Vergniaud, born at Limoges, and an advocate of the Bar of Bordeaux, was now in his thirty-third year, for the revolutionary movement had seized on and borne him along with its currents when very young.  His dignified, calm, and unaffected features announced the conviction of his power.  Facility, that agreeable concomitant of genius, had rendered alike pliable his talents, his character, and even the position he assumed.

At the foot of the tribune he was loved with familiarity; as he ascended it each man was surprised to find that he inspired him with admiration and respect; but at the first words that fell from the speaker’s lips they felt the immense distance between the man and the orator.  He was an instrument of enthusiasm, whose value and whose place was in his inspiration.

Petion was the son of a procureur at Chartres, and a townsman of Brissot; was brought up in the same way as he, in the same studies, same philosophy, same hatreds.  They were two men of the same mind.  The revolution, which had been the ideal of their youth, had called them on the scene on the same day, but to play very different parts.  Brissot, the scribe, political adventurer, journalist, was the man of theory; Petion, the practical man.  He had in his countenance, in his character, and his talents, that solemn mediocrity which is of the multitude, and charms it; at least he was a sincere man, a virtue which the people appreciate beyond all others in those who are concerned in public affairs.

The nomination of Petion to the office of maire of Paris gave the Girondists a constant point d’appui in the capital.  Paris, as well as the Assembly, escaped from the king’s hands.

A report praised by Brissot in his journal, and by the Girondists in the Assembly, afforded no longer any pretext for delaying the war.  France felt that her strength was equal to her indignation, and she could be restrained no longer.  The increasing unpopularity of the king augmented the popular excitement.  Twice had he already arrested, by his royal veto, the energetic measures of the Assembly—­the decree against the emigres and the decree against the priests who had not taken the oath.  These two vetoes, the one dictated by his honour, the other by his conscience, were two terrible weapons placed in his hand by the constitution, yet which he could not wield without wounding himself.  The Girondists revenged themselves for this resistance by compelling him to make war on the princes, who were his brothers, and the emperor, whom they believed to be his accomplice.

The war thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in April, 1792.  Their enemies, the extreme radical party called “Jacobins,” had opposed the war, and when the campaign opened in disaster the beginning of their ascendancy and the Girondin decline had appeared.