AN INCIDENT OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.
In the winter of the year 1792, Paris was agitated to the very core, by the most important public question which had yet arisen during the course of the Revolution. The people had hitherto been completely triumphant in their attack on established things. They had overturned the throne, and sent its supporters by thousands to the scaffold or to exile. They had subverted the ancient constitution; and, though no new form of government had yet been arranged, all power lay for the time in the hands of their leaders, of one or another denomination of republicans. The Jacobins, ultimately the dominant faction, had not yet obtained full sway, but had to contend for supremacy in the convention (or senate) of the nation, with the Girondists, a section numbering in its ranks many of the most able and more moderate republicans of France. Daily and bitterly did these two parties struggle at this time against one another--Robespierre, Danton, and Marat being the virtual chiefs, whether acting in unison or otherwise, of the Jacobins or violent republicans; while Vergniaud, Guadet, Louvet, Salle, Petion, and others, headed the Girondists or moderates. Matters stood thus before the commencement of the trial of Louis XVI., the question already alluded to as exceeding in importance and interest any to which the Revolution had yet given birth. On the results of the process hung the life of the king; and men speculated as to the issue with anxiety, mingled with fear and wonderment. Doubts existed as to what might be that issue--doubts excited chiefly by the condition of parties just described. On the whole, the chances seemed in favor of the king before the commencement of his trial, seeing that the Girondists had then a decided ascendency over their rivals in the convention, and that many of them had strong leanings to the side of mercy. But the unfortunate Louis XVI., whose very mildness made him the scape-goat for the errors of his predecessors, stood in mortal peril in the best view of the case. So felt his friends throughout France, and they were yet numerous, though constrained to look on in silence, and bury their feelings in their own bosoms.
