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{{short description|Political faction in the French Revolution}}
{{use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox political party
| name             = Girondins
| native_name      = 
| colorcode        = {{party color|Girondist}}
| leader1_title    = Leader
| leader1_name     = {{ubli|[[Marquis de Condorcet]]|[[Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière|Jean-Marie Roland]]|[[Jacques Pierre Brissot]]|[[Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud]]}}
| foundation       = {{start date and age|df=y|1791}}
| dissolution      = {{end date and age|df=y|1793}}
| headquarters     = [[Bordeaux]], [[Gironde]]
| predecessor      = [[Vonckists]] (Belgium)
| newspaper        = {{ubli|{{lang|fr|Patriote français}}|{{lang|fr|Le Courrier de Provence}}|{{lang|fr|La chronique de Paris}}}}
| ideology         = {{ubli|[[Abolitionism#France|Abolitionism]]<ref>{{cite book|title=A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean|first1=David Barry |last1=Gaspar|first2=David Patrick |last2=Geggus|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|pages=262|date=1997}}
</ref>|[[Republicanism]]<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Girondin|title=Girondin|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref>|[[Classical liberalism]]<ref name="Britannica"/>|[[Economic liberalism]]<ref name="Britannica"/>}}
| position         = [[Centre-left politics|Centre-left]]{{refn|On 1 October 1791, the Girondins sat alongside the other [[Jacobins]] on the left side of the [[Legislative Assembly (France)|National Assembly]]. Parliamentary groups never had any official status and thus historians generally tend to estimate that the [[1791 French legislative election]] had resulted in a majority of around 350 moderate constitutional deputies ([[the Plain]]), a right-wing made up of more than 250 [[Feuillant (political group)|Feuillants]] (divided into [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Fayettists]] and [[Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth|Lametists]]), and a left-wing where around 136 deputies were registered with the Jacobins (even if the Girondin general staff was not very assiduous, preferring the salons), among which several provincials (including [[Armand Gensonné]], [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet]], and [[Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud]], originally from [[Gironde]], hence the name of the Girondins), with a small group of more advanced democrats ([[Lazare Carnot]], [[Georges Couthon]], and [[Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet]]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Bertaud |first=Jean-Claude |title=Camille et Lucile Desmoulins |publisher=Presses de la Renaissance |year=1986 |location=Paris |page=157 |language=fr}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Vovelle |first=Michel |title=La Chute de la Royauté, 1787-1792 |publisher=Le Seuil |year=1999 |series=Nouvelle histoire de la France contemporaine |volume=1 |location=Paris |pages=270–271 |language=fr}}</ref> Deputies of the Plain managed to keep some speed in the debates while the Girondins and [[The Mountain|the Montagnards]] were mainly occupied with nagging the opposite side.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shusterman |first=Noah |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xw72DwAAQBAJ |title=The French Revolution: Faith, Desire, and Politics |publisher=Routledge |year=<!-- 1 October -->2020 |isbn=978-0-429-78041-7 |edition=2nd e-book |location=London |pages=95–139 |chapter=The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (summer 1790–spring 1791) |access-date=26 December 2024 |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780429432910-3/civil-constitution-clergy-summer-1790%E2%80%93spring-1791-noah-shusterman |via=Google Books}}</ref>|group=nb}}
| country          = France
}}
The '''Girondins''' ({{IPAc-en|US|(|d|)|ʒ|ɪ|ˈ|r|ɒ|n|d|ɪ|n|z}},<ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|Girondin|access-date=28 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPA|fr|ʒiʁɔ̃dɛ̃|lang|LL-Q150 (fra)-Lyokoï-Girondin.wav}}), also called '''Girondists''', were a political group during the [[French Revolution]]. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in the [[Legislative Assembly (France)|Legislative Assembly]] and the [[National Convention]]. Together with the [[the Mountain|Montagnards]], they initially were part of the [[Jacobin]] movement. They campaigned for the end of the [[monarchy]], but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the [[French Revolution|Revolution]], which caused a conflict with the more radical Montagnards. They dominated the movement until their fall in the [[insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793]], which resulted in the domination of the Montagnards and the purge and eventual mass execution of the Girondins. This event is considered to mark the beginning of the [[Reign of Terror]].

The Girondins were a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the Legislative Assembly from the [[Departments of France|département]] of [[Gironde]] in southwest France.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}} Girondin leader [[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, therefore the Girondins were the war party in 1792–1793. Other prominent Girondins included [[Jean Marie Roland de la Platière|Jean Marie Roland]] and his wife [[Jeanne Manon Philipon Roland de la Platière|Madame Roland]]. They also had an ally in the English-born American activist [[Thomas Paine]].

Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland (who had gone into hiding) committed suicide when he learned about the execution. Paine was imprisoned, but he narrowly escaped execution. The famous painting ''[[The Death of Marat]]'' depicts the fiery radical journalist and denouncer of the Girondins [[Jean-Paul Marat]] after being stabbed to death in his bathtub by [[Charlotte Corday]], a Girondin sympathizer. Corday did not attempt to flee and was arrested and executed.

== Identity ==
The collective name "Girondins" is used to describe "a loosely knit group of French deputies who contested the Montagnards for control of the National Convention".<ref name="Fremont306">{{cite book|editor-first=Gregory|editor-last=Fremont-Barnes|year=2007|title=Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760–1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30EEq8R2feIC|volume=1|location=Westport, CT|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0313334450 |page=306}}</ref> They were never a formal organization or political party.<ref>Furet & Ozouf, p. 351.</ref><ref name="Doyle">{{Cite journal|first=William|last=Doyle|issue=New Perspectives on the French Revolution|journal=E-France|volume=4|title= II.2. In Search of the Girondins|url=https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/e-france/e-France_2013_vol_4_William_Doyle_In_Search_of_the_Girondins.pdf|editor1=Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley|editor2=Colin Jones|issn=1756-0535|page=37|year=2013|publisher=University of Reading|location=Reading, UK}}</ref> The name itself was bestowed not by any of its alleged members but by the [[Montagnard (French Revolution)|Montagnards]], "who claimed as early as April 1792 that a counterrevolutionary faction had coalesced around deputies of the department of the [[Gironde]]".<ref name="Fremont306"/><ref name = "Cook">{{cite book|title=European Political Facts 1789–1848|url=https://archive.org/details/europeanpolitica0000cook_a7m3|author1=Chris Cook|author2=John Paxton|publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|pages=10|date=1981}}</ref> [[Jacques-Pierre Brissot]], [[Jean Marie Roland de la Platière|Jean Marie Roland]] and [[François Buzot]] were among the most prominent of such deputies and contemporaries called their supporters ''Brissotins'', ''Rolandins'', or ''Buzotins'', depending on which politician was being blamed for their leadership.<ref name="Fremont306"/> Other names were employed at the time too, but "Girondins" ultimately became the term favored by historians.<ref name="Fremont306"/> The term became standard with [[Alphonse de Lamartine]]'s ''History of the Girondins'' in 1847.<ref>Bosher, pp. 185–191.</ref>

== History ==
=== Rise ===
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2021}}
[[File:Madame Roland.png|thumb|upright|[[Madame Roland]]]]

Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde and there were six who sat for this département in both the [[Legislative Assembly (France)|Legislative Assembly]] of 1791–1792 and the [[National Convention]] of 1792–1795. Five were lawyers: [[Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud]], [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet]], [[Armand Gensonné]], Jean Antoine Laffargue de Grangeneuve and Jean Jay (who was also a Protestant pastor). The other, [[Jean François Ducos]], was a tradesman. In the Legislative Assembly, they represented a compact body of opinion which, though not as yet definitely republican (i.e. against the monarchy), was considerably more "advanced" than the moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}}

A group of deputies from elsewhere became associated with these views, most notably the [[Marquis de Condorcet]], [[Claude Fauchet (revolutionist)|Claude Fauchet]], [[Marc David Alba Lasource|Marc David Lasource]], [[Maximin Isnard]], the [[Armand-Guy-Simon de Coetnempren, comte de Kersaint|Comte de Kersaint]], Henri Larivière and above all Jacques Pierre Brissot, Jean Marie Roland and [[Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve|Jérôme Pétion]], who was elected mayor of Paris in succession to [[Jean Sylvain Bailly]] on 16 November 1791.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}}

[[Jeanne Manon Philipon Roland de la Platière|Madame Roland]], whose [[Salon (gathering)|salon]] became their gathering place, had a powerful influence on the spirit and policy of the Girondins with her "romantic republicanism".{{sfn|Fremont-Barnes|2007|page=403}} The party cohesion they possessed was connected to the energy of Brissot, who came to be regarded as their mouthpiece in the Assembly and in the [[Jacobin Club]],{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} hence the name "Brissotins" for his followers.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Thompson |first=James Matthew|url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.13646/|title=Leaders Of The French Revolution|date=1932|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|language=en|page=78}}</ref> The group was identified by its enemies at the start of the National Convention (20 September 1792). "Brissotins" and "Girondins" were terms of opprobrium used by their enemies in a separate faction of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced them as enemies of democracy.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}}

