought to put the life of one man in
the scale against the public welfare."[3450] Fifteen or twenty deputies,
influenced by his example, voted as he did, which was enough to turn the
majority.[3451] The same weakness is found at other decisive moments.
Charged with the denunciation of the conspiracy of the 10th of March,
Vergniaud attributes it to the aristocrats, and admits to Louvet that
"he did not wish to name the real conspirators for fear of embittering
violent men already pushing things to excess."[3452] The truth is, the
Girondists, as formerly the Constitutionalists, are too civilized for
their adversaries, and submit to force for lack of resolution to employ
it themselves.

"To put down the faction," says one of them,[3453] "can be done only by
cutting its throat, which, perhaps, would not be difficult to do. All
Paris is as weary as we are of its yoke, and if we had any liking for
or knowledge how to deal with insurrections, we could soon throw it off.
But how can we make men adopt such necessary atrocious measures when
they are criticizing their adversaries for taking these? And yet they
would have saved the country." Consequently, incapable of action, able
only to talk, reduced to protests, to barring the way to revolutionary
decrees, to making appeals to the department against Paris, they stand
as an obstacle to all the practical people who are heartily engaged in
the brunt of the action.--"There is no doubt that Carnot is as honest
as they are, as honest as a fanatic spectator can be."[3454] Cambon,
undoubtedly with as much integrity as Roland, spoke as loudly up as he
against the 2nd of September, the Commune, and anarchy.[3455]--But,
to Carnot and Cambon, who pass their nights, one in establishing his
budgets, and the other in studying his military maps, they require,
first of all, a government which will provide them with money and with
soldiers, and, therefore, an unscrupulous and unanimous Convention;
that is to say, there being no other expedient, a Convention under
compulsion, i.e. a Convention purged of troublesome some, dissentie