[1] It is of interest to note that Freta was the old name for the
town of Saint Remy, and that it is close to the site of the ancient
town of Glanum, the name of which is possibly preserved in Garin de
Monglane, the ancestor of the heroes of the cycle of Guillaume
d'Orange.
GIRAUD, GIOVANNI, Count (1776-1834), Italian dramatist, of French
origin, was born at Rome, and showed a precocious passion for the
theatre. His first play, _L'Onesta non si vince_, was successfully
produced in 1798. He took part in politics as an active supporter of
Pius VI., but was mainly occupied with the production of his plays, and
in 1809 became director-general of the Italian theatres. He died at
Naples in 1834. Count Giraud's comedies, the best of which are _Gelosie
per equivoco_ (1807) and _L'Ajonell' imbarazzo_ (1824), were bright and
amusing on the stage, but of no particular literary quality.
His collected comedies were published in 1823 and his _Teatro
domestico_ in 1825.
GIRDLE (O. Eng. _gyrdel_, from _gyrdan_, to gird; cf. Ger. _Gurtel_,
Dutch _gordel_, from _gurten_ and _gorden_; "gird" and its doublet
"girth" together with the other Teutonic cognates have been referred by
some to the root _ghar_--to seize, enclose, seen in Gr. [Greek: cheir],
hand, Lat. _hortus_, garden, and also English yard, garden, garth, &c.),
a band of leather or other material worn round the waist, either to
confine the loose and flowing outer robes so as to allow freedom of
movement, or to fasten and support the garments of the wearer. Among the
Romans it was used to confine the _tunica_, and it formed part of the
dress of the soldier; when a man quitted military service he was said,
_cingulum deponere_, to lay aside the girdle. Money being carried in
the girdle, _zonam perdere_ signified to lose one's purse, and, among
the Greeks, to cut the girdle was to rob a man of his money.
Girdles and girdle-buckles are not often found in Gallo-Roman graves,
but in the graves of Franks and Burgundians they are constantly present,
often ornamented with bosses of silver or bronze, chased or inlaid.
Sidonius Apollinaris speaks of the Franks as belted round the waist, and
Gregory of Tours in the 6th century says that a dagger was carried in
the Frankish girdle.
In the Anglo-Saxon dress the girdle makes an unimportant figure, and the
Norman knights, as a rule, wore their belts under their hauberks. After
the Conquest, however, the artificers gave more attention to a piece
whose buckle and tongue invited the work of the goldsmith. Girdles of
varying richness are seen on most of the western medieval effigies. That
of Queen Berengaria lets the long pendant hang below the knee, following
a fashion which frequently reappears.
In the latter part of the 13th century the knight's surcoat is girdled
with a narrow cord at the waist, while the great belt, which had become
the pride of the well-equipped cavalier, loops across the hips carrying
the heavy sword aslant over the thighs or somewhat to the left of the
wearer.
But it is in the second half of the following century that the knightly
belt takes its most splendid form. Under the year 1356 the continuator
of the chronicle of Nangis notes that the increase of jewelled belts had
mightily enhanced the price of pearls. The belt is then worn, as a rule,
girdling the hips at some distance below the waist, being probably
supported by hooks as is the belt of a modern infantry soldier. The end
of the belt, after being drawn through the buckle, is knotted or caught
up after the fashion of the tang of the Garter. The waist girdle either
disappears from sight or as a narrow and ornamented strap is worn
diagonally to help in the support of the belt. A mass of beautiful
ornament covers the whole belt, commonly seen as an unbroken line of
bosses enriched with curiously worked roundels or lozenges which, when
the loose strap-end is abandoned, meet in a splendid morse or clasp on
which the enameller and jeweller had wrought their best. About 1420 this
fashion tends to disappear, the loose tabards worn over armour in the
jousting-yard hindering its display. The belt never regains its
importance as an ornament, and, at the beginning of the 16th century,
sword and dagger are sometimes seen hanging at the knight's sides
without visible support.
