sovereigns
united," said the emperor, "for the maintenance of public tranquillity
and the honour and safety of the crowns." These words excited the minds
of all to know what could be their meaning; they asked each other how
the emperor, the brother-in-law, and ally of Louis XVI., could speak to
him for the first time of the sovereigns acting in concert? and against
what, if not against the Revolution? And how could the ministers and
ambassadors of the Revolution have been ignorant of its existence? Why
had they concealed from the nation their knowledge, if they had known
it? There was, then, a double diplomacy, each striving to outwit the
other. The Austrian Alliance was, then, no dream of faction; there was
either incompetence or treason in official diplomacy, perhaps both. A
projected congress was spoken of--could it have any other object than
that of imposing modifications on the constitution of France?--And all
felt indignant at the idea of ceding even one tittle of the constitution
to the demand of monarchical Europe.

II.

It was whilst the public mind was thus agitated that the diplomatic
committee presented, through the Girondist Gensonne, its report on the
existing state of affairs with the emperor. Gensonne, an advocate of
Bordeaux, elected to the Legislative Assembly on the same day as Guadet
and Vergniaud, his friends and countrymen, composed, with these
deputies, that triumvirate of talent, opinion, and eloquence, afterwards
termed the Gironde. An obstinate and dialectic style of oratory, bitter
and keen irony, were the characteristics of the talents of the Gironde;
it did not carry away by its eloquence, it constrained; and its
revolutionary passions were strong, yet under the control of reason.

Before entering the Assembly, he had been sent as a commissioner with
Dumouriez, afterwards so celebrated, to study the state of the popular
feeling in the department of the west, and to propose measures likely to
tend to the pacification of these countries, then distracted by
religious differences. His clear and enlightened report had been in
favour of tolerance and liberty--those two topics of all consciences. He
was then, in common with the other Girondists, resolved to carry out the
Revolution to its extreme and definite form--a republic, without,
however, too soon destroying the constitutional throne, provided the
constitution was in the hands of his party.

The intimate friend of the minister Narbonne