"The _first era_ of the Convention presents the struggle of the Girondists and Mountaineers; the Girondists prevailed at that time in consequence of their superior talents, their eloquence, and their already acquired reputation. The presidents were nearly all Girondists; they charged the Mountain with the design of destroying the National Assembly, and substituting in its place a Parisian Dictatorship. They also reproached it with the massacre of September.
"The Mountain, in its turn, charged them with wishing for a federative republic like Switzerland, with being hostile to the capital, and with having, without cause, placed the republic in a state of warfare with the whole of Europe.
"The Mountain had at its command the Jacobins of Paris, and the greatest part of the popular societies of the republic; the commune of Paris, the sections, the revolutionary tribunal, and the lower classes of the people of the capital were devoted to its interests.
"The Girondists possessed great influence over the departments in general and the enlightened part of the nation; their partizans were more numerous among the upper class of society. The Girondists, who had occupied the left side in the Legislative Assembly, and had shewn such animosity against the King, the ministers, and the right side, or moderate party, were forced to shift places, and become in their turn the right side or moderate party, opposed to the vehement and overbearing Mountain, which henceforth formed the left side.
"The Mountaineers, working on the plan they had adopted under the Constituent Assembly, enlisted all the passions in their service, and demanded, with loud cries, the death of the King. The Girondists might, by openly defending him, have preserved his life; they had recourse to the singular system of condemning him, and, after having thus destroyed the monarchy, they wished the sentence to be confirmed by an appeal to the people: in other words, they wished to destroy France by the horrors of a civil war. This false combination ruined them.—Vergniaud, one of the pillars of their party, proclaimed the sentence of death passed upon the King.
"The Girondists were so powerful in the Assembly, that several months’ labour and several days’ insurrection were necessary to destroy their influence in the Convention.