In civil dress the magnificent belt of the 14th century is worn by men
of rank over the hips of the tight short-skirted coat, and in that
century and in the 15th and 16th there are sumptuary laws to cheek the
extravagance of rich girdles worn by men and women whose humble station
made them unseemly. Even priests must be rebuked for their silver
girdles with baselards hanging from them. Purses, daggers, keys, penners
and inkhorns, beads and even books, dangled from girdles in the 15th and
early 16th centuries. Afterwards the girdle goes on as a mere strap for
holding up the clothing or as a sword-belt. At the Restoration men
contrasted the fashion of the court, a light rapier hung from a broad
shoulder-belt, with the fashion of the countryside, where a heavy weapon
was supported by a narrow waistbelt. Soon afterwards both fashions
disappeared. Sword-hangers were concealed by the skirt, and the belt,
save in certain military and sporting costumes, has no more been in
sight in England. Even as a support for breeches or trousers, the use of
braces has gradually supplanted the girdle during the past century.
In most of those parts of the Continent--Brittany, for example--where
the peasantry maintains old fashions in clothing, the belt or girdle is
still an important part of the clothing. Italian non-commissioned
officers find that the Sicilian recruit's main objection to the first
bath of his life-time lies in the fact that he must lay down the
cherished belt which carries his few valuables. With the Circassian the
belt still buckles on an arsenal of pistols and knives.
Folklore and ancient custom are much concerned with the girdle.
Bankrupts at one time put it off in open court; French law refused
courtesans the right to wear it; Saint Guthlac casts out devils by
buckling his girdle round a possessed man; an earl is "a belted earl"
since the days when the putting on of a girdle was part of the ceremony
of his creation; and fairy tales of half the nations deal with girdles
which give invisibility to the wearer. (O. Ba.)
GIRGA, or GIRGEH, a town of Upper Egypt on the W. bank of the Nile, 313
m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail and about 10 m. N.N.E. of the ruins of
Abydos. Pop. (1907) 19,893, of whom about one-third are Copts. The town
presents a picturesque appearance from the Nile, which at this point
makes a sharp bend. A ruined mosque with a tall minaret stands by the
river-brink. Many of the houses are of brick decorated with glazed
tiles. The town is noted for the excellence of its pottery. Girga is the
seat of a Coptic bishop. It also possesses a Roman Catholic monastery,
considered the most ancient in the country. As lately as the middle of
the 18th century the town stood a quarter of a mile from the river, but
is now on the bank, the intervening space having been washed away,
together with a large part of the town, by the stream continually
encroaching on its left bank.
GIRGENTI (anc. _Agrigentum_, q.v.), a town of Sicily, capital of the
province which bears its name, and an episcopal see, on the south coast,
58 m. S. by E. of Palermo direct and 84-1/2 m. by rail. Population
(1901) 25,024. The town is built on the western summit of the ridge
which formed the northern portion of the ancient site; the main street
runs from E. to W. on the level, but the side streets are steep and
narrow. The cathedral occupies the highest point in the town; it was not
founded till the 13th century, taking the place of the so-called temple
of Concord. The campanile still preserves portions of its original
architecture, but the interior has been modernized. In the chapter-house
a famous sarcophagus, with scenes illustrating the myth of Hippolytus,
is preserved. There are other scattered remains of 13th-century
architecture in the town, while, in the centre of the ancient city,
close to the so-called oratory of Phalaris, is the Norman church of S.
Nicolo. A small museum in the town contains vases, terra-cottas, a few
sculptures, &c. The port of Girgenti, 5-1/2 m. S.W. by rail, now known
as Porto Empedocle (population in 1901, 11,529), as the principal place
of shipment for sulphur, the mining district beginning immediately north
of Girgenti. (T. As.)
GIRISHK, a village and fort of Afghanistan. It stands on the right bank
of the Helmund 78 m. W. of Kandahar on the road to Herat; 3641 ft. above
the sea. The fort, which is garrisoned from Kandahar and is the
residence of the governor of the district (Pusht-i-Rud), has little
military value. It commands the fords of the Helmund and the road to
Seistan, from which it is about 190 m. distant; and it is the centre of
a rich agricultural district. Girishk was occupied by the British during
the first Afghan War; and a small garrison of sepoys, under a native
officer, successfully withstood a siege of nine months by an
overwhelming Afghan force. The Dasht-i-Bakwa stretches beyond Girishk
towards Farah, a level plain of considerable width, which tradition
assigns as the field of the final contest for supremacy between Russia
and England.
