Ever since the opening of the convention, the Girondists had occupied the right benches, and the Mountain party the summit of the left, whence the name by which they are designated. The Girondists were the strongest in the assembly; the elections in the departments had generally been in their favour. A great number of the deputies of the legislative assembly had been re-elected, and as at that time connexion effected much, the members who had been united with the deputation of the Gironde and the commune of Paris before the 10th of August, returned with the same opinions. Others came without any particular system or party, without enmities or attachments: these formed what was then called the _Plaine_ or the _Marais_. This party, taking no interest in the struggles between the Gironde and the Mountain, voted with the side they considered the most just, so long as they were allowed to be moderate; that is to say, so long as they had no fears for themselves.
The Mountain was composed of deputies of Paris, elected under the influence of the commune of the 10th of August, and of some very decided republicans from the provinces; it, from time to time, increased its ranks with those who were rendered enthusiastic by circumstances, or who were impelled by fear. But though inferior in the convention in point of numbers, it was none the less very powerful, even at this period. It swayed Paris; the commune was devoted to it, and the commune had managed to constitute itself the supreme authority in the state. The Mountain had sought to master the departments, by endeavouring to establish an identity of views and conduct between the municipality of Paris and the provincial municipalities; they had not, however, completely succeeded in this, and the departments were for the most part favourable to their adversaries, who cultivated their good will by means of pamphlets and journals sent by the minister Roland, whose house the Mountain called a _bureau d'esprit public_, and whose friends they called _intrigants_. But besides this junction of the communes, which sooner or later would take place, they were adopted by the Jacobins. This club, the most influential as well as the most ancient and extensive, changed its views at every crisis without changing its name; it was a framework ready for every dominating power, excluding all dissentients. That at Paris was the metropolis of Jacobinism, and governed the others almost imperiously. The Mountain had made themselves masters of it; they had already driven the Girondists from it, by denunciation and disgust, and replaced the members taken from the bourgeoisie by sans-culottes. Nothing remained to the Girondists but the ministry, who, thwarted by the commune, were powerless in Paris. The Mountain, on the contrary, disposed of all the effective force of the capital, of the public mind by the Jacobins, of the sections and faubourgs by the sans-culottes, of the insurrectionists by the municipality.