ABSTRACT
The French army’s victory at Valmy gave the new government some breathing space. It did not make up for the bitter division that plagued the Convention from its first days. There is no perfect label to give to either side in this battle, but the
standard – Girondins versus Montagnards – has passed the test of time. Montagnard means inhabitant of the Mountain; “Mountain” referred to the upper seats where the left-wing deputies now sat, including Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. Some historians prefer the label Jacobins, and there was no small overlap between the Montagnard deputies and the members of the Jacobin club. Robespierre was becoming the most influential man in both groups. Marat sat with the Montagnards in the Convention, and the Jacobins, in late 1792, were beginning to accept him, even if most members were embarrassed by his excesses.1 There were leaders of the Montagnards, though, who preferred to avoid the meetings of the Jacobin club, avoid its particular dynamic, what Michelet called its “inquisitorial spirit.”2 And then, the membership of the Jacobin club had changed over the years. Lafayette and Barnave were only distant memories there, but it was not that long since Brissot and Robespierre had debated at the Jacobin club. Those days were gone, though. If the term “Jacobin” does not capture all
of the Girondins’ opponents, the Jacobins certainly made up a solid core. And the people who continued to meet at the Jacobin club were not lacking in animosity toward the Girondins. During the first months of the Convention, every discussion at the Jacobin club had found a way of deteriorating into a criticism of their opponents – the men on the right, the men who not too long ago had been part of the left: Brissot, Roland, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Isnard. The Girondins. These were not “parties,” in modern political terms. There was no sort of
official apparatus, no official title. Nor is it possible to give exact numbers of how many deputies were on either side, although, out of the nearly 750 men in the Convention, estimates of 150 deputies on the Girondin side, at the
opening of the Convention, and around 120 on the Montagnard side seem close to the mark. Make no mistake, though: these were two opposing factions. Their rivalry was such that it wound up shaping and reshaping each group, as each attempted to define itself as what the other was not. Their rivalry dominated the period from August 1792 until June 1793 in a way which in retrospect hardly seems appropriate. Major, world-historical decisions became transformed by a rivalry that was at best a rather minor distinction between two groups of committed republicans, and at worst a collection of petty personal rivalries. The fate of the Revolution was at stake on the battlefield, but politicians remained focused on this rivalry. Nowhere was the phenomenon of letting petty rivalries control major
questions more evident than in the first major question that the Convention had to deal with: the king. What should they do with Louis XVI? On August 10, the Legislative Assembly had provisionally suspended the
king. There was no talk, in the Legislative Assembly’s final days, of ending that suspension. The Convention’s first act had been to declare itself a republic. The king was no longer needed. But what to do with him? It would be too simple to just let him and his family walk away. Some deputies spoke of keeping the king hostage. But the general movement was toward something far more dramatic. A trial. Execution. Trial then execution. Execution without trial. Execution without trial seems a bit extreme, but it had its defenders.