GIRNAR, a sacred hill in Western India, in the peninsula of Kathiawar,
10 m. E. of Junagarh town. It consists of five peaks, rising about 3500
ft. above the sea, on which are numerous old Jain temples, much
frequented by pilgrims. At the foot of the hill is a rock, with an
inscription of Asoka (2nd century B.C.), and also two other inscriptions
(dated 150 and 455 A.D.) of great historical importance.
GIRODET DE ROUSSY, ANNE LOUIS (1767-1824), French painter, better known
as Girodet-Trioson, was born at Montargis on the 5th of January 1767. He
lost his parents in early youth, and the care of his fortune and
education fell to the lot of his guardian, M. Trioson, "medecin de
mesdames," by whom he was in later life adopted. After some preliminary
studies under a painter named Luquin, Girodet entered the school of
David, and at the age of twenty-two he successfully competed for the
Prix de Rome. At Rome he executed his "Hippocrate refusant les presents
d'Artaxerxes" and "Endymion dormant" (Louvre), a work which was hailed
with acclamation at the Salon of 1792. The peculiarities which mark
Girodet's position as the herald of the romantic movement are already
evident in his "Endymion." The firm-set forms, the grey cold colour, the
hardness of the execution are proper to one trained in the school of
David, but these characteristics harmonize ill with the literary,
sentimental and picturesque suggestions which the painter has sought to
render. The same incongruity marks Girodet's "Danae" and his "Quatre
Saisons," executed for the king of Spain (repeated for Compiegne), and
shows itself to a ludicrous extent in his "Fingal" (St Petersburg,
Leuchtenberg collection), executed for Napoleon I. in 1802. This work
unites the defects of the classic and romantic schools, for Girodet's
imagination ardently and exclusively pursued the ideas excited by varied
reading both of classic and of modern literature, and the impressions
which he received from the external world afforded him little stimulus
or check; he consequently retained the mannerisms of his master's
practice whilst rejecting all restraint on choice of subject. The credit
lost by "Fingal" Girodet regained in 1806, when he exhibited "Scene de
Deluge" (Louvre), to which (in competition with the "Sabines" of David)
was awarded the decennial prize. This success was followed up in 1808 by
the production of the "Reddition de Vienne" and "Atala au Tombeau"--a
work which went far to deserve its immense popularity, by a happy choice
of subject, and remarkable freedom from the theatricality of Girodet's
usual manner, which, however, soon came to the front again in his
"Revolte de Caire" (1810). His powers now began to fail, and his habit
of working at night and other excesses told upon his constitution; in
the Salon of 1812 he exhibited only a "Tete de Vierge"; in 1819
"Pygmalion et Galatee" showed a still further decline of strength; and
in 1824--the year in which he produced his portraits of Cathelineau and
Bonchamps--Girodet died on the 9th of December.
He executed a vast quantity of illustrations, amongst which may be
cited those to the Didot _Virgil_ (1798) and to the Louvre _Racine_
(1801-1805). Fifty-four of his designs for _Anacreon_ were engraved by
M. Chatillon. Girodet wasted much time on literary composition, his
poem _Le Peintre_ (a string of commonplaces), together with poor
imitations of classical poets, and essays on _Le Genie_ and _La
Grace_, were published after his death (1829), with a biographical
notice by his friend M. Coupin de la Couperie; and M. Delecluze, in
his _Louis David et son temps_, has also a brief life of Girodet.
GIRONDE, a maritime department of south-western France, formed from four
divisions of the old province of Guyenne, viz. Bordelais, Bazadais, and
parts of Perigord and Agenais. Area, 4140 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 823,925. It
is bounded N. by the department of Charente-Inferieure, E. by those of
Dordogne and Lot-et-Garonne, S. by that of Landes, and W. by the Bay of
Biscay. It takes its name from the river or estuary of the Gironde
formed by the union of the Garonne and Dordogne. The department divides
itself naturally into a western and an eastern portion. The former,
which is termed the _Landes_ (q.v.), occupies more than a third of the
department, and consists chiefly of morass or sandy plain, thickly
planted with pines and divided from the sea by a long line of dunes.
