nt
speakers;[3456] in other words, the dictatorship of the Parisian
proletariat. After the 15th of December, 1792, Cambon completely accepts
this, and even erects the dictatorship of the proletariat into
an European system. From that time[3457] he preaches universal
sans-culotterie, a form of government in which the poor will rule and
the rich will pay, in short, the restoration of privileges in an inverse
sense. The later expression of Sieyes which has already come true: the
problem is no longer how to apply the principles of the Revolution,
but the salvation of its men. Faced with this more and more distressing
imperative, many of undecided deputies go with the tide, letting
the Montagnards have their own way and separate themselves from the
Girondists.

And, what is graver still, the Girondists, apart from all these
defections, are untrue to themselves. Not only are they ignorant of how
to draw a line, of how to form themselves into a compact body: not only
"is the very idea of a collective proceeding repulsive, each member
desiring to keep himself independent. and act as he thinks best,"[3458]
make motions without consulting others, and vote as the occasion calls
for against his party, but, through its abstract principle, they are in
accord with their adversaries, and, on the fatal declivity whereon their
honorable and humane instincts still retain them, this common dogma,
like a concealed weight, causes them to sink lower and lower down, even
into the bottomless pit, where the State, according to the formula of
Jean Jacques, omnipotent, philosophic, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian,
despotic, leveling, intolerant, and propagandist, seizes education,
levels fortunes, persecutes the Church, oppresses consciences, crushes
out the individual, and, by military foice, imposes its structures
abroad.[3459] Basically, apart from the Jacobin excess of brutality and
of precipitation, the Girondists, setting out from the same principles
as the Jacobin "Mountain," march forward to the same end along with
them. Hence the effect of ideological prejudice on them in weakening
their moral attitudes. Secretly, in their hearts, revolutionary desires
conspire with those of their enemies, and, on many occasions, make them
betray themselves.--Through these devices and multiplied weaknesses,
on the one hand, the majority diminishes so as to present but 279 votes
against 228.[3460] And, on the other hand, through frequent failures,
it surren