in after days, of
destiny in his party, of intrigue and patriotism, of faction and
martyrdom. The other marked candidates in Paris, were, Pastoret, a man
of the South, prudent and skilful as a Southron, steering ably betwixt
parties, giving sufficient guarantee to the Revolution to be accepted by
it, enough devotion to the court to retain its secret confidence; borne
hither and thither by the alternating favours of the two opinions, like
a man who seeks fortune for his talent in the Revolution, but never
looking for it beyond the limits of the just and honourable. Lacepede,
Cerutti, Heraut de Sechelles, and Gouvion, La Fayette's aide-de-camp.
The elections of the department occupied but little attention. The
National Assembly had exhausted the country of its characters and its
talents; the ostracism it had exercised had imposed on France but
secondary ability. There was but little enthusiasm for untried men: the
public eyes were only fixed on the names about to disappear. A country
cannot contain a twofold renown: that of France was departing with the
members of the dissolved Assembly--another France was about to rise.

BOOK IV.

I.

At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to display itself in
the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the
Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens
who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_,
was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of
eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of _Ducos,
Guadet, Lafond-Ladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonne, Vergniaud_, were about to
rise into notice and renown with the storms and the disasters of their
country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the
Revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, before
which it still trembled with apprehension, and which was to precipitate
it into a republic. Why was this impulse fated to have birth in the
department of the Gironde and not in Paris? Nought but conjectures can
be offered on this subject; and yet perhaps the republican spirit was
more likely to manifest itself at Bordeaux than at Paris, where the
presence and influence of a court had for ages past enervated the
independence of character, and enfeebled the austerity of principle that
form the basis of patriotism and liberty. The states of Languedoc, and
the habits that necessa