These dunes are planted with pines, which, by binding the sand together
with their roots, prevent it from drifting inland and afford a barrier
against the sea. On the east the dunes are fringed for some distance by
two extensive lakes, Carcans and Lacanau, communicating with each other
and with the Bay of Arcachon, near the southern extremity of the
department. The Bay of Arcachon contains numerous islands, and on the
land side forms a vast shallow lagoon, a considerable portion of which,
however, has been drained and converted into arable land. The eastern
portion of the department consists chiefly of a succession of hill and
dale, and, especially in the valley of the Gironde, is very fertile. The
estuary of the Gironde is about 45 m. in length, and varies in breadth
from 2 to 6 m. It presents a succession of islands and mud banks which
divide it into two channels and render navigation somewhat difficult. It
is, however, well buoyed and lighted, and has a mean depth of 21 ft.
There are extensive marshes on the right bank to the north of Blaye, and
the shores on the left are characterized, especially towards the mouth,
by low-lying polders protected by dikes and composed of fertile salt
marshes. At the mouth of the Gironde stands the famous tower of
Cordouan, one of the finest lighthouses of the French coast. It was
built between the years 1585 and 1611 by the architect and engineer
Louis de Foix, and added to towards the end of the 18th century. The
principal affluent of the Dordogne in this department is the Isle. The
feeders of the Garonne are, with the exception of the Dropt, all small.
West of the Garonne the only river of importance is the Leyre, which
flows into the Bay of Arcachon. The climate is humid and mild and very
hot in summer. Wheat, rye, maize, oats and tobacco are grown to a
considerable extent. The corn produced, however, does not meet the wants
of the inhabitants. The culture of the vine is by far the most important
branch of industry carried on (see Wine), the vineyards occupying about
one-seventh of the surface of the department. The wine-growing districts
are the Medoc, Graves, Cotes, Palus, Entre-deux-Mers and Sauternes. The
Medoc is a region of 50 m. in length by about 6 m. in breadth, bordering
the left banks of the Garonne and the Gironde between Bordeaux and the
sea. The Graves country forms a zone 30 m. in extent, stretching along
the left bank of the Garonne from the neighbourhood of Bordeaux to
Barsac. The Sauternes country lies to the S.E. of the Graves. The Cotes
lie on the right bank of the Dordogne and Gironde, between it and the
Garonne, and on the left bank of the Garonne. The produce of the Palus,
the alluvial land of the valleys, and of the Entre-deux-Mers, situated
on the left bank of the Dordogne, is inferior. Fruits and vegetables are
extensively cultivated, the peaches and pears being especially fine.
Cattle are extensively raised, the Bazadais breed of oxen and the
Bordelais breed of milch-cows being well known. Oyster-breeding is
carried on on a large scale in the Bay of Arcachon. Large supplies of
resin, pitch and turpentine are obtained from the pine woods, which also
supply vine-props, and there are well-known quarries of limestone. The
manufactures are various, and, with the general trade, are chiefly
carried on at Bordeaux (q.v.), the chief town and third port in France.
Pauillac, Blaye, Libourne and Arcachon are minor ports. Gironde is
divided into the arrondissements of Bordeaux, Blaye, Lesparre, Libourne,
Bazas and La Reole, with 49 cantons and 554 communes. The department is
served by five railways, the chief of which are those of the Orleans and
Southern companies. It forms part of the circumscription of the
archbishopric, the appeal-court and the _academie_ (educational
division) of Bordeaux, and of the region of the XVIII. army corps, the
headquarters of which are at that city. Besides Bordeaux, Libourne, La
Reole, Bazas, Blaye, Arcachon, St Emilion and St Macaire are the most
noteworthy towns and receive separate treatment. Among the other places
of interest the chief are Cadillac, on the right bank of the Garonne,
where there is a castle of the 16th century, surrounded by
fortifications of the 14th century; Labrede, with a feudal chateau in
which Montesquieu was born and lived; Villandraut, where there is a
ruined castle of the 13th century; Uzeste, which has a church begun in
1310 by Pope Clement V.; Mazeres with an imposing castle of the 14th
century; La Sauve, which has a church (11th and 12th centuries) and
other remains of a Benedictine abbey; and Ste Foy-la-Grande, a bastide
created in 1255 and afterwards a centre of Protestantism, which is still
strong there. La Teste (pop. in 1906, 5699) was the capital in the
middle ages of the famous lords of Buch.