=== Foreign policy ===
In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and patriotic defiance to the European powers.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}} They supported an aggressive foreign policy and constituted the war party in the period 1792–1793, when revolutionary France initiated a long series of revolutionary wars with other European powers. Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, one that [[Napoleon]] later pursued aggressively.<ref>Thomas Lalevée, "[http://www.h-france.net/rude/rudevolvi/LaleveeVol6.pdf National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517171711/http://www.h-france.net/rude/rudevolvi/LaleveeVol6.pdf |date=2017-05-17 }}", ''French History and Civilisation'' (Vol. 6), 2015, pp. 66–82.</ref> Brissot called on the National Convention to dominate Europe by conquering the [[Rhineland]], [[Poland]] and the [[Netherlands]] with a goal of creating a protective ring of satellite republics in [[Great Britain]], [[Spain]] and [[Italy]] by 1795. The Girondins also called for war against [[Austria]], arguing it would rally patriots around the Revolution, liberate oppressed peoples from despotism, and test the loyalty of King [[Louis XVI]].<ref name="Brace">{{cite journal|author=Brace, Richard Munthe|title=General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792–1793|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=56|number=3|date=April 1951|pages=493–509|jstor=1848434|doi=10.2307/1848434}}</ref>

=== Montagnards versus Girondins ===

[[File:GirondistsForce.jpg|thumb|The Girondins in the [[La Force Prison]] after their arrest, a woodcut from 1845]]

Girondins at first dominated the Jacobin Club, where Brissot's influence had not yet been ousted by [[Maximilien 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, [[Charles François Dumouriez]],<ref name="Brace"/> [[Étienne Clavière]] and [[Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey]]; and they forced a [[declaration of war]] against [[Habsburg monarchy|Habsburg Austria]] the same year.  Following the veto of key pieces of legislation proposed by the Girondins (primarily relating to the deportation of refractory priests and the stationing of 20,000 soldiers in Paris<ref>{{Cite book |last=McPhee |first=Peter |title=Liberty or death: the French Revolution |date=2017 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-22869-4 |edition=First published in paperback |location=New Haven London |pages=271 (Kindle)}}</ref>) by the King and a critical letter penned by Roland in response to these vetoes, Louis XVI dismissed the Girondin Ministers on 13 June 1792.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=McPhee |first=Peter |title=Liberty or death: the French Revolution |date=2017 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-22869-4 |edition=First published in paperback |location=New Haven London |pages=268 (Kindle)}}</ref> This dismissal is one of the factors that led to the [[The Legislative Assembly and the fall of the French monarchy#Protests of 20 June|''émeute'' (riot) of 20 June 1792]] as one of the aims of the rioters was for the King to reinstate the Girondist ministers.<ref name=":0" />

In all of this activity, there was no apparent line of cleavage between ''La Gironde'' and [[The Mountain]]. Montagnards and Girondins alike were fundamentally opposed to the monarchy; both were democrats as well as republicans; and both were prepared to [[Argumentum ad baculum|appeal to force]] in order to realise their ideals.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}} Despite being accused of wanting to weaken the central government ("federalism"), the Girondins desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France.<ref>Bill Edmonds, "'Federalism' and Urban Revolt in France in 1793", ''Journal of Modern History'' (1983) 55#1 pp. 22–53,</ref> From the first, the leaders of the two parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the Assembly.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}}

Temperament largely accounts for the dividing line between the parties. The Girondins were doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action. They initially encouraged armed petitions, but then were dismayed when this led to the [[The Legislative Assembly and the fall of the French monarchy#Protests of 20 June|''émeute'' (riot) of 20 June 1792]]. Jean-Marie Roland was typical of their spirit, turning the Ministry of the Exterior into a publishing office for tracts on civic virtues while riotous mobs were burning the châteaux unchecked in the provinces. Girondins did not share the ferocious fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future Montagnard organisers of the [[Reign of Terror]]. On 25 July, according to the [[:fr:Logographe (journal)|''Logographe'']], Carnot promoted the use of pikes (seven feet long) and provided to every citizen.<ref>Le Logographe, 27 juillet 1792; 1 aôut 1792; Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 2 août 1792</ref> (On this day the points of view between Robespierre and Brissot split.<ref>Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, 30 mai 1793, p. 3</ref>) On 29 July Robespierre called for the deposition of the King and the election of a Convention.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&q=Robespierre&pg=PR14-IA87 |title=The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny by Ian Davidson, p. viii |isbn=978-1-84765-936-1 |access-date=27 September 2019 |archive-date=30 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230043346/https://books.google.nl/books?id=9lWNCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR14-IA87&lpg=PR14-IA87&dq=government+decided+that+the+Terror+would+be+centralised&source=bl&ots=9mj36Ba2-K&sig=ACfU3U0dgFkTRlC3cyUqlRT1XoaBaNQLYA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBi7eu9OTkAhUQfFAKHZ4RBYgQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=government%20decided%20that%20the%20Terror%20would%20be%20centralised&f=false#v=onepage&q=Robespierre&f=false |url-status=live |last1=Davidson |first1=Ian |date=25 August 2016 |publisher=Profile Books }}</ref><ref>N. Hampson (1988) Prelude to Terror. The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789–1791, p. 113–114</ref> Early August Brissot urged the preservation of the constitution, advocating against both the dethronement of the king and the election of a new assembly.{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=114}} As the Revolution developed, the Girondins often found themselves opposing its results; the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the [[September Massacres]] of 1792 occurred while they still nominally controlled the government, but the Girondins tried to distance themselves from the results of the September Massacres.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=49}} At the end of August Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot and [[Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière|Roland]]. On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the National Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Roland and Brissot arrested.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hardman|first=John|title=Robespierre|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA56|year=1999|publisher=Longman|isbn=978-0-582-43755-5|pages=56–57|access-date=15 August 2019|archive-date=7 November 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231107223240/https://books.google.com/books?id=grUD3hWUc0AC&pg=PA56|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Hampson|1974|p=126}} According to [[Charlotte Robespierre]], her brother stopped talking to his former friend, mayor [[Pétion de Villeneuve]]. Pétion was accused of [[conspicuous consumption]] by Desmoulins,<ref>Linton, Marisa (2015) 'Come and dine': the dangers of conspicuous consumption in French revolutionary politics, 1789–95. European History Quarterly, 45(4), pp. 615–637. ISSN (print) 0265-6914</ref> and finally rallied to Brissot.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5809871j/f1n198.pdf?download=1 |title=Mémoires de Charlotte Robespierre sur ses deux frères, p. 76 |access-date=25 September 2019 |archive-date=25 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190925065742/https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5809871j/f1n198.pdf%3Fdownload%3D1 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Death of Marat by David.jpg|thumb|''Death of Marat'' by [[Jacques-Louis David]]]]

