ONE:In September, 1791, the Assembly, having completed the Constitution, which was accepted by the king, dissolved. Its place was taken by the National Legislative Assembly, which met on the 1st of October. As the Jacobins had expected, the elections of the Departments had occupied but little attention. The public gaze had been fixed on the acts of the Assembly about to retire, so that a race of new men appeared, which seemed at first to divide itself into two partiesthe Cot Droit, or Constitutional party, and the Cot Gauche, or Democratic party; but the latter party soon divided itself into two, the Mountain and the Gironde. It is difficult to discern the distinguishing traits of these two Revolutionary parties. At first they all worked together, clearly for the downfall of the monarchy. Robespierre, Petion, Marat, Danton, were associated with those who afterwards divided themselves into the Gironde, with Condorcet, Brissot, the Rolands, and Vergniaud. Though Robespierre, Petion, and Danton were no longer in the Assembly, they ruled the Jacobin party there from the clubs. It was not till the question of war arose that the split took place. The Jacobins and Girondists were for war, Robespierre was obstinately against it. At first he stood nearly alone, but by degrees, though he did not draw the Jacobins very soon to his views, he drew them speedily away from the Girondists. This party of the Girondists had been growing and forming for some time. It took its rise originally at Bordeaux, the great commercial city of the department of the Gironde. Bordeaux was of Roman origin. It had always displayed a warm love of independence, which its Parliaments had continually kept alive. It had of late years become the chief commercial link between France and the revolutionised United States. It had early, too, become leavened with the new philosophy; it was the birthplace of Montaigne and Montesquieu. The Gironde sent up to the new Assembly twelve deputies, all as yet unknown, but all deeply imbued with the new principles. These, on arriving in Paris, soon found themselves mixed up, at the house of Condorcet and the Rolands, with Robespierre, Danton, Petion, Buzot, Brissot, Carra-Louvet, Thomas Paine, and, in fact, nearly all the thorough Revolutionists. The active centre of the whole party, up to the period of the question of the war against the Emigrants, was Madame Roland, and such she continued to be of the Girondists after their separation into a distinct party, and after that they had become the antagonists of the Mountain or Jacobin party.In March, 1796, Mr. Wickham, the British envoy to Switzerland, asked of M. Barthlemy, by direction of Pitt, whether the French Directory were desirous of entertaining the question of peace. Barthlemy replied that the Directory would enter into negotiations on the basis of France retaining all the Netherlands won from Austria, which were now annexed to the Republic, and which France would never restore. The reply was certainly insincere. France was as busy as ever by her emissaries undermining the loyalty of all the populations around her on pretence of liberating them. She had worked upon the Swiss, so that it was evident that they would soon fall into her net. She had entered into a treaty with the disaffected in Ireland, namely, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone, Arthur O'Connor, and their fellow-conspirators, and the treaty was already signed, and a large fleet and force preparing for the invasion of Ireland. Not only was France on the very eve of invading Ireland, but she had issued a decree prohibiting the introduction of all British manufactures into Holland, Belgium, and the German states on the Rhine, as well as into any of the French colonies, on the severest penalties. Yet, in the face of all these hostile demonstrations, did Pitt send over Lord Malmesbury to endeavour to negotiate a peace. Lord Malmesbury arrived in Paris, on the 22nd of October, with a splendid retinue. The Directory received him haughtily, and commissioned M. Delacroix to discuss the matter with him. Lord Malmesbury insisted on the restoration of the Netherlands to Austria, a point on which the French Government had declared there could be no treaty, and which rendered the embassy, from the first moment, utterly absurd. Delacroix communicated the proposal to the Directory, and the Directory immediately published it, contrary to all the rules of diplomacy, in the Moniteur, Instead of proceeding further with Britain, the Directory immediately dispatched General Clarke, an officer of Irish extraction, and afterwards made Duke of Feltre, under Buonaparte, to Vienna, to treat separately with Austria. This failed, and, of course, with it all failed; though there was much talk between Malmesbury and the Directory on the subject of Britain restoring the French colonies in the East and West Indies, since the restoration of Belgium and Holland was a sine qua non. Thus, as might have been seen from the first, the negotiation was at a deadlock. The King of Sardinia was already in negotiation for peace for himself; and therefore British Ministers did not add to his difficulties by demanding the restoration of Savoy and Nice.