GIRONDISTS (Fr. _Girondins_), the name given to a political party in the
Legislative Assembly and National Convention during the French
Revolution (1791-1793). The Girondists were, indeed, rather a group of
individuals holding certain opinions and principles in common than an
organized political party, and the name was at first somewhat loosely
applied to them owing to the fact that the most brilliant exponents of
their point of view were deputies from the Gironde. These deputies were
twelve in number, six of whom--the lawyers Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne,
Grangeneuve and Jay, and the tradesman Jean Francois Ducos--sat both in
the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. In the Legislative
Assembly these represented a compact body of opinion which, though not
as yet definitely republican, was considerably more advanced than the
moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies. Associated
with these views was a group of deputies from other parts of France, of
whom the most notable were Condorcet, Fauchet, Lasource, Isnard,
Kersaint, Henri Lariviere, and, above all, Jacques Pierre Brissot,
Roland and Petion, elected mayor of Paris in succession to Bailly on the
16th of November 1791. On the spirit and policy of the Girondists Madame
Roland, whose _salon_ became their gathering-place, exercised a powerful
influence (see ROLAND); but such party cohesion as they possessed they
owed to the energy of Brissot (q.v.), who came to be regarded as their
mouthpiece in the Assembly and the Jacobin Club. Hence the name
_Brissotins_, coined by Camille Desmoulins, which was sometimes
substituted for that of _Girondins_, sometimes closely coupled with it.
As strictly party designations these first came into use after the
assembling of the National Convention (September 20th, 1792), to which a
large proportion of the deputies from the Gironde who had sat in the
Legislative Assembly were returned. Both were used as terms of
opprobrium by the orators of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced "the
Royalists, the Federalists, the Brissotins, the Girondins and all the
enemies of the democracy" (F. Aulard, _Soc. des Jacobins_, vi. 531).
In the Legislative Assembly the Girondists represented the principle of
democratic revolution within and of patriotic defiance to the European
powers without. They were all-powerful in the Jacobin Club (see
JACOBINS), where Brissot's influence had not yet been ousted by
Robespierre, and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up
popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay the progress of
the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry
composed of their partisans--among them Roland, Dumouriez, Claviere and
Servan; and it was they who forced the declaration of war against
Austria. In all this there was no apparent line of cleavage between "La
Gironde" and the Mountain. _Montagnards_ and Girondists alike were
fundamentally opposed to the monarchy; both were democrats as well as
republicans; both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realize
their ideals; in spite of the accusation of "federalism" freely brought
against them, the Girondists desired as little as the Montagnards to
break up the unity of France. Yet from the first the leaders of the two
parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the
Assembly. It was largely a question of temperament. The Girondists were
idealists, doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action; they
encouraged, it is true, the "armed petitions" which resulted, to their
dismay, in the _emeute_ of the 20th of June; but Roland, turning the
ministry of the interior into a publishing office for tracts on the
civic virtues, while in the provinces riotous mobs were burning the
chateaux unchecked, is more typical of their spirit. With the ferocious
fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future organizers of the
Terror they had nothing in common. As the Revolution developed they
trembled at the anarchic forces they had helped to unchain, and tried in
vain to curb them. The overthrow of the monarchy on the 10th of August
and the massacres of September were not their work, though they claimed
credit for the results achieved.
