These are the names of the illustrious men proscribed: the Girondists Gensonné, Guadet, Brissot, Gorsas, Pétion, Vergniaud, Salles, Barbaroux, Chambon, Buzot, Birotteau, Lidon, Rabaud, Lasource, Lanjuinais, Grangeneuve, Lehardy, Lesage, Louvet, Valazé, Lebrun, minister of foreign affairs, Clavières, minister of taxes; and the members of the Council of Twelve, Kervelegan, Gardien, Rabaud Saint-Etienne, Boileau, Bertrand, Vigée, Molleveau, Henri La Rivière, Gomaire, and Bergoing. The convention placed them under arrest at their own houses, and under the protection of the people. The order for keeping the assembly itself prisoners was at once withdrawn, and the multitude dispersed, but from that moment the convention ceased to be free. Thus fell the Gironde party, a party rendered illustrious by great talents and great courage, a party which did honour to the young republic by its horror of bloodshed, its hatred of crime and anarchy, its love of order, justice, and liberty; a party unfitly placed between the middle class, whose revolution it had combated, and the multitude, whose government it rejected. Condemned to inaction, it could only render illustrious certain defeat, by a courageous struggle and a glorious death. At this period, its fate might readily be foreseen; it had been driven from post to post; from the Jacobins by the invasion of the Mountain; from the commune by the outbreak of Pétion; from the ministry by the retirement of Roland and his colleagues; from the army by the defection of Dumouriez. The convention alone remained to it, there it threw up its intrenchments, there it fought, and there it fell. Its enemies employed against it, in turn, insurrection and conspiracy. The conspiracies led to the creation of the Commission of Twelve, which seemed to give a momentary advantage to the Gironde, but which only excited its adversaries the more violently against it. These aroused the people, and took from the Girondists, first, their authority, by destroying the Twelve; then, their political existence, by proscribing their leaders. The consequences of this disastrous event did not answer the expectations of any one. The Dantonists thought that the dissensions of parties were at an end: civil war broke out. The moderate members of the committee of public safety thought that the convention would resume all its power: it was utterly subdued. The commune thought that the 31st of May would secure to it domination; domination fell to Robespierre, and to a few men devoted to his fortune, or to the principle of extreme democracy. Lastly, there was another party to be added to the parties defeated, and thenceforth hostile; and as after the 10th of August the republic had been opposed to the constitutionalists, after the 31st of May the Reign of Terror was opposed to the moderate party of the republic. CHAPTER VIII FROM THE 2ND OF JUNE, 1793, TO APRIL, 1794