n, an advocate of Bordeaux, was
called to the bureau of justice. The Girondists, who knew him, boasted
of his honesty, and relied on his plasticity and weakness. Brissot
intended for the finance department Claviere, a Genevese economist,
driven from his native land, a relation and friend of his own; used to
intrigue; rival of Necker; brought up in the cabinet of Mirabeau, in
order to bring forward a rival against this finance minister, so hateful
to Mirabeau: a man without republican prejudices or monarchical
principles, only seeking in the Revolution a part, and with whom the
great aim and end was--to get on. His mind, indifferent to all scruples,
was on a level with every situation, and at the height of all parties.
The Girondists, new to state affairs, required men well conversant in
the details of war and finance departments, and who yet were the mere
tools of their government: Claviere was one of these. In the war office
they had De Grave, by whom the king had replaced Narbonne. De Grave, who
from the subaltern ranks of the army had been raised to the post of
minister of war, had declared relations with the Girondists. The friends
of Gensonne, Vergniaud, Guadet, Brissot, and even Danton, hoped, through
their instrumentality, to save at the same time the constitution and the
king. Devoted to both, he was the link by which he hoped to unite the
Girondists to royalty. Young, he had the illusions of his age:
constitutional, he had the sincerity of his conviction; but weak, in ill
health, more ready to undertake than firm to execute, he was one of
those men of the moment who help events to their accomplishment, and do
not disturb them when they are accomplished.

The principal minister, however, he to whose hands was to be confided
the fate of his country, and who was to comprise in himself all the
policy of the Girondists, was the minister for foreign affairs, destined
to replace the unfortunate De Lessart. The rupture with Europe was the
most pressing matter with the party, and they required a man who would
control the king, detect the secret intrigues of the court, cognisant of
the mysteries of European cabinets, and who knew how, by his skill and
resolution, at the same time to force our enemies into a war,--our
dubious friends into neutrality,--our secret partisans to an alliance.
They sought such a man: he was close at hand.

BOOK XIII.

I.

Dumouriez combined all the requisites of boldness, devotion t