The crisis of their fate was not slow in coming. It was they who
proposed the suspension of the king and the summoning of the National
Convention; but they had only consented to overthrow the kingship when
they found that Louis XVI. was impervious to their counsels, and, the
republic once established, they were anxious to arrest the revolutionary
movement which they had helped to set in motion. As Daunou shrewdly
observes in his _Memoires_, they were too cultivated and too polished to
retain their popularity long in times of disturbance, and were therefore
the more inclined to work for the establishment of order, which would
mean the guarantee of their own power.[1] Thus the Girondists, who had
been the Radicals of the Legislative Assembly, became the Conservatives
of the Convention. But they were soon to have practical experience of
the fate that overtakes those who attempt to arrest in mid-career a
revolution they themselves have set in motion. The ignorant populace,
for whom the promised social millennium had by no means dawned, saw in
an attitude seemingly so inconsistent obvious proof of corrupt motives,
and there were plenty of prophets of misrule to encourage the
delusion--orators of the clubs and the street corners, for whom the
restoration of order would have meant well-deserved obscurity. Moreover,
the _Septembriseurs_--Robespierre, Danton, Marat and their lesser
satellites--realized that not only their influence but their safety
depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the
Girondists, whose lustre had so long obscured his own, had proposed to
include them in the proscription lists of September; the Mountain to a
man desired their overthrow.
The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondists, who had a majority in the
Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministry,
believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in
the hostile camp; their system was established in the purest reason. But
the Montagnards made up by their fanatical, or desperate, energy and
boldness for what they lacked in talent or in numbers. They had behind
them the revolutionary Commune, the Sections and the National Guard of
Paris, and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot,
absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. And
as the motive power of this formidable mechanism of force they could
rely on the native suspiciousness of the Parisian populace, exaggerated
now into madness by famine and the menace of foreign invasion. The
Girondists played into their hands. At the trial of Louis XVI. the bulk
of them had voted for the "appeal to the people," and so laid themselves
open to the charge of "royalism"; they denounced the domination of Paris
and summoned provincial levies to their aid, and so fell under suspicion
of "federalism," though they rejected Buzot's proposal to transfer the
Convention to Versailles. They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by
decreeing its abolition, and then withdrawing the decree at the first
sign of popular opposition; they increased the prestige of Marat by
prosecuting him before the Revolutionary Tribunal, where his acquittal
was a foregone conclusion. In the suspicious temper of the times this
vacillating policy was doubly fatal. Marat never ceased his
denunciations of the "_faction des hommes d'Etat_," by which France was
being betrayed to her ruin, and his parrot cry of "_Nous sommes
trahis!_" was re-echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris. The
Girondists, for all their fine phrases, were sold to the enemy, as
Lafayette, Dumouriez and a hundred others--once popular favourites--had
been sold.
The hostility of Paris to the Girondists received a fateful
advertisement by the election, on the 15th of February 1793, of the
ex-Girondist Jean Nicolas Pache (1746-1823) to the mayoralty. Pache had
twice been minister of war in the Girondist government; but his
incompetence had laid him open to strong criticism, and on the 4th of
February he had been superseded by a vote of the Convention. This was
enough to secure him the suffrages of the Paris electors ten days later,
and the Mountain was strengthened by the accession of an ally whose one
idea was to use his new power to revenge himself on his former
colleagues. Pache, with Chaumette, _procureur_ of the Commune, and
Hebert, deputy _procureur_, controlled the armed organization of the
Paris Sections, and prepared to turn this against the Convention. The
abortive _emeute_ of the 10th of March warned the Girondists of their
danger, but the Commission of Twelve appointed on the 18th of May, the
arrest of Marat and Hebert, and other precautionary measures, were
defeated by the popular risings of the 27th and 31st of May, and,
finally, on the 2nd of June, Hanriot with the National Guards purged
the Convention of the Girondists. Isnard's threat, uttered on the 25th
of May, to march France upon Paris had been met by Paris marching upon
the Convention.