When the [[National Convention]] first met on 22 September 1792, the core of like-minded deputies from the [[Gironde]] expanded as [[Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède]], Jacques Lacaze and François Bergoeing joined five of the six stalwarts of the [[Legislative Assembly (France)|Legislative Assembly]] (Jean Jay, the Protestant pastor, drifted toward the Montagnard faction). Their numbers were increased by the return to national politics by former [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|National Constituent Assembly]] deputies such as [[Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne]], [[Pétion de Villeneuve]] and Kervélégan, as well as some newcomers as the writer [[Thomas Paine]] and popular journalist Jean-Louis Carra. The Girondins called on the local authorities to oppose the concentration and centralisation of power.

=== Decline and fall ===
{{see also|Days of 31 May and 2 June 1793}}
[[File:Henri Scheffer - arrestation de Charlotte Corday.jpg|thumb|''[[The Arrest of Charlotte Corday]]'' by [[Hendrik Scheffer]], 1830]]
The Girondins proposed suspending the king and summoning of the National Convention, but they agreed not to overthrow the monarchy until [[Louis XVI]] became impervious to their counsels. Once the king was overthrown in 1792 and a republic was established, they were anxious to stop the revolutionary movement that they had helped to set in motion. Girondins and historian [[Pierre Claude François Daunou]] argues in his ''Mémoires'' that the Girondins were too cultivated and too polished to retain their popularity for long in times of disturbance, and so they were more inclined to work for the establishment of order, which would mean the guarantee of their own power. The Girondins, who had been the radicals of the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792), became the conservatives of the Convention (1792–1795).{{sfn|Phillips|1911|pp=49–50}}<ref>Alderson, p. 9.</ref>

The Revolution failed to deliver the immediate gains that had been promised and this made it difficult for the Girondins to draw it to a close easily in the minds of the public. Moreover, the ''Septembriseurs'' (the supporters of the [[September Massacres]] such as Robespierre, [[Georges Jacques Danton|Danton]], Marat and their lesser allies) realised that not only their influence but their safety depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the Girondins, had proposed to include them in the [[proscription]] lists of September 1792: The Mountain Club to a man who desired their overthrow.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}} A group including some Girondins prepared a draft constitution known as the [[Girondin constitutional project]], which was presented to the [[National Convention]] in early 1793. [[Thomas Paine]] was one of the signers of this proposal.

The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondins, who had a majority in the Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministries, believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in the hostile camp—their system was established in mere reason, but the Montagnards made up for what they lacked in talent or in numbers through their boldness and energy.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}} This was especially fruitful since uncommitted delegates accounted for almost half the total number, even though the Jacobins and Brissotins formed the largest groups.{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}} The more radical rhetoric of the Jacobins attracted the support of the revolutionary [[Paris Commune (French Revolution)|Paris Commune]], the [[Revolutionary sections of Paris|Revolutionary Sections]] (mass assemblies in districts) and the [[National Guard (France)|National Guard]] of Paris and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot, absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. At the [[trial of Louis XVI]] in 1792, most Girondins had voted for the "appeal to the people" and so laid themselves open to the charge of "royalism".{{citation needed|date=April 2021}} They denounced the domination of Paris and summoned provincial levies to their aid and so fell under suspicion of "federalism" as on September 25, 1792.<ref name="Gabourd">{{Cite book|last=Gabourd|first=Amédée |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3zQOAAAAQAAJ|title=Histoire de la révolution et de l'empire|language= fr|date=1859|volume=3|publisher=Jacques Lecoffre et Cie|location=Paris|pages=10–12}}</ref> They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by first decreeing its abolition but withdrawing the decree at the first sign of popular opposition.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}}

