Every part of
their own policy comes round, and strikes at their own power and their
own lives.
The Parisians, on their part, were not slow in taking the alarm. They
had just reason to apprehend, that, if they permitted the smallest
delay, they should see themselves besieged by an army collected from all
parts of France. Violent threats were thrown out against that city in
the Assembly. Its total destruction was menaced. A very remarkable
expression was used in these debates,--"that in future times it might be
inquired on what part of the Seine Paris had stood." The faction which
ruled in Paris, too bold to be intimidated and too vigilant to be
surprised, instantly armed themselves. In their turn, they accused the
Girondists of a treasonable design to break _the republic one and
indivisible_ (whose unity they contended could only be preserved by the
supremacy of Paris) into a number of _confederate_ commonwealths. The
Girondin faction on this account received also the name of
_Federalists_.
Things on both sides hastened fast to extremities. Paris, the mother of
equality, was herself to be equalized. Matters were come to this
alternative: either that city must be reduced to a mere member of the
federative republic, or the Convention, chosen, as they said, by all
France, was to be brought regularly and systematically under the
dominion of the Common Hall, and even of any one of the sections of
Paris.
In this awful contest, thus brought to issue, the great mother club of
the Jacobins was entirely in the Parisian interest.
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