The list drawn up by Hanriot, and endorsed by a decree of the
intimidated Convention, included twenty-two Girondist deputies and ten
members of the Commission of Twelve, who were ordered to be detained at
their lodgings "under the safeguard of the people." Some submitted,
among them Gensonne, Guadet, Vergniaud, Petion, Birotteau and
Boyer-Fonfrede. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource,
Grangeneuve, Lariviere and Bergoing, escaped from Paris and, joined
later by Guadet, Petion and Birotteau, set to work to organize a
movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up
civil war determined the wavering and frightened Convention. On the 13th
of June it voted that the city of Paris had deserved well of the
country, and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the
filling up of their places in the Assembly by their _suppleants_, and
the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the
provinces. The excuse for the Terror that followed was the imminent
peril of France, menaced on the east by the advance of the armies of the
Coalition, on the west by the Royalist insurrection of La Vendee, and
the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war.
The assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday (q.v.) only served to
increase the unpopularity of the Girondists and to seal their fate. On
the 28th of July a decree of the Convention proscribed, as traitors and
enemies of their country, twenty-one deputies, the final list of those
sent for trial comprising the names of Antiboul, Boilleau the younger,
Boyer-Fonfrede, Brissot, Carra, Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche
de Valaze, Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonne, Lacaze, Lasource,
Lauze-Deperret, Lehardi, Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle,
Sillery, Vergniaud and Viger, of whom five were deputies from the
Gironde. The names of thirty-nine others were included in the final
_acte d'accusation_, accepted by the Convention on the 24th of October,
which stated the crimes for which they were to be tried as their
perfidious ambition, their hatred of Paris, their "federalism" and,
above all, their responsibility for the attempt of their escaped
colleagues to provoke civil war.
The trial of the twenty-one, which began before the Revolutionary
Tribunal on the 24th of October, was a mere farce, the verdict a
foregone conclusion. On the 31st they were borne to the guillotine in
five tumbrils, the corpse of Dufriche de Valaze--who had killed
himself--being carried with them. They met death with great courage,
singing the refrain "_Plutot la mort que l'esclavage!_" Of those who
escaped to the provinces the greater number, after wandering about
singly or in groups, were either captured and executed or committed
suicide, among them Barbaroux, Buzot, Condorcet, Grangeneuve, Guadet,
Kersaint, Petion, Rabaut de Saint-Etienne and Rebecqui. Roland had
killed himself at Rouen on the 15th of November, a week after the
execution of his wife. Among the very few who finally escaped was Jean
Baptiste Louvet, whose _Memoires_ give a thrilling picture of the
sufferings of the fugitives. Incidentally they prove, too, that the
sentiment of France was for the time against the Girondists, who were
proscribed even in their chief centre, the city of Bordeaux. The
survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after
the fall of Robespierre, but it was not until the 5th of March 1795 that
they were formally reinstated. On the 3rd of October of the same year
(11 Vendemiaire, year III.) a solemn fete in honour of the Girondist
"martyrs of liberty" was celebrated in the Convention. See also the
article FRENCH REVOLUTION and separate biographies.
Of the special works on the Girondists Lamartine's _Histoire des
Girondins_ (2 vols., Paris, 1847, new ed. 1902, in 6 vols.) is
rhetoric rather than history and is untrustworthy; the _Histoire des
Girondins_, by A. Gramier de Cassagnac (Paris, 1860) led to the
publication of a _Protestation_ by J. Guadet, a nephew of the
Girondist orator, which was followed by his _Les Girondins, leur vie
privee, leur vie publique, leur proscription et leur mort_ (2 vols.,
Paris, 1861, new ed. 1890); with which cf. Alary, _Les Girondins par
Guadet_ (Bordeaux, 1863); also Charles Vatel, _Charlotte de Corday et
les Girondins: pieces classees et annotees_ (3 vols., Paris,
1864-1872); _Recherches historiques sur les Girondins_ (2 vols.,
ib. 1873); Ducos, _Les Trois Girondines_ (Madame Roland, Charlotte
Corday, Madame Bouquey) _et les Girondins_ (ib. 1896); Edmond Bire,
_La Legende des Girondins_ (Paris, 1881, new ed. 1896); also Helen
Maria Williams, _State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic
towards the close of the 18th Century_ (2 vols., London, 1801).
Memoirs or fragments of memoirs also exist by particular Girondists,
e.g. Barbaroux, Petion, Louvet, Madame Roland. See, further, the
bibliography to the article FRENCH REVOLUTION. (W. A. P.)