In the suspicious temper of the times, their vacillation was fatal. Marat never ceased his denunciations of the faction by which France was being betrayed to her ruin and his cry of ''Nous sommes trahis!'' ("We are betrayed!") was echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jack Fruchtman Jr.|title=Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uIkL1RJsYswC&pg=PA303|year=1996|page=303|publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-1568580630}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The growing hostility of Paris to the Girondins received a fateful demonstration by the election on 15 February 1793 of the bitter ex-Girondin [[Jean-Nicolas Pache]] to the mayoralty. Pache had twice been minister of war in the Girondins government, but his incompetence had laid him open to strong criticism and on 4 February 1793 he had been replaced as minister of war by a vote of the Convention. This was enough to secure him the votes of the Paris electors when he was elected mayor ten days later. The Mountain was strengthened by the accession of a significant ally whose one idea was to use his new power to avenge himself on his former colleagues.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}} Mayor Pache, with ''procureur'' of the Commune [[Pierre Gaspard Chaumette]] and deputy ''procureur'' [[Jacques René Hébert]], controlled the armed militias of the 48 [[Revolutionary sections of Paris|revolutionary Sections of Paris]] and prepared to turn this weapon against the Convention.<ref>Oliver, pp. 55–56.</ref> The abortive ''émeute'' of 10 March warned the Girondins of their danger and they responded with defensive moves. They unintentionally increased the prestige of their most vocal and bitter critic Marat by prosecuting him before the [[Revolutionary Tribunal]], where his acquittal in April 1793 was a foregone conclusion. The [[Commission of Twelve]] was appointed of on 24 May, including the arrest of Varlat and Hébert and other precautionary measures.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.findmypast.com/mocavo-info|title=Mocavo and Findmypast are coming together &#124; findmypast.com|website=www.findmypast.com}}</ref> The ominous threat by Girondin leader [[Maximin Isnard]], uttered on 25 May, to "march France upon Paris" was instead met by Paris marching hastily upon the Convention. The Girondin role in the government was undermined by the popular uprisings of 27 and 31 May and finally on 2 June 1793, when [[François Hanriot]], head of the Paris National Guards, purged the Convention of the Girondins{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}} (see [[Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793]]).

=== Reign of Terror ===
{{main|Reign of Terror}}
{{see also|Federalist revolts}}

A list drawn up by the Commandant-General of the Parisian National Guard [[François Hanriot]] (with help from Marat) and endorsed by a decree of the intimidated Convention, included 22 Girondin deputies and 10 of the 12 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 Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, Pétion, [[Jean Bonaventure Birotteau|Birotteau]] and Boyer-Fonfrède. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource, Grangeneuve, Larivière and François Bergoeing, escaped from Paris and, joined later by Guadet, Pétion and Birotteau, set to work to organise a movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up civil war made the wavering and frightened Convention suddenly determined. On 13 June 1793, it voted that the city of Paris deserved well of the country and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the filling up of their places in the Assembly by their ''suppléants'' and the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the provinces. The assassination of Marat by [[Charlotte Corday]] on 13 July 1793 only served to increase the unpopularity of the Girondins and seal their fate.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}}<ref>Linton, pp. 174–175.</ref>

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 [[First Coalition]] (Austria, Prussia and Great Britain) on the west by the Royalist [[Revolt in the Vendée]] and the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war. On 28 July 1793, a decree of the Convention proscribed 21 deputies, five of whom were from the Gironde, as traitors and enemies of their country ([[Charles-Louis Antiboul]], Boilleau the younger, Boyer-Fonfrêde, Brissot, Carra, Gaspard-Séverin Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche de Valazé, Jean Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource, Claude Romain Lauze de Perret, Lehardi, Benoît Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle, the Marquis de Sillery, Vergniaud and Louis-François-Sébastien Viger). Those were sent to trial. Another 39 were included in the final ''acte d'accusation'', accepted by the Convention on 24 October 1793, 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.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}}<ref>D.M.G. Sutherland, ''France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2003) ch. 5.</ref><ref>Schama, ch. 18.</ref>

=== 1793 trial of Girondins ===

[[File:Brissot et 20 de ses complices condamnés à mort par le tribunal révolutionnaire.jpg|thumb|''Brissot et 20 de ses complices condamnés à mort par le tribunal révolutionnaire'' (Brissot and 20 of his accomplices are sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal)]]

The trial of the 22 began before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 24 October 1793. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. On 31 October, they were borne to the guillotine. It took 36 minutes to decapitate all of them, including [[Charles Éléonor Dufriche de Valazé]], who had committed suicide the previous day upon hearing the sentence he was given.<ref>Schama, pp. 803–805.</ref>

Of those who escaped to the provinces, after wandering about singly or in groups most were either captured and executed or committed suicide. They included [[Charles Jean Marie Barbaroux|Barbaroux]], [[François Buzot|Buzot]], [[Marquis de Condorcet|Condorcet]], Grangeneuve, [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet|Guadet]], [[Armand de Kersaint|Kersaint]], [[Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve|Pétion]], [[Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne|Rabaut de Saint-Etienne]] and [[François Rebecqui]]. Roland killed himself at [[Rouen]] on 15 November 1793, a week after the execution of his wife. A very few escaped, including [[Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai]], whose ''Mémoires'' give a detailed picture of the sufferings of the fugitives.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}}<ref>Oliver, pp. 83–89.</ref>

[[Marie-Thérèse Marinette Dupeyrat]], also known as Madame Bouquey, sister in law of [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet]] was executed by guillotine on 20 July 1794 for her roles in sheltering a number of the Girondins.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kavanagh |first=Julia |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Woman_in_France_during_eighteenth_centur/_Mk5AAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Madame%20Bouquey%22&pg=PA246&printsec=frontcover |title=Woman in France during eighteenth century: With Portraits |date=1850 |publisher=Smith |language=en}}</ref>

=== Girondins as martyrs ===
[[File:Banquet des Girondins.jpg|thumb|''The Last Meal of the Girondins'' ([[François Flameng]], {{circa|1850}}) — the body of Charles Éléonor Dufriche-Valazé, who stabbed himself in the courtroom, is in the foreground.]]
[[File:GirondistsExecution.jpg|thumb|Execution of the Girondins, woodcut from 1862]]

The survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after the fall of Robespierre on 27 July 1794, but it was not until 5 March 1795 that they were formally re-instated{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} forming the [[Council of Five Hundred]] under [[the Directory]].<ref name = "Cook"/> On 3 October of that same year (11 [[Vendémiaire]], year IV), a solemn ''fête'' in honour of the Girondins, "martyrs of liberty", was celebrated in the Convention.{{sfn|Phillips|1911|p=50}}<ref>{{cite book|author=Domingo Faustino Sarmiento|title=Recollections of a Provincial Past|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Me6v8wfMaQC&pg=PA274|year=2005|publisher=Oxford UP|page=274|isbn=978-0195113693}}</ref>

In her autobiography, [[Madame Roland]] reshapes her historical image by stressing the popular connection between sacrifice and female virtue. Her ''Mémoires de Madame Roland'' (1795) was written from prison where she was held as a Girondin sympathizer. It covers her work for the Girondins while her husband [[Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière|Jean-Marie Roland]] was Interior Minister. The book echoes such popular novels as Rousseau's [[Julie; or, The New Heloise|''Julie or the New Héloise'']] by linking her feminine virtue and motherhood to her sacrifice in a cycle of suffering and consolation. Roland says her mother's death was the impetus for her "odyssey from virtuous daughter to revolutionary heroine" as it introduced her to death and sacrifice—with the ultimate sacrifice of her own life for her political beliefs. She helped her husband escape, but she was executed on 8 November 1793. A week later he committed suicide.<ref>Lesley H. Walker, "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland", ''Eighteenth-Century Studies'' (2001) 34#3 pp 403–419</ref>

A [[Place des Quinconces#Sculptures|monument to the Girondins]] was erected in Bordeaux between 1893 and 1902 dedicated to the memory of the Girondin deputies who were victims of the Terror.<ref>{{cite web|title = Monument élevé à la mémoire des Girondins|url = https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/PA33000074|publisher = POP : la plateforme ouverte du patrimoine, Ministère de la Culture}}</ref> The vagueness of who actually made up the Girondins led to the monument not having any names inscribed on it until 1989.<ref name="Doyle"/> Even then, the deputies to the Convention who were memorialized were only those hailing from the Gironde department, omitting notable people like Brissot and Madame Roland.{{sfn|Doyle|2013|pages=37–38}}

== Ideology ==
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2021}}
{{Liberalism in France}}
The words Girondin and Montagnard are defined as political groups—more specific definitions are the subject of theorizing by historians. The two words were much tossed about by partisans with various understandings of what they were intended to represent. The two groups lacked formal political structures, and the differences between them have never been satisfactorily explained. It has been suggested that the word Girondin as a useful term be abandoned.{{sfn|Fremont-Barnes|2007|pages=307–309}}

Influenced by [[classical liberalism]] and the concepts of [[freedom]], [[liberty]], [[Political egalitarianism|equality]], [[Fraternity (philosophy)|brotherhood]], [[democracy]], [[human rights]], [[rule of law]] and [[Montesquieu]]'s [[separation of powers]], the Girondins were [[republicanism|republicans]], Like the Jacobins, they were also influenced by the writings of [[David Hume]], [[Edward Gibbon]], [[Voltaire]] and [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]].{{sfn|Fremont-Barnes|2007|page=307}}

In its early times of government, the Gironde supported a [[free market]], opposing price controls on goods (e.g., a 1793 maximum on grain prices),<ref>{{cite book|last=Schama|first=Simon|author-link=Simon Schama|title=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/citizenschronic00scha|date=1989|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=0-394-55948-7|page=719}}</ref> supported by a [[constitutional right]] to [[public assistance]] for the poor and [[public education]].{{citation needed|date=April 2021}} With Brissot, they advocated exporting the Revolution through aggressive foreign policies including [[French Revolutionary Wars|war]] against the surrounding European monarchies.{{sfn|Fremont-Barnes|2007|page=403}} The Girondins were also one of the first supporters of [[Abolitionism#France|abolitionism in France]] with Brissot leading the anti-slavery [[Society of the Friends of the Blacks]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Guadet|first1=J|title=Les Girondins; leur vie privée, leur vie publique, leur proscription et leur mort |url= https://archive.org/details/lesgirondinsleur00guaduoft |date=1889 |publisher=Perrin et Cie |location=Paris |page=30}}</ref> Certain Girondins such as Condorcet supported [[women's suffrage]] and [[political equality]].

They sat to the left of the centrist [[Feuillant (political group)|Feuillants]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Israel |first1=Jonathan |title=Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre |date=2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |page=222}}</ref> The Girondins supported democratic reform, secularism and parliamentary sovereignty at the expense of a weaker executive and judiciary, in contrast to the more radical [[The Mountain|Montagnards]], who drew support from the [[sans-culottes]], favored centralized emergency government through the [[Committee of Public Safety]], enacted coercive economic measures such as the [[General maximum|Maximum]], and oversaw the policies of surveillance and repression that marked the [[Reign of Terror]].<ref name="Britannica" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Popkin |first=Jeremy D. |title=A Short History of the French Revolution |year=2006 |publisher=Pearson/Prentice Hall |pages=62–76}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Palmer |first=R. R. |title=The Age of the Democratic Revolution |year=2005 |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=25–35, 226–227}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1=François Furet |editor2=Mona Ozouf |title=A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution |year=1989 |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press |pages=380–390}}</ref>

== Prominent members ==
{{Div col}}
* [[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] (leader)
* [[Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière|Jean-Marie Roland]]
* [[Madame Roland]] 
* [[Maximin Isnard]]
* [[Jacques Guillaume Thouret]]
* [[Jean Baptiste Treilhard]]
* [[Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud]]
* [[Armand Gensonné]]
* [[Marquis de Condorcet]]
* [[Pierre Claude François Daunou]]
* [[Marguerite-Élie Guadet]]
* [[Jacques Claude Beugnot]]
* [[Louis Gustave le Doulcet, comte de Pontécoulant|Louis Gustave le Doulcet]]
* [[Claude Fauchet (revolutionist)|Claude Fauchet]]
* [[François Buzot]]
* [[Charles Jean Marie Barbaroux]]
* [[François Aubry]]
* [[Charles-Louis Antiboul]]
* [[Léger-Félicité Sonthonax]]
* [[Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve|Jérôme Pétion]]{{Div col end}}

== Electoral results ==
{|class=wikitable
|+ [[National Convention]]
!Election year
!No. of<br />overall votes
!% of<br />overall vote
!No. of<br />overall seats won
!+/–
!Leader
|-
![[1792 French National Convention election|1792]]
|705,600 (3rd)
|21.4
|{{composition bar|160|749|hex={{party color|Girondist}}}}
|{{center|–}}
|{{center|[[Jacques Pierre Brissot]]}}
|}

== See also ==
* [[Historiography of the French Revolution]]
* [[Liberalism and radicalism in France]]

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Footnotes ===
{{Reflist|group=nb}}

=== General bibliography ===
* {{cite book|last=Alderson|first=Robert J.|year=2008|title=This Bright Era of Happy Revolutions: French Consul Michel-Ange-Bernard Mangourit and International Republicanism in Charleston, 1792–1794|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|location=Columbia|isbn=978-1570037450}}
* {{cite book|last=Bosher|first=John F.|title=The French Revolution|date=1989|orig-year=1988|publisher=W.W. Norton|location=New York|isbn=039395997X}}
* {{cite book|editor1-first=François|editor1-last=Furet|editor1-link=François Furet|editor2-first=Mona|editor2-last=Ozouf|others=Translated by Arthur Goldhammer|title=A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution|year=1989|publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=0674177282}}
* {{cite book |last1=Hampson |first1=Norman |title=The Life and Opinions of Maximilien Robespierre |date=1974 |publisher=Duckworth |isbn=978-0-7156-0741-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=edpnAAAAMAAJ }}
* {{cite book|last=Linton|first=Marisa|author-link=Marisa Linton|title=Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0199576302}}
* {{cite book|last=Oliver|first=Bette W.|year=2009|title=Orphans on the Earth: Girondin Fugitives from the Terror, 1793–94|publisher=Lexington Books|location=Lanham, MD|isbn=978-0739140680}}
* {{cite book|last=Schama|first=Simon|author-link=Simon Schama|title=Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution|year=1989|publisher=Vintage|location=New York|isbn=0679726101|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/citizenschronicl00scha_0}}

'''Attribution:'''
* {{EB1911|wstitle= Girondists | volume= 12 |last=Phillips|first=Walter Alison |author-link=Walter Alison Phillips| pages = 49&ndash;51}}

== Further reading ==
* Brace, Richard Munthe. "General Dumouriez and the Girondins 1792–1793", ''American Historical Review'' (1951) 56#3 pp.&nbsp;493–509. {{JSTOR|1848434}}.
* de Luna, Frederick A. "The 'Girondins' Were Girondins, After All", ''French Historical Studies'' (1988) 15: 506–518. {{JSTOR|286372}}.
* DiPadova, Theodore A. "The Girondins and the Question of Revolutionary Government", ''French Historical Studies'' (1976) 9#3 pp.&nbsp;432–450 {{JSTOR|286230}}.
* Ellery, Eloise. ''Brissot De Warville: A Study in the History of the French Revolution'' (1915) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1410201767/ excerpt and text search].
* François Furet and Mona Ozouf. eds. ''La Gironde et les Girondins''. Paris: éditions Payot, 1991.
* Higonnet, Patrice. "The Social and Cultural Antecedents of Revolutionary Discontinuity: Montagnards and Girondins", ''English Historical Review'' (1985): 100#396 pp.&nbsp;513–544 {{JSTOR|568234}}.
* Thomas Lalevée, "[http://www.h-france.net/rude/rudevolvi/LaleveeVol6.pdf National Pride and Republican grandezza: Brissot's New Language for International Politics in the French Revolution]", ''French History and Civilisation'' (Vol. 6), 2015, pp.&nbsp;66–82.
* Lamartine, Alphonse de. ''History of the Girondists, Volume I: Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution'' (1847) [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082RK17U/  online free in Kindle edition]; [https://archive.org/details/historygirondis12lamagoog Volume 1], [https://archive.org/details/historygirondis02lamagoog Volume 2], [https://archive.org/details/historygirondis00rydegoog Volume 3].
* Lewis-Beck, Michael S., Anne Hildreth, and Alan B. Spitzer. "Was There a Girondist Faction in the National Convention, 1792–1793?" ''French Historical Studies'' (1988) 11#4 pp.: 519–536. {{JSTOR|286373}}.
* Linton, Marisa, ''Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution'' (Oxford University Press, 2013).
* [[Stanley Loomis|Loomis, Stanley]], ''Paris in the Terror''. (1964).
* Patrick, Alison. "Political Divisions in the French National Convention, 1792–93". ''Journal of Modern History'' (Dec. 1969) 41#4, pp.&nbsp;422–474. {{JSTOR|1878003}}; rejects Sydenham's argument & says Girondins were a real faction.
* [[Alison Patrick (historian)|Patrick, Alison]]. ''The Men of the First French Republic: Political Alignments in the National Convention of 1792'' (1972), comprehensive study of the group's role.
* Scott, Samuel F., and Barry Rothaus. ''Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution 1789–1799'' (1985) Vol. 1 pp.&nbsp;433–436 [https://www.questia.com/library/1349250/historical-dictionary-of-the-french-revolution-1789-1799 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200505194248/https://www.questia.com/library/1349250/historical-dictionary-of-the-french-revolution-1789-1799 |date=2020-05-05 }}.
* Sutherland, D. M. G. ''France 1789–1815: Revolution and Counter-Revolution'' (2nd ed., 2003) ch. 5. {{ISBN?}}
* Sydenham, Michael J. "The Montagnards and Their Opponents: Some Considerations on a Recent Reassessment of the Conflicts in the French National Convention, 1792–93", ''Journal of Modern History'' (1971) 43#2 pp.&nbsp;287–293 {{JSTOR|1876547}}; argues that the Girondins faction was mostly a myth created by Jacobins.
* Whaley, Leigh Ann. ''Radicals: Politics and Republicanism in the French Revolution''. Gloucestershire, England: Sutton Publishing, 2000. {{ISBN